Groat?

[Cymro]

Went out with my buddy today to the permission where we never find anything. We both found a few bits of lead, brass, foil; I found a 1932 penny, a 5p and a 20p. My mate found a bronze threepenny bit and a half crown, then came up with this hammered silver coin.

From a limited amount of research it looks like an Edward III groat - can anyone confirm this please?

[BugbrookeBen]

Yeah, looks like it well done to you both

[Cymro]

Thanks  

Just thinking - how much would this have been worth in the 1300s (and don't say fourpence . . .  ) - as in what would that have been in today's terms? Some poor devil lost this (presumably . . . ) so would that have been a major disaster or just something to shrug off?

[Chef Geoff]

For a skilled labourer such as a carpenter it would have been a days wage for an unskilled agricultural labourer  2 days but for a servant it would be nearly a weeks wage, you can't really translate it into modern terms though as the cost of goods was completely different for instance that groat could buy you four and a half gallons of beer, a gallon of wine or 50 apples but only 2 chickens or a quarter pound of sugar

[Cymro]

Hmmm . . . that's a serious amount of money then.

Odd to think that a chicken was a day's wages for a farm labourer . . . And sugar too.

Modern production methods and more efficient transport would obviously have affected the prices now. Not a drinker myself - how much would 36 pints of beer cost nowadays? Last time I had a drink Guinness was 72p a pint . . . 

[Chainsaw Bampy]

nice find, well done

[congerman]

very nice well searched 

[Chef Geoff]

The price in relation to wages to the chickens is roughly the same as it would have been before the 1940's as it's not until after the war and rationing that factory farming starts and chickens can be produced for their meat before this chickens were kept for their eggs and so to eat one (that was worth eating) was to deny any further eggs, so a bit like not eating the goose that laid the golden egg you didn't eat the chicken that laid any
Though in this case it probably refers to live chickens but the same ratio applies

[Dale]

Well found Cymro

[Cymro]

You're quite right, of course, Chef. I was born not too long after WW2 and when I were a lad nobody ate a chicken except at Christmas. As for turkeys - not for the likes of us . . . The Christmas chicken was quite a big deal in our house - first you had to find one!

The local fishmonger sold the chickens round our way and sometimes Mum would bring a 'boiling fowl' home - complete with feathers and innards. I think we only got them because they were cheap! We had a chicken coop at home but when the birds had passed their best in terms of laying Dad didn't have the heart to kill them; they were more like pets so they only ever died of old age . . .

[Dryland]

Thats a lovely coin, keep searching there may be more there. I've often thought the same as you about how someone felt when they
lost those coins. I recently detected the ruins of a smallholding that my Great Grandparents used to live in with ten of their children, and back then 1910 - 1925 I know things were very tough for them. I found a few pennies and half pennies and I suspect that my
Great Grandparents must have been gutted when they lost them.

[150aceboy]

Nice coin, well found m8 

[probono]

Judging by the privy mark 'cross 1, unbroken' doesn't that make it a series B groat?

[Cymro]

We're still working on that - neither of us has ever seen an Edward III groat before so it's taking some time to find the right links. I found the 'vosper4coins' site late on last night and have literally just sent the link to my buddy.

Thanks for the ID - it's the kind of information I was looking for . . . 

[hotmill]

Well found, nice coin!