1652 Oak Tree Threepence Found Buried...

Very cool. Was this coin just a souvenir, or could it have actually circulated as currency in England? The Massachusetts pound was valued differently from the pound sterling. A Boston merchant would have been able to give you the exact exchange rate at any time, but would there have been any general idea of relative value back in the mother country? Would a grocer in Nottinghamshire be willing to accept it at its face value of threepence? Remember that the Massachusetts coinage was all dated 1652 because the right to mint coins was reserved to the Crown, and in 1652 England was ruled by Cromwell's Commonwealth. The oak tree coins were not minted until at least 1660, just after the restoration of the monarchy. Threepence were minted by Charles I, and their mintage resumed under Charles II, but the Commonwealth minted no threepence. This coin must have been brought to England after the new king was crowned, bearing a date of the time when England had no king, but a denomination only struck by kings. It must have been a curiosity, indeed.

A fantastic metal detecting find. I bet the finder is ecstatic.

Finding a Massachusetts threepence in an english field is not as strange as one might think, considering the active trade that existed between the american colonies and England. HMS Faversham, a 32-gun british ship that sunk off Nova Scotia in 1711 carried coins of many of the new world colonies, including over 120 Massachusetts Colony coins. This money was used to pay for royal navy supplies, so it is reasonable to assume that new world coinage made its way to England via this route.

This is a beautiful threepence in excellent condition, Variety Noe-23, Crosby 1-A.1 Its rarity is URS-6 per the Colonial Coins Encyclopedia.
It is very valuable but unfortunately not the amount claimed in the article. It is probably worth $15000-$25000 depending on how well it may be preserved.

It might have been accepted. At the time there was another if their periodic coin shortages and merchants were making their own toke coinages much like they later did with the Conder tokens. But at that time they were being made of silver as half pence and pence. They were about that size and had a similar crude appearance. With a largely illiterate population this three pence could have passed.

Too bad most of the sheeple who fell victim to the erroneous reporting of The Daily Mail are all lathered up about not much. The reporter who claimed it to possibly be worth 1 million pounds sterling obviously didn't recognize or understand the difference in condition rarity between an Oak Tree 3d and a Willow Tree 3d. This dug Oak Tree coin is worth more like $13K - $15K USD. The Daily Mail couldn't possibly let facts get in the way of a feel good story !

Is it an oak tree or willow tree? The willow tree is the one that is worth a heckuva lot of money as three are currently known to exist. $15,000 to $20,000 is about right for an oak tree.

One wonders if it is authentic, since I think there were contemporary fakes.

The highest price on Heritage for an oak tree threepence was $37k back in 2007 for an MS62. Another AU53 in 2019 for $36k. No idea where they got $1.7m.