The author discusses a casual drop-in visit to a coin shop in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida about 1965 and an inquiry of the shop owner as to whether he had any early British coins for sale. He responded that his specialty was gold coins of the world, and that he had no early British coins, except possibly for a single unattributed piece which he brought out for examination, a hammered silver coin with a crude bust and blundered legends. The author, believing it might be an imitation of a Saxon-era penny, negotiated a purchase of the coin with the intention of setting it aside for further study. Later scrutiny with the help of a paper by Bernard Roth published in the BNS Journal Volume VI (1909) led the author to conclude that his orphan penny was the same coin or a die duplicate as No. 108 in Roth’s collection. Click here to read the article
