A MAN stumbled upon a Viking penny worth £15,000 in "the find of a lifetime" as he searched for treasures in a parsnip field.
Richard Scothern found the coin - 1,100 years old - as he scanned the field on Boxing Day last year.
The 45-year-old welder, who has been a metal dectectorist for 19 years, was stunned to learn the coin dated back to the reign of Viking king Sihtric Coach.
Despite being buried below the ground for over a century, the penny is in fine condition.
It is set to go on auction in London on March 15, with coin specialists Dix Noonan Webb predicting a sale of between £10,000 and £15,000.
The money will be split between its finder and the owner of the field, near Newark, Notts.
Mr Scothern, of Nottingham, said: "It's the best thing I have ever found.
"I can't believe it survived the farm machinery. That coin has used up its nine lives.
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"I must have walked over the coin so many times on previous visits. My detector gave a signal that was as clean as a whistle and the coin was only a couple of inches below the surface.
"It was incredible when the coin came out.
"I immediately knew it was a Viking coin because I had seen reproductions of them in the Jorvik Museum in York and I knew that it was a nice coin. But I didn't know about its rarity."
The coin was minted, probably in Lincoln, Lincs., during the reign of Sihtric Caoch, who sat on the throne for six years from 921-927.
He first ruled in Dublin, then moved to Northumberland, where he is believed to have conquered parts of Mercia - now the East Midlands.
Will Bennett, a spokesman for Dix Noonan Webb, said: "This penny is excessively rare and, despite having spent more than 1,000 years in the soil, is in extremely fine condition.
"In addition to being an extraordinary survivor, it is also the coin of a conqueror - Sihtric would have wanted his own coins minted to reinforce his authority."
This week hunters found the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery ever discovered in Britain.
Last year a treasure hunter unearthed a medieval ring in the heart of Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest which could be worth up to £70,000.
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