Coin was made in the 1st century BC by descendants of the Carthaginians, in what is now Cadiz, Spain

Among a collection of fake and foreign bus fare coins in Leeds, the UK, was one more than 2000 years old.

A coin used to pay a bus fare in 1950s Leeds was made more than 2000 years ago.

James Edwards worked as a cashier for the Leeds Transport Company, gathering fares from bus and tram drivers in the British city.

He put fake and foreign coins to one side, and this collection was passed down to his grandson, Peter Edwards.

Edwards later set about investigating one of the stranger items in the collection, which has now been revealed to be a coin that was minted in the 1st century BC.

It was made by descendants of the Carthaginians, in what is now Cadiz, Spain, and features their god Melqart, ruler of the underworld.

The other side of the coin, probably used in trade across the Mediterranean, features the Greek hero Heracles.

How the items came to be used as bus fare in Leeds remains a mystery.

Edwards told the BBC: “My grandfather would come across coins which were not British and put them to one side, and when I went to his house, he would hand me a few. It was not long after the war, so I imagine soldiers returned with coins from countries they had been sent to.

“Neither of us were coin collectors, but we were fascinated by their origin and imagery – to me, they were treasure.”

Edwards has offered to donate the coin to Leeds Museums and Galleries.

In 2023, a 400-year-old golf coin from the reign of Charles I was found in a box of loose change stuffed in a dresser in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Worth 22 shillings when it was made, it was valued at £25,000 by auctioneers.

The most valuable coins found in the United Kingdom were discovered by metal detectorists in Chew Valley, near Bath, in 2019.

The hoard of 2584 silver pennies from the time of the Norman Conquest was valued at £4.3 million when the find was sold in 2024.

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