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Man Finds Roman Gold Coin Hoard Worth £100,000 With Metal Detector
An anonymous reader writes "A novice metal detector has found one of the largest roman gold coin hoards ever unearthed in the UK. From the article: 'National newspapers reported on Wednesday that the man, from Berkhamsted, had been sold a beginner’s metal detector from the town’s High Street-based Hidden History for £135. He is reported to have gone back with 40 of the “solidi” coins, dating to the last days of Roman rule in Britain, and asked: “What do I do with this?”'"
What else are you supposed to do with money? Of course, they may not be selling spears, shields and trebuches any longer.....
Isn't it against the law to dig up such things in the UK and not report them? If so, reporting them was a good thing. He should get some amount of value from the find. Hope he didn't tear up the place digging them up or the archaeologists will be pissed. These things would have been used for paying taxes usually. Wonder what sort of place they came out of.
Using metal detectors without prior permission and a degree in archaeology is illegal here in Ireland, punishable by stiff fines and prison, as is wandering around the countryside with archaeological tools. Well technically the latter isn't illegal as such, but you'd better have a good reason for carrying them. Its understandable really given the quality and rarity of some of the treasures that have already been turned up I suppose, the government doesn't want looters making off with priceless artifacts to adorn their mantelpiece.
"Are you the man who found the coins? Do you know who he is? Contact reporter David O’Neill on 01442 898451."
Duh! - one might have expected the journo to get the name, or even an interview!
TFA is way out. The was a more valuable Roman find of Roman Torcs 3 miles to the west of Stirling in Scotland which netted around £4m which he had a share of £500k
What's interesting is that the Romans didn't last long in Scotland but there are still visible signs of our italian pals from 2000 years ago, such as the Fendoch fort in the Sma Glen north of Crieff and the fort at Braco some 5 miles south of Crieff.
We found some tunic broaches with a metal detector in my parents field a few miles away. Still looking for the pot of Roman gold. There are legends that Fendoch had a large stash of gold but there just legends and no one has ever found them plus metal detecting is illegal on recognised Roman forts which is a bit of a set back!
Man unearths 2000 year old bit-coin with metal-detector
An anonymous reader writes
"A novice metal detector has found one of the largest bit coin servers ever unearthed in the UK. From the article: 'National newspapers reported on Wednesday that the man, from Berkhamsted, had been sold a beginner’s metal detector from the town’s High Street-based Hidden History for £135. He is reported to have gone back with 40 of the bit coins, dating to the last days of 'Cameron' rule in Britain, and asked: “What do I do with this?”'"
Read all comments.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
It was an interesting way to launder stollen gold coins, too bad he is an internet sensation now
Man Finds Roman Gold Coin Hoard Worth £100,000 With Metal Detector, Plans To Exchange Them For BitCoins - Slashdot
As an archaeologist, promoting such stories in the media is generally a bad idea. It encourages people to go and loot archaeological sites, and when they ask themselves 'What do I do with this', the answer is often 'sell it on ebay'. The archaeological context is lost, and potential dating evidence for a site is not recorded.
That said, responsible metal detecting where finds are reported to the local Finds Liason Officer (in the UK) are a good thing, as they can reveal new sites. I have done a geophysics survey on a site found in this way.
It sounds like he came across a fortune through illegal means, bought a beginner metal detector someplace (really who spends 135 quid on a beginner item, he must have been certain he would find something worth at least that value) and then played dumb when he says that he "found" it.
He reports it in, nobody will claim, and he will get to keep it legally. Easy way to "legalise" something you shouldn't have. Works for bags of money some people "dig up" in their backyard too (which is really their drug money they need to bring off the black market to make a legitimate purchase). Just hope that nobody else can make a plausible enough claim for it.
They had a much better system of banking in Roman times - They didn't have banks!
Which bank could you give your money to and still the bank will still have it in 2,000 years. Put our money in the a whole in the ground it will still be there in a couple of millenniumâ(TM)s later.
The best I can do is 10 dollars.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
am I the only one smells a rat here? Gold roman coins are worth a lot more than gold alone, therefore a tidy profit is to be made by printing you are own fake roman coins and then claiming to have dug them up.
Run buy a bunch of those metal detector makers shares, quick!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I didn't even know the Romans had metal detectors!
It makes sense that if a roman has a metal detector, he'd probably also have a lot of money, so it's not unusual that the two would be found together.
You are just up-set that you are not a part of ze Superior Race!. Quick scurry away to ze fatherland!
And yes I can say that, I'm german... well 88.7% german. Dad was 100% mom was mostly around 85%
Time for sauerbraten!
The sad thing is that by digging it up he's destroyed the archaeological context which might have shown why it was buried, when, and, to some extent, who by. The end of the Roman period in Britain is a very interesting period of history, but one about which we have far too little information. Yes, it's great that these things get found, but when you've found something, for heaven's sake leave it in the ground and alert the county archaeologists (or, technically, the coroner who will in turn alert the archaeologists, but...). You'll still get the 'treasure trove' value as the finder, and the context will get recorded.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The Roman empire was a big place. A lot of Eastern European museums must be short of cash. If some coins leaked out of a museum, and found their way to London, what would the new owner do? Maybe go out and buy a metal detector and say "look what I found"
Just a possibility. But I suppose the "lucky first timer" scenario could be true as well.
We don't have such silly laws! So, it will be a big help when I'm using a metal detector to find those ancient Roman and Gaylick treasures - especially in the South East US! And I'll have the means too. See, I took ALL engineering and math classes in college - none of that nonsense liberal arts stuff like history and art! Nope!
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In other words, you can't buy your way into the club of nobles by buying their land; you remain a serf vs landed gentry. [warning, opinions only, not even a wikipedia link for this.]
Most finds you hear about here, Belgium, are leftover bombs from two world wars.
Some entity called DOVO comes in, evacuates the area and blows up your shiny new find.
There, no hassle about who owns what and should earn which finders fees.
You can't just dig it up out of the ground and cash it out -- all these treasures rightfully belong to the Queen. Now get your dirty pauper hands off her gold!
That reads like he had no choice in the transaction. I half-expected the sentence to end with 'at gunpoint'.
Judas, that you?
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
I seriously doubt it's worth £100,000, these stories always go over the top on the value quoting the price for mint coins in perfect condition in the existing market trading volumes. There was a recent very large hoard valued in the press at tens of millions of pounds, but the coins were so degraded they were worth only a fraction of their individual mint value, and there were so many coins in the hoard it would have depressed the market value if they had been sold.
The real worry here is the guy apparently didn't know what to do once he had found the coins, there are legal requirements to be met, and archaeological best practice to be followed. No-one should be sold a detector without first having to take a one-hour training course in their legal and moral obligations. That said, I work with responsible detectorists all the time, many are very good, but there are also many like this guy who do terrible damage.
The same principle holds in Egypt: if you discover anything interesting while digging, you have to report it to the Department of Antiquities. They may take over the site and do a dig, or whatever they see fit.
This is why I know people, from Alexandria, who found Roman era amphorae while digging the foundation of their apartment building just take them home and never tell the authorities.
I myself have seen Roman earthenware come out on a government owned building when digging for a data center power cable. The managers just said keep quiet, otherwise it will delay our own project.
The stuff is not even sold or goes on the black market, it sits in storage at someone's balcony or dumped as rubbish.
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Oh my, you're a free man, as long as the government decides if it okay.
Yikes.
In the United States, it is a federal crime to even possess (let alone use) a metal detector on Federal Park property. This includes all national parks, historic sites, and some other locations owned by the government.
Several states also ban the possession and use of metal detectors on State-owned property.
Had he found this kind of stash in the US, it most certainly would have been confiscated by government in the name of national treasure or other such nonsense.
I'm surprised the UK government hasn't stolen it from him, er, uhh, Reclaimed a National Treasuer That Is The Birthright Of Every British British Citizen See What I "Acquired' For You Using Not Money But A Meme As Payment Vote For Me!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Judas was paid 30 denarians (which are SILVER). of course if you read The Dresden Files it becomes a plot point that all 30 became "cursed".
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
" Easy way to "legalise" something you shouldn't have"
Why shouldn't he have it? He found it on private land with the owner's permission.
If the government wants it, reimburse him for the appraised value, and then they can have it.
You sound silly like he stole it from the Tower of London.
http://5secondfilms.com/watch/captains-order
I seem to recall, from reading about other similar situations, that the British government considers all finds of this nature to be the property of the government. Kind of like how in the U.S. the Feds now consider anything that falls from the sky and lands on Federal land to be federal property.
For some reason the Feds were pissed meteorite collectors were making money off of rocks from the sky and they weren't.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Just as some deep sea explorer will find a cache of loot in the ocean, and considering how strapped governments are for money, it wouldn't surprise me that the government of Italy will want the gold back.
So, how long until metal detector sales increase?
Apparently the laws and rules surrounding these hoards are, according to my source, quite fair. If you find a hoard -- no matter where -- then you are obliged to report it. It belongs to the crown. However, after a qualified examination, those items of no or little scientific interest are returned to you to dispose of in any way you see fit. This encourages amateurs to look -- amplifying the number of finds -- but sends the most scientifically interesting material into the right hands for study. According to my friend quite often the most interesting stuff is not always the most valuable. There is a lively trade in these coins. All for sale quite legally.
Lastly, as another poster has pointed out... The system is fair enough so that it is best to leave the material where you found it so that professional archaeologists can extract it in context -- according to the rules of the 'New Archaeology'. One can still be confident in getting credit for the find and, of course, a fair share of the loot.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Plus individuals
Not spent on a daily basis, but for large transactions like land or cargos. Silver and copper were the daily currency.
hey, todd, why don't we spend 4,000 dollars us, buy two ounces of gold, and use your 3D solid printer to make some dies for Roman coins, roll them in a tumbler with dirt for a day or two to weather them, and then "find" them and sell for a huge, huge, enormous profit....
jes sayin'
(I think there may be a technique called thermoluminesence, or chronoluminescence, that can tell how long something has been underground)
...you're supposed to give them to me!
THINK! It's patriotic
“Gold solidi were extremely valuable coins and were not traded or exchanged on a regular basis. They would have been used for large transactions such as buying land or goods by the shipload.”
...and this entire hoard of these is now worth £100,000... where buying land will put you in the range of £250,000 at a bare minimum.
Coins just aren't worth what they used to be. I suggest he look elsewhere for a better exchange rate.
And his wife is proud of all the weight he's lost.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
that you have to give them to the government as a historical treasure owned by them? Does the finder even get anything or are they just screwed out of it by Britian??
Naw, no roman stuff, if at all up in Greenland and Naw Yawk, most you'll find is likely copper artifacts from michigan traded by the Miami First-Tribes, with may e some feathers from Guatamala. The Miami Tribes traded over pretty much the whole continent, ... Rocks from Arkansas, feathers from Central America, copper form the U.P., coral, turquoise, mica, lots of stuff, but only the copper will show up in your detector.