A 2,000-year-old bronze coin once slipped into a Leeds bus fare box has been donated to Leeds Museums and Galleries as part of its ancient currencies collection and is now on display at the Leeds Discovery Centre.
The piece, minted in the 1st century BC in Gadir (modern-day Cádiz, Spain) under Carthaginian influence, surfaced in the 1950s after being used to pay for public transport in the city before being set aside by the Leeds Transport Company’s cash office. Peter Edwards, now 77, has given the coin to the museum’s collection after keeping it safe for more than seven decades as one of several childhood mementos he received from his grandfather.
Edwards inherited the coin from his grandfather, James Edwards, who served as chief cashier for the Leeds Transport Company in the 1950s. As part of his duties, James collected fake, discarded or foreign coins that bus and tram drivers found in their fare boxes, passing the oddities to his grandson in a wooden chest. Peter grew up with the assorted pieces, initially unaware that one was a rare historical artifact, regarding them as keepsakes from an era when coins from far-flung places occasionally filtered through the city’s transport network. He later decided to return the ancient piece to a public institution once he learned what it was, saying, "When I discovered its origin, I wanted to return it to an institution where everyone could study it," BBC News.
The god Melqart wearing a lion skin
The coin’s age and iconography identify it with Gadir, a settlement founded by the Phoenicians and considered Carthage’s first colony in Western Europe. On the obverse, the god Melqart appears wearing a lion skin in a pose that resembles the Greek hero Heracles, including the distinctive lionskin headdress. The reverse shows two bluefin tuna, a motif tied to the importance of fishing to the local economy around ancient Cádiz, where maritime resources underpinned trade. These images, which blend Punic religious identity and regional livelihood, help date and situate the bronze within a Punic cultural sphere that endured even as Roman power expanded across the western Mediterranean. Historians note that Punic culture persisted for centuries under Roman rule after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, with references to a surviving Punic world and even a Neo-Punic language illustrating how the fall of a city does not automatically end a culture.
"Neither of us were coin collectors”
The path that brought the Gadir bronze to mid-20th century Leeds remains unclear. Edwards has speculated that soldiers returning from wartime postings may have brought such coins back with them, though the specifics are lost to time and the exact route into a Yorkshire fare box is likely to remain a mystery. That lingering question adds to the coin’s rarity, which stems not only from its antiquity but from the improbable journey that culminated in a routine local transaction more than two millennia after it was struck. The discovery and subsequent donation underline how objects can move through eras and places, surfacing in unexpected contexts that bridge ancient economies and modern daily life.
Edwards said he treasured the eclectic group of coins he grew up with, reflecting on how he and his grandfather admired their imagery and origins even without a collector’s training. "Neither of us were coin collectors, but we were fascinated by their origin and imagery," The Independent. He characterized the cache as "treasure," a personal connection that ultimately guided his decision to ensure the bronze would be professionally preserved and publicly accessible.