It was 6am on the 5th of July, a bright summer's morning that 62-year-old Mick Edwards went out with his newly-acquired Deus II metal detector, his only companions were rabbits and a herd of deer in the pasture field.

Mick, who lives in Peterlee in County Durham, works as a Civil Servant and has been metal detecting for ten years. He found it has helped him overcome his illness by being more mobile. As he explained:

After digging five inches, then a further five inches and still nothing, he used his pin-pointer probe to locate the signal and saw the edge of a coin at the bottom of the hole. To his astonishment it was a huge gold coin 36 millimetres in diameter and weighing over 35 grams.

He continued:

The massive coin is a 10 Cruzados piece from the reign of Manuel I (1495-1521) and struck at Lisbon with gold recovered by Vasco de Gama from his voyages to Africa and India. It is the first to ever be found in Britain. This was at Etchilhampton in Wiltshire, on land which belonged to the Ernle family from 1489 until 1928. The coin that is estimated at £20,000-30,000 will be sold by Mayfair auctioneers Noonans on Thursday, September 29, 2022 on the second day of a two-day sale of Coins and Historical Medals. Mick will be sharing the proceeds from the sale with the landowner and his wife is compiling a list of how she would like to spend the money!

As Nigel Mills, Consultant (Artefacts and Antiquities) at Noonans explains:

To visit the Noonan's website, see:
https://www.noonans.co.uk/