Britannia copper, 1673 (Charles II, Lot 16)

About This Coin

An English copper coin recovered from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 16 during Season 5. Gary Drayton's metal detector hit the target. Dave Blankenship spotted the coin in the hole and pulled it out. Rick and Marty Lagina were present. The obverse shows the bust of King Charles II with the Latin legend Carolus. The reverse carries the seated figure of Britannia, a motif introduced to English copper coinage by Charles II in 1672 to replace earlier hammered farthings and halfpence. Gary read the date as 1673, placing the coin within Charles II's reign (1660 to 1685).

The find placed English activity on Oak Island more than 120 years before the Money Pit's 1795 discovery and was contemporaneous with the seventeenth-century Spanish maravedi recovered from the swamp. Dan Blankenship, then 94 years old, examined the coin at his home and confirmed it provided hard evidence of an English presence near 1670, strengthening the case he had argued for decades that the island's history extended far beyond the 1795 discovery. Archaeologist Laird Niven noted that the coins from Lot 16, along with the brooch and other surface finds from that season, suggested occupation well before the Money Pit era.

Because the coin came from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils, its original deposit point within the Money Pit zone cannot be determined. Robert Dunfield removed at least ten feet of surface soil from a large area surrounding the Money Pit in 1965 and moved tons of earth across the island.

The coin was recovered alongside the 1694 Britannia copper, identified as a William III piece, which surfaced minutes later from a second target on the same surface search. Eight seasons later, Katya Drayton, Gary's daughter, recovered a William III sixpence from Dunfield / Money Pit spoils on Lot 18, struck between 1697 and 1701.