Silver Coins
A silver twopenny coin, dated 1652, was found by a detectorist in the South Hams of Devon. It was not issued in 1652, however, nor minted in England. It was originally from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an English settlement on the east coast of North America. It probably dates from the 1660s or 70s, when the colony understood it had no rights to mint coinage and backdated its issues. It is the sixth such coin to be recorded by the portable Antiquities Scheme, and the first from the south-west of England, all presumed to have been brought home by sailors and merchants.