Rare Portuguese gold coin found on land in UK worth €30,000
A copy from the 15th century is worth more than 22 thousand euros. This is D. Printed during the reign of Manuel I.
Appeared on a rural tour.
When he set out to discover India, Vasco da Gama took with him some gold coins, with the inscription of the then king: King Manuel I. 500 years later, one of these copies appeared in a rural tourist field. In the United Kingdom.. This is a very rare gold piece. Now it goes to auction.
The so-called “Portuguese” coin, with a face value of 10 cruzados, was valued at 20,000 to 30,000 pounds, equivalent to 22,000 to 33,000 euros, by London-based auctioneer Noonans. It was discovered in early July by 62-year-old Mick Edwards in Achillehampton, 150 kilometers from London.
Britt was testing his new metal detector when the equipment gave off a signal. He dug a hole 25 centimeters deep and found the gold coin.
“I was stunned, I just sat there looking at the coin and couldn’t even breathe. “I saw the cross on the coin and thought it might be Spanish, but I found out from a king named Manuel that it was Portuguese,” he said, as quoted by “O Sol” newspaper here.
Copy.
According to Casa da Moida, T. Manuel I’s “Portuguese” was the Portuguese currency, which had the largest circulation in the world due to the commercial importance of Portugal at the time.
It is 36 millimeters in diameter, weighs about 35 grams and is printed in almost pure gold. The specimen now discovered was one of those taken by Vasco da Gama on his ships to India, and was made of gold brought to Portugal from his voyages to Africa.
This is the first time that a copy of this coin has appeared in England. Something that baffles experts. “It’s very rare. I have no knowledge of anything like it appearing outside of Portugal,” said Javier Salgado, a numismatist at the Lusa agency, who predicted it would attract bids from collectors above the highest estimate due to its good state of preservation.
