10/2/26 Report - Crooked Sixpence and Other Bent Coins as Ritual Charms. Witching Coins. Figa Found on the Treasure Coast

 

Written by the TreassureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

In 1984, archaeologists discovered a 1596 English sixpence at a naval station in Maryland that had been the site of a Jesuit plantation from 1637 to 1942. A close look revealed lines that suggested the coin had been bent into thirds, carried in that bent state for some time, and then flattened out again. But why? To explore the possibilities, archaeologist Sara Rivers Cofield took a tour of coin magic...

In many cases, the coins used for these purposes were deliberately bent or broken, making them “crooked.” This practice went back to pre-Christian European idea of “killing” an object to dedicate it to a deity. By the early fourteenth century, English people customarily bent coins when making a vow to a saint. In a moment of crisis, like the sickness of a loved one, a person might bend a coin while promising a pilgrimage to a saint’s shrine. This reflects a common aspect of magical or religious ritual across many cultures—the need for a personal sacrifice.

“Coins are bent not only to signify the promise of the pilgrimage, which is itself a sacrifice of time and effort on the part of the giver, but also to remove the coins from general circulation as currency,” Cofield writes...

Here is the link for the rest of the cool article.

The Magic of a Crooked Sixpence - JSTOR Daily

In my post previous to this one, I suggested the idea of items being buried for a variety of reasons.  
Beside the common ideas we have about hoards, I suggested there may be other less common reasons hoards or single items are buried but not intended to be recovered.  

"Killing" a coin is a picturesque and particularly apt description for removing a coin from its useful and intended life in circulation.  Other buried items that are destroyed and intentionally buried once and for all could be described the same way.

In that previous post I mentioned some other examples of items I being buried and "put to rest." One of those was related to the magical or religious use of coins and items that were buried with no expectation of ever being recovered.

Over the years I've found a lot of coins that were discarded for what seemed to me to be a magical or religious intent.  One example would be the small cluster of coins I found that seemed to be arranged with seashells around a dead bird.  I suspected some magical or mystical, use but didn't know exactly which one.  I thought of Voodoo, but later learned that some of those coins and other objects were used in Sateria rituals.  See for example The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast. Copyright 2001 - 2026.: 2/14/15 Report - Mystery Item Positively Identified. Santeria Yemana Tools. Smaller Surf Sunday..  

But today I wanted to move on to some other cases in which coins were possibly used for magical or ritual purposes.  Over the years, I found a lot of bent coins.  There was one location where there were a lot of rocks in the shallow surf.  For a while, I thought maybe the many bent coins I found there might have been bent by natural forces.  Maybe they got caught in the rocks, but I didn't know if that was really possible, and I realized they could have been bent in some other way - possibly intentionally by man.

Historically there was once the superstition that a bent coin could change one's luck. Another tradition suggested that carrying a bent coin in a purse would keep the purse full.

Here is an old nursery rhyme originated in the 1800s that maybe you've heard.

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

Besides the literary device of repetition, there were more specific historical references and probably a specific meaning behind the "crooked sixpence" and other crooked items in the rhyme. 

A silver sixpence was a real coin widely used from the 16th to the 20th century. Some historical sources note that thin silver sixpence could easily become bent or in circulation. A bent coin was common enough and was not worthless. It was simply damaged in usage. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries people sometimes clipped tiny amounts of silver from the edges of coins. Because of this, oddly shaped or damaged coins could suggest fraud, tampering, or diminished value. In that case, they weren't bent, but they were crooked coins in another way.

The reader of the nursery rhyme might recognize a "crooked sixpence" as something imperfect or out of the ordinary, but there were also an association of good luck that became attached to the sixpence.

For example, in British folklore there was "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" which some of would recognize, but it continues. "and a sixpence in her shoe."
Sixpences were placed in Christmas puddings for luck, and silver coins were often carried as charms for prosperity.

But there is another historical use for coins that were bent.

Witching coins are ordinary coins that were deliberately bent, pierced, or otherwise altered to serve as protective charms against witchcraft, especially in 17th–18th century Britain and colonial America. That has been described in archaeology, folklore and numismatics.

I once found a mystery item that someone told me had to do with witchcraft and a reader told me I should get rid of it.  I don't remember specifically what it was now, but being a Christian and having something more powerful, I wasn't at all afraid of it. 

Here are some excerpts from an article on collecting witching coins.

These apotropaic coins (from the Greek apotrope, meaning “to ward off”) began as currency but became something more: ordinary silver altered by extraordinary hope. Today, these curious pieces sit at the crossroads of folklore and numismatics — part superstition, part social history, and wholly fascinating to collect.

Between the late 1500s and the early 1800s, England and its colonies lived in an uneasy truce with fear. Witches were said to cause illness, spoil crops, and haunt hearths. To protect their homes, families hid witch bottles beneath thresholds, fireplaces, and chimneys — the supposed gateways of evil.

Alongside these bottles, historians and archaeologists have uncovered bent coins, often silver sixpences or shillings. People believed that twisting or striking a coin could “break” a curse or bind an enchantment. 

And here is that link.

Witch Bottles Bent Silver: Apotropaic Coins and Magic Protection

I don't know that I ever found any witching coins, but there are some I'd bet are some kind of charm.  And I have found items having a similar function on the shipwreck beaches of the Treasure Coast.  For example, there is the figas that I've posted before.  See The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast. Copyright 2001 - 2026.: 4/25/11 Report - Figa & Wet Sand Areas

Here is one that I found that is exactly like one that was in the old Mel Fisher artifact database.

Silver and Ivory Figa Found on Treasure Coast Beach.

This would have been a good Halloween post, but I'll have more for then.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

We are having a small surf again, but there have been some good high tides.

The high water washed out one section of the west bank of the Indian River Lagoon including a bit of Indian River Drive.

Rain erosion will undoubtedly expose some opportunities on land sites.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net