Dug up a few carrots and there it was.
Thats great! I wonder who dropped it, and when?
We found a few old pennies when we hacked off the old mortar in a house we were renovating. I think the builders must have put them there.
cj :)
They used to do that for good luck. I remember getting Victoria pennies in the change when I was a kid, and we had real money.
You on only have to go down a foot and your on gravel so last year i beefed it up with a spot of double digging and cow muck, it must of come to the surface then, i nearly did not bother picking it up as it was covered in green it was only when i give it a spot a WD40 and a wipe that i realised i had found treasure.Wonder if some poor sod was going to go for a pint or two and a bag a chips on his way home after a hard day on his allotment before he lost it. :( how many pints do you think it would of got him.. did they have chips in 1896 ???
I obviously have nothing better to do.....£1 in 1974 was worth 100 pence, £1 in 1896 was worth £700 (the value of the same pound in 1998 is only 17p now!)....you can do the maths!
PS I just checked my maths, £1 in 1998 was worth £700 in 1896, so 240 old pennies to the pound.....means a penny in 1898 would be worth £2.92 in 1998...and even more now I guess!
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-020.pdf
Did they have chips? Looks like it!
A short history of fish and chips
This classic English dish came from a tradition of street food that was already growing in the 19th century with the hot-pie shops of Victorian England. Fried fish got a mention by Dickens in Oliver Twist (published in 1837), though it was then sold with a hunk of bread or a baked potato.
The birthplace of fish and chips is unidentifiable: Lancashire, London and Dundee have all put forward a claim. The combination of fresh fish and a hungry working class makes it likely that the dish developed in the northern ports. In the south, the alliance of fish and potato could well have been forged in the East End of London, where the close confines of the tenements meant the fried-fish tradition of Jewish immigrants would have come into contact with the potato-based diet of the Irish.
Three factors increased the dish’s popularity: manufactured ice meant fishermen could travel further and catch more, preserving their haul in ice; steam trawlers greatly increased the range of fishing opportunity; and railways meant distribution could reach inland areas.
Both the French and the Belgians claim they invented the chip, or fry, in the 19th century. Fries were certainly popular in both countries by the 1830s, and had reached Britain before the turn of the century.
The status of the chip as an international food is the result of the cultural shake-up that occurred during the first world war. American soldiers stationed in France (and Belgium) developed a taste for chips that they took back home with them. It was then just a short step to world domination. The humble chip is the main reason why potatoes are still up there among the world’s top crops.
:-X :o :o
When I was little you could buy a small bar of chocolate for 1d. On the other hand, my father's weekly wage was £17/10s. The house we lived in cost £500.
Don't spend it all at once ;D ;D ;D ;D