This coin was minted in the middle AD 1490s. Within the half-decade of Columbus' landfall in the Caribbean. John Caboto only got to that coast in 1497 - under, yes, Tudor colours-with-a-u.
It is not in scope of this blog if the New Found Land alias Markland be "Canada" but, this blog does count all the coast with the Brave New World, across the icy Atlantic.
The actual colony would be founded in 1610. What were they doing with a coin over a century older than that? The Mail notes an AD 1561 coin at the same site so - an English patriot and coin-collector (or more than one) staking his claim upon History, one might conclude.
It may be, though, that there was already a trade in British silver with the natives, for furs, which furs were well worth their proverbial weight in silver back home. So, when the colony was established, those natives might have traded some of that older silver back to them, for more-perishable commodities, like 1600s-era rifles. (1500s-era guns being famously inferior to a good stone-tipped arrow.)
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