When it was minted 350 years ago, there wouldn't have beenmuch change from a slap-up meal and a few of pints of ale.

Today the silver threepenny coin that amateur treasure-hunterJohn Stoner dug up in a farmer's field would probably buy theentire farm.

The extremely rare New England coin, bearing the date 1652, isexpected to sell for up to £1million when it is auctioned.

It has been hailed as one of the finest examples of a currencyproduced in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers in a land that wouldbecome the United States.

How the 17th century threepenny bit ended up in the village ofKing's Clipstone, Nottinghamshire, is not known but last nightcoin collectors from around the world clamoured to buy it.

Mr Stoner, who temporarily mislaid the coin at one point,found it while on an outing with the Coil To The Soil metaldetector club on Sunday.

The 42-year-old father of two had only just started to sweepan area of the ploughed field when he picked up two signals fromthe detector.

The first was from a random piece of metal; the second wasfrom an uneven, hand-hammered coin, about the size of a modern 1pbut thinner, buried five inches deep in a clod of earth.

'I dug up the soil and out it popped,' he said of the historicfind. 'At first I didn't think it was anything special. I knew itwasn't English, but just how important a find it was, I didn'thave a clue.'

On Monday, coin expert Peter Spencer confirmed it was agenuine threepenny piece from the first authorised colonialcoinage, commissioned and struck in Boston, Massachusetts.

'I handed it over to him and I think it's fair to say he wentwhite as a ghost,' Mr Stoner said. 'He said its condition waslike the day it was struck.'

Because it is a single coin, it is not subject to treasuretrove laws which mean finds have to be reported to a coroner andhanded to the Crown. Last night it was on its way to the US forexpert cleaning before being offered for sale by St James'sAuctions in London on December 2.

To read the complete article, see:
Minted! Dug up in a Midlands field, a £1m 'perfect' USthreepenny bit from the time of the Pilgrim Fathers(www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2745782/Minted-Dug-Midlands-field-1m-perfect-US-threepenny-bit-time-Pilgrim-Fathers.html)