A metal detectorist who returned to his hobby after his children nagged him to take them out has found a rare Henry III gold penny, which sold at auction for a record-breaking £648,000. Michael Leigh-Mallory, 52, discovered the coin buried 10cm deep on farmland in Hemyock, Devon, shortly after taking up detecting again.
Leigh-Mallory, a retired ecologist from Cullompton, posted a picture of the coin on social media, where it was spotted by auctioneers Spink in London. He will split the proceeds with the landowner and plans to use the windfall to fund his children's education. His daughter Emily, 13, who is passionate about history, hopes to study archaeology at university.
The Henry III gold penny was struck around 1257 by the king's goldsmith, William of Gloucester, using gold imported from north Africa. Only about 52,000 were minted, but most were melted down as they were worth less than their weight in gold. This example is only the eighth known to survive.
The coin is believed to have belonged to John de Hyden, a former lord of the manor who paid 120 grams of gold to avoid jury service before the coin was introduced. Gregory Edmund, senior numismatist at Spink, said: 'Not only does this stand as the most valuable single coin find in British history, but also the most valuable medieval English coin ever sold at auction.' The buyer, an anonymous private collector in the UK, intends to loan it to a public museum.
Leigh-Mallory said he would continue detecting, adding: 'It's not about money. It's about finding connections to our past.' He visited Henry III's tomb at Westminster Abbey to give thanks for his extraordinary find.
