duth coin found in Maastricht ( the Netherlands )

[lusomosa]

Hi there,

This coin was found by my daughter in our garden just next to her swing...
It is very funny that we leave in a house build arround 1800 durind the period when the French ( read Napolean ) conquered Maastricht, have renovated a lot and brought to light some old elements of the original construction and found nothing old except briks and stones. We have dug everywhere in the garden to plant and change shrubs and fund nothing and just there where we have the swing and the kids play in the ground all the time she finds this coin..
I think it is in good shape for something laying there for ?? Some time.

I'm glad for her It is indeed her coin.

LP

[RHM22]

That's a neat find! I haven't found anything that old with a metal detector!

[a3v1]

A coin not quite as old as the Napoleontic era, but nevertheless ..
The date 1877 is relatively scarce, just 6.1 million cents have been minted that year.
When was it lost? Hard to say, as this particular type of coin was withdrawn from Sept.11, 1953. But in the 1950s it would have shown much more wear than it actually does. So, probably it was lost much earlier.
Regards,
a3v1

[lusomosa]

Thanks for your quint replies,

The coin does look great I do think that it was lost quite a long time ago.
It has some incrustrations ( which I would expect ) but it has quite an uniform green patina for being on the soil ...
That I did not expect.

LP

[bart]

Something I always found very strange is the way the Dutch always kept the wrong spelling for the word "KINGDOM": it is written as "KONINGRIJK" instead of "KONINKRIJK". In 1901 they spelled the word right on half of the 1 cent mintage, but it was changed into KONINGRIJK the following year.

I have no idea about the reason for this.

Bart

[Figleaf]

Bureaucracy. There was a spelling error in the coinage law. Indeed, in 1901 there was an attempt to correct the error on the coin, but the coinage law wasn't changed and the bobos decided they'd rather change the coin than the law, even if the coin was right and the law was wrong. There are coins with boh spellings dated 1901.

There is an expression in Dutch for this sort of bureaucratic stupidity: purple crocodile. The expression is recent and refers to a TV ad in which a young woman with a crying child reports to the sleepy man behind the lost and found counter that her daughter has lost her favourite toy. The man sighs, gives her a long form and tells her the procedure will take a couple of weeks. She spots her daughters purple crocodile behind the man, but he doesn't want to hear her and keeps pushing the form to her. The expression is now so popular that even the government uses it

A related story is that of the edge inscription, spelled GOD ZY MET ONS, which should have been GOD ZIJ MET ONS. In 1901, the mint master argued that since KONINGRIJK was spelled with IJ, ZIJ could be spelled likewise. His minister decided in his favour. Consistency is the science of fools.

Peter

[lusomosa]

Great story Peter,

In fact I never noticed the wrong spelling ( maybe because I leave here but I'm not Dutch  )
I'll pay more attention to the text from now on.

LP

[Figleaf]

Maybe next time your daughter uses her swing she'll turn up a Roman coin. Where you live was deep into Roman territory and my detector-wielding friends find Romans regularly (unfortunately, most are in horrible condition).

Peter

[lusomosa]

That would be very nice.