What Happened To My 1897 Farthing?

It looks like it has been double struck and unearthed from a farmer's field.

Nice find.

Bright yellow is not the natural colour of 1897 farthings - in that year, they started deliberately giving farthings a sulfur bath int he mint, so they'd come out black and not be easily confused with half-sovereigns. That the "yellow" stops right at the rims of the two round parts - on both sides, which you'll remember is actually at opposite ends of this coin since it has medal die orientation - makes me think that this coin was stuck (glued or soldered) to two other coins, then the whole thing gilt or gold-painted.

1897 was a significant date in the reign of Queen Victoria: her 60th anniversary. There were a plethora of medals both official and unofficial sold or given away for the occasion, as well as assorted souvenir-pieces. I'd imagine a nice cheap "souvenir-piece" would have been a few farthings stuck together, gold-painted, then turned into a brooch or something similar. I'm thinking something not entirely unlike this piece in the Western Australia Museum collection: https://collectionswa.net.au/items/...c1cec687f3e6

Someone then later broke the farthings apart, perhaps because they needed three farthings more than they needed a souvenir-piece of Queen Victoria.