In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
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In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
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Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#2The fire never reached Pepys house. I thought the cheese was recovered without problem.
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#3wow I am curious about this article
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#4That's fascinating!
I'd love to read more about these, even if they're mostly routine. 1200 a year seems like quite a bit! You could call the show "Coroner's corner"
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#5The fire never reached Pepys house. I thought the cheese was recovered without problem.
Indeed, the article is not quite correct that the cheese was lost.
We know that Pepys buried this cheese, along with other items, because he wrote about it in his diary [1].
It was not mentioned again (or was it?). So based on evidence we don't know what happened to the cheese, but Pepys most likely dug it up along with the other items he had buried (he had also buried wine and office papers).
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#6They say they think it's bizarre, but don't compare to how it's done anywhere else! If it's so bizarre how are other countries like the United States doing it?
The American Civil War wasn't very long ago, but I think if there are no known owners then buried gold like the Confederate Gold would be considered treasure in England even though it isn't old, so they must have similar issues.
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#7Does anyone know what the other side of the issue is?
The fact that this article paints a totally rosy picture, does not mention downsides to the system, only quotes government side sources (they couldn't even find a metal dectectorist to say "yeah it's not perfect but it's good enough"?) is setting off red flags for me.
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#8They say they think it's bizarre, but don't compare to how it's done anywhere else! If it's so bizarre how are other countries like the United States doing it? The American Civil War wasn't very long ago, but I think if there are no known owners then buried gold like the Confederate Gold would be considered treasure in England even though it isn't old, so they must have similar issues.
In Scotland the 'administrator of treasure trove' role appears to be taken by the wonderfully named Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_and_Lord_Treasurer%2...
Edit: We had some indirect dealings with the QLTR recently over some shares in commonly owned land that didn't have clear ownership - the QLTR basically responded with "nothing to do with us" which was good!
Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#9Does anyone know what the other side of the issue is? The fact that this article paints a totally rosy picture, does not mention downsides to the system, only quotes government side sources (they couldn't even find a metal dectectorist to say "yeah it's not perfect but it's good enough"?) is setting off red flags for me.
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Re: In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
#10Does anyone know what the other side of the issue is? The fact that this article paints a totally rosy picture, does not mention downsides to the system, only quotes government side sources (they couldn't even find a metal dectectorist to say "yeah it's not perfect but it's good enough"?) is setting off red flags for me.
We usually get a few news articles a year about either someone not declaring treasure to the coroner (and occasionally ending up in prison for substantial lengths of time, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-505...), or about landowners and detectorists fighting over who has the right to finds which can be worth a substantial sum of money (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-11510037 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-48366616). This seems to indicate to me that the system is broadly working as intended.