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V22 2019 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 22, Number 11, March 17, 2019, Article 23

1889 PENNY SAVED WWI SOLDIER'S LIFE

Scott Miller passed along this interesting BBC News article about a coin that saved a soldier's life. Thanks. The coin and the soldier's British War Medal and Victory Medal. will be sold on March 22, 2019. -Editor

coin that saved soldiers life

Pte John Trickett would have been shot in the heart if not for the coin he kept in his breast pocket.

Instead, the bullet ricocheted up his nose and out through the back of his ear, leaving him deaf in his left ear.

The dented 1889 penny is due to be sold by Hansons Auctioneers as part of a collection of war-related items belonging to the soldier.

His granddaughter, Maureen Coulson, from Duffield, Derbyshire, said: "Everyone in our family saw the penny and heard the story of how it saved my grandfather's life.

The 63-year-old said her grandfather, who was about 19 when he was shot in 1918, was "a great big guy from a Lincolnshire farming background but as soft as a brush".

After he was shot, he was discharged and went on to marry Mrs Coulson's grandmother and they had eight children.

Mrs Coulson added: "It's strange to think that, but for that penny, his children would not have been born and I wouldn't be here."

Adrian Stevenson, a militaria expert from Hansons, said: "It looks to me like a pistol bullet hit the penny at close range.

"It left him deaf and disabled but still alive.

"I've come across many stories of random objects saving soldiers' lives but I've never seen anything like this before."

To read the complete article, see:
Pocket penny that saved soldier's life to be sold (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-47575493)

Fred Weinberg ad02



Wayne Homren, Editor

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