A Viking discovery has been made near Newark
A single coin found buried in the dirt of a parsnip field in Nottinghamshire is expected to fetch up to £15,000 at auction. The rare penny, which was minted during the time of Viking king Sihtric Caoch almost 1,100 years ago, has been called "the find of a lifetime" by experienced metal detectorist Richard Scothern. The 45-year-old welder, from Pinxton, stumbled upon the coin in a field near Newark on Boxing Day last year. Now it is to go on sale at auction in London on March 15, with Dix Noonan Webb, the international coins, medals and jewellery specialists, estimating a sale of between £10,000 and £15,000.
The proceeds of the sale will be split between the finder and the farmer who owns the land. Mr Scothern, who has been a metal detectorist for 19 years, said: "It's the best thing I have ever found. I can't believe it survived the farm machinery. That coin has used up its nine lives. "I must have walked over the coin so many times on previous visits. My detector gave a signal that was as clean as a whistle and the coin was only a couple of inches below the surface. "It was incredible when the coin came out. I immediately knew it was a Viking coin because I had seen reproductions of them in the Jorvik Museum in York and I knew that it was a nice coin. But I didn't know about its rarity."
The front and back of the penny
Research has revealed that the coin was minted, probably in Lincoln, during the reign of Viking king Sihtric Caoch, one of the principal Viking leaders of the early 10th century. He ruled first in Dublin and then moved to Northumbria from where he is believed to have conquered much of Mercia – now the East Midlands. Nottinghamshire, where the coin was found, became part of the Danelaw – the area of England under Viking domination. Sihtric's reign only lasted six years from 921-927 and the coin found by Mr Scothern dates from this short period.
Will Bennett, a spokesman for Dix Noonan Webb, said: "This penny is excessively rare and, despite having spent more than 1,000 years in the soil, is in extremely fine condition. "In addition to being an extraordinary survivor, it is also the coin of a conqueror – Sihtric would have wanted his own coins minted to reinforce his authority."
Maurice Richardson with the Iron Age torc he found near Newark
The coin is not the first treasure from ancient times to be found near Newark.
In 2005 Maurice Richardson uncovered The Newark Torc, an Iron Age gold alloy neck ring labelled by the head of the British Museum as "probably the most significant find of Iron Age Celtic gold jewellery made in the last 50 years".
It was sold for £300,000 and now sits in the Newark Civil War Museum.
More recently, last year silver coins from Henry VIII's reign, a medieval gold ring and a hoard of third century coins were found in villages in the county.
And in 2015 a golden ingot, a medieval ring and a 13th century silver pendant were uncovered in the Nottinghamshire countryside.
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