English: A tremissis or pseudo-tremissis of the 7^th century, which has been pierced and gilded for use as a pendant. The tremissis is a coin type widely issued by the Merovingian Franks in this period, but also produced by the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians. Such coins were produced in fairly good gold at the beginning of the century, but with the gold contained declining as the century progressed, with the gold increasingly replaced by silver. The design on this example is relatively crude, and could represent either a Merovingian coin or an imitation produced elsewhere. Its gold content is c. 41-44% (see appendix below), suggesting an original production date of around the middle of the 7^th century, although precise dating is impossible. However, it has been gilded with a rather purer gold foil to simulate an earlier gold coin of higher quality, and has also been pierced for suspension.

Coin pendants were popular in this period, either with a simple suspension hole, or looped for suspension, and several examples exist of gilded pseudo-coins apparently originally produced for the same purpose. These typically have base metal cores, and the fact that this example has a precious metal core points to it being originally a genuine coin rather than a pseudo-coin, although this is not completely certain. While a single coin does not normally constitute Treasure, this has received secondary treatment to turn it into a pendant, and it should therefore be considered as an object rather than a coin, in accordance with a number of similar precedents. The core object clearly exceeds the threshold of 10% precious metal specified under the terms of the Treasure Act, while the precious metal content is only enhanced by the additional gilding. It is therefore my opinion that in terms of the key criteria of age and precious metal content, this find represents a clear case of Treasure under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996). Gareth Williams