700 YEARS AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 24

700 YEARS AGO.

FORGER OF COINS.

INQUEST HELD ON HOARD. OPINION OF EXPERTS. LONDON. The crime of a coin forger 700 years ago was brought to light at an inquest on a hoard of nearly 500 coins found by two workmen at Hornchurch, Essex. Two of the silver tokens were declared by experts to be counterfeit.

No doubt the forger, who was bent on getting rich quick by cheating Henry HI., rider of these domains from 1216 to 1272, would have been hanged, drawn and quartered, or at least lost his ears, had his crime been discovered; but history is silent about his identity and his fate.

Modern numismatists will, however, forgive him in their anxiety to obtain some of his work as well as some of the genuine coins.

All are of silver and were minted and counterfeited round 1200 A.D. A few of them are Scottish, of Alexander lll.'s period, and others are Irish tokens of the same age. Mr. W. B. Allen, clerk of the Hornchurch Council, thought badly of the forger of old. His coins were "poor specimens," he said.

The jury agreed that the owner of the coins was "unknown," and that thev had been "concealed intentionally." The coroner, Mr. L. F. Beccle. said that apart from the coins kept for museum purposes they would be returned to the finders, together with part of the value of those retained.

He did not state, however, whether the forged coins would be broken bv the officials of the Royal Mint with due solemnity or whether, as is usual with present-day forgeries, one would be Tetained against the rare event that some of the same type might appear again in circulation to lead to th© culprit's arrest.