Old British Coin Found in Canada

[CMD]

What an interesting thing to find on a Newfoundland beach. Minted between 1422-1427.

The coin predates John Cabot's arrival on the island — and the historical beginning of regular European contact with Newfoundland — by 70 years.

"Between England and here, people over there were not yet aware of Newfoundland or North America at the time that this was minted," says Brake, "So that's sort of the really exciting part of this."…

….. There's been some knowledge of a pre-16th century European presence here for a while, you know, excluding Norse and so on," he says."The possibility of perhaps a pre-16th century occupation would be pretty amazing and highly significant in this part of the world."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/old-gold-coin-nl-1.6646200

[CMD]

Coins could continue in circulation long after being minted. That should be kept in mind. And a modern coin collector could have lost it, though that seems very unlikely.

I did know that European fishermen, I always thought Portuguese, were fishing off Maritime Canada several decades before 1492, but yesterday a friend mentioned a book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, as pointing out the Basques were here well before Columbus, helping supply cod to Europe.

This, from a review of the aforementioned book:

”But medieval Basques were the top cod traders. They were whalers, able to travel vast distances whaling because they had learned to salt-cure cod, a better technique than the Vikings' air-drying. They also had a secret source: by the year 1000, the Basques were supplying a vast international market in cod, based on their fishing fleet's surreptitious voyages across the Atlantic to North America's fishing banks, a cod cornucopia about which they kept mum. By 1532, British fishermen were fighting the Hanseatic League in the first of history's many cod wars. By 1550, sixty percent of all fish eaten in Europe was cod.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...rld-152948483/

[clovisoid]

I did know that European fishermen, I always thought Portuguese, were fishing off Maritime Canada several decades before 1492, but yesterday a friend mentioned a book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, as pointing out the Basques were here well before Columbus, helping supply cod to Europe.

It was common enough that the Basque fishermen had locally derived pidgin languages in several places. The largest was Algonquian-Basque also called Souriquois, the official "start date" is around 1480-ish, but it was wide spread enough up and down the coast of Canada that it likely came into use earlier. There was also a Icelandic-Basque pigin language that developed around 1300 AD. As you mentioned, the Basque were really good at keeping things a secret. Their language is completely isolated from all other European languages, absolutely no relation in it's pure form to Romance, Germanic, Slavic, or Turkic languages.

I haven't tested this theory in a boat, nor even found much formalized study of it, but I think if you can get from what is now the border area of Spain/France to whale north of Iceland, you can probably follow some of the other in the Atlantic whales to their old feeding grounds in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

[CMD]

I had never heard of these pidgin languages. I learned something new today with that. Fascinating. I understand lots of furs entering Europe before Columbus also originated in North America.

[painshill]

Very interesting. In the era when the coin was minted (1422-1427), the gold noble circulated with an official face value of six shillings and eightpence (one third of a pound). So, as the article says, a quarter noble would have been one shilling and eightpence.

However, the price of gold began to rise from around 1430, resulting in them being ‘worth’ more than that in foreign trade. It was common practice for foreign gold coins to be accepted by merchants, but their exchange value In commerce was based on their bullion weight, not their designated face value in the country that issued them.

As a consequence, English gold nobles, and especially the more plentiful half-nobles and quarter-nobles were unofficially ‘exported’ in quantity to reap the profit of their higher value in continental Europe. This created a shortage of gold coins in England until 1464 when the circulation value of the noble was raised from six shillings and eightpence to eight shillings and fourpence in an attempt to realign it to gold prices and halt the profiteering.

[flintguy]

Well, once again, I learned something new from this site. Somehow this cod theory had gotten by me. Will look into it.

[LongStride]

Good stuff folks, enjoyed the history lesson, Cod Wars is something I haven't heard about lately , good to revisit , makes sense to have been north east Americas , the coin is another hole in academia comfortable history

[Bullheadtee]

That coin shows little to no wear no doubt the ocean was not a barrier with the boats of the time no problem to get their and our record are not to well kept plausible for shure

[Tam]

Loving this thread . Thank you for your knowledge .