I have looked through a "find" of more than 200 Jersey Gaulish coins,
which are in the possession of R. R. Lempriere, Esq. They were turned up
by the plough on his manor of Rozel; and whatever covering had enclosed
them had either gone to decay, or become broken up, as they were quite
loose. He had cleaned a few of them. Even to the eye the metallic
composition varied greatly--some being of the colour of silver, and some
lowering to that of copper. In this lot there were but two of the
smaller size of 25 grains, and I think that proportion may perhaps give
some indication as to the relative rarity of the two coins; for at a
rough estimate one seems to meet only about one in a hundred, which is
of the smaller kind. The larger Gaulish coins are common; large "finds"
of the types formerly used in the Channel Islands having been made on
the adjacent mainland of Normandy and Brittany, and also on the south
coast of England.
Sir John Evans mentions (page 128) the hoard at Mount Batten, near
Plymouth (_Numismatic Journal_, Vol. I., page 224), and that in the
_Arch. Assoc. Journal_, Vol. III., page 62, is an account of a find of
them at Avranches, written by Mr. C. Roach Smith; also in 1820 nearly
1,000 were discovered in Jersey; and previously, in 1787, there had been
a find in that island. The manor of Rozel seems to have been most rich
in furnishing specimens. In addition to the number in possession of the
seigneur of Rozel, as before referred to, there are from that district
of the island collections at the St. Helier Museum, and with Lady
Marett, Wm. Nicolle, Esq., Dr. Le Cronier, E. C. Cable, Esq., and
others.
They are often turned up in agricultural work, and many farmers possess
a few, but will not part with them, nor with their stone or bronze
spear-heads, arrow-heads, axe-heads, and jars, as there is often some
superstition that it is unlucky to let these be sold away from the
neighbourhood where they were dug up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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