325 



" In the month of April, 1852, a few coins were found 

 near Pettigoe, in the County of Fermanagh ; Mr. Barton, on 

 whose property the coins were discovered, left them with Mr. 

 Clibborn, who placed them in my hands, and informed me that 

 Mr. Barton would be obliged by any information respecting 

 them. 



" The lot consists of fourteen coins — three groats of 

 David II., along with nine groats and two half-groats of 

 Robert II.; all the groats are of the type of the Edinburgh 

 mint, and the half-groats are from the mint at Perth. 



" Scotch coins of an early period are frequently found in 

 Ireland, and though many hundreds of them have passed 

 through my hands, I never met with or heard of any similar 

 to the coins I am about to describe. Ten of those coins are 

 forgeries of a very peculiar kind, fabricated with a degree of 

 ingenuity well calculated to impose on the rude and ignorant 

 people of the fourteenth century. Two of the groats, and the 

 two half-groats, are genuine silver coins. The specific gravity 

 of one of the groats is 10*6. Each of the false groats consists 

 of two very thin discs of silver, having interposed a piece of 

 copper of somewhat smaller diameter, and much thicker than 

 the silver, and they seem to have been struck between dies in 

 the usual manner. As to the means by which the different 

 metals were made to adhere, I found on" attempting to separate 

 one of the discs of silver from the copper, that it was detached 

 without much difficulty, and that the metals had been united 

 by solder, which has been corroded at the margin so as to ex- 

 pose the mode of fabrication. 



" The dies from which these coins were struck, though 

 well executed and bearing a very close resemblance to the 

 dies of the genuine coins, retain the marks as if of a file, and the 

 surface of the coins has a. streaked appearance. The letters 

 are not sharp and well defined like those on the genuine silver 

 coins, a defect owing to the want of solidity arising from the 

 different metals not being perfectly soldered together. 



