DISCOVERY OF GOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 76, 26 September 1942, Page 8

DISCOVERY OF GOLD

A discovery of a valuable bit of gold was made in Lower Hutt the other day under rather curious circumstances. Two small boys in one of the schools entered into a mutual business transaction which resulted in the payment of what purported to be two pennies and two half-pennies. The vender later expressed dissatisfaction with one of the so-called half-pennies and complained that it was a "dud." The suspect coin was submitted _to someone in authority, who was quick to see that whatever else it was it certainly was not a half-penny, being far too small a coin for that. Further examination proved without doubt that the alleged half-penny was nothing else than a rather dirty gold half-sovereign. Inquiries were at once set on foot to discover how the buyer had become possessed of such a rare and valuable coin. Appai-ently it had come from his mother's purse, but she was quite unaware that she had been hoarding gold. It is suggested that possibly someone else, also unaware of the coin's real value, gave it to her in change under the impression that it was a sixpence. The school staff, the younger members of which had never met a half-sovereign before, is now engaged in solving a difficult financial problem as to the party or parties who should benefit by the disclosure of the dud half-penny's real value, which is in the vicinity of £1.