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Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

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Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#71
post #52

Obligatory mention: TV series Detectorists [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists

Great show and I thoroughly recommend it but...

Everyone in it seems to be doing these dodgy "oo ur" West Country farmer caricature. I can't think of a single character with an actual Suffolk accent.

If I compare to The Dig[1], another great film about finding buried treasure in Suffolk[2], Ralph Fiennes nails it[3].

It's like the good ol' days when the BBC used get Rada trained actors to put on "Cockney" accents to represent the working classes.

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3661210/

2. Sutton Hoo, a set of long boats commerating dead Anglo-Saxon kings. Probably the greatest treasure ever found in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx8yri1nejc

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either bread was expensive or hookers cheap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect > the tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth. In turn, these sectors of the economy become more expensive over time, because their input costs increase while productivity does not. Typically, this affects services more than man…

This is a really roundabout way of referencing the scene in Silicon Valley where he figures out the new algorithm while everyone else is having a side conversation about how best to manage the conference attendees.

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were donated to the British Museum by Edith, so they got a tax deduction at a completely arbitrary value, valued in a private document of an appraiser nobody has ever seen, and have just been rolling forward the tax deduction against their current year's tax liability for all eternity? good business.

And now everyone gets to benefit via the museum rather than letting it hide in a private collection.

yes, but when compared to the US tax laws, that incentivize the same thing at much stricter limits, its not really worth saying since its a given

the US has a maximum 30% tax deduction for donated assets, while the UK has 100%. they both allow you to carry forward that tax deduction where it exceeds your current year tax liability. (I was inaccurate earlier, the carry forward is 3-5 years in both jurisdictions)

good business to arbitrarily value a piece and make sure all publications are unable to come to a value for something "priceless"

I don't find that controversial, I think its good business and inspirational. If I was in that position I would ensure the valuation was favorable

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#74
post #71
post #52

Obligatory mention: TV series Detectorists [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists

Great show and I thoroughly recommend it but... Everyone in it seems to be doing these dodgy "oo ur" West Country farmer caricature. I can't think of a single character with an actual Suffolk accent. If I compare to The Dig[1], another great film about finding buried treasure in Suffolk[2], Ralph Fiennes nails it[3]. It's like the good ol' days when the BBC used get Rada trained actors to put on "Cockney" accents to…

It's great that The Dig nails the accent. Unfortunately, its history is not very good, especially in its portrayal of the women involved.

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#75
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you done any comparative economics? That is where you take what it "cost" in terms of money for goods or services at a given time and compare that to the cost of the same (or equivalent) goods and services in the present time. Some things like property ownership won't work because the rules changed so much between then and now but meals? Etc? might work.

It depends a lot on the basket you are choosing. Picking the 'BigMac index' might be fun, ie you try to price a Big Mac. (Since the Big Mac doesn't contain any tomatoes, you could probably have made a reasonable Big Mac clone in the Middle Ages.) It gets ridiculous, if you go by the price of eg the amount of computation a human can do in a year. Or 'ice cubes in the height of summer'.

I could certainly see that. Now I'm wondering what someone would have bought with these pennies when they were actually coin of the realm.

Edit: per an up level comment, 15 chickens or half a knife? Hmm, chickens are easy the knife isn't. (wide variability in knife pricing). Given that the 'collectible' value has increased beyond the monetary value.

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#77
post #74
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great show and I thoroughly recommend it but... Everyone in it seems to be doing these dodgy "oo ur" West Country farmer caricature. I can't think of a single character with an actual Suffolk accent. If I compare to The Dig[1], another great film about finding buried treasure in Suffolk[2], Ralph Fiennes nails it[3]. It's like the good ol' days when the BBC used get Rada trained actors to put on "Cockney" accents to…

It's great that The Dig nails the accent. Unfortunately, its history is not very good, especially in its portrayal of the women involved.

Oh yeah I totally agree, it is highly fictional. I mean it's Netflix, so I would definitely treat it as nothing more than entertainment.

I'm half surprised they didn't try to work Sutton Hoo's proximity to the Rendlesham Forest Incident in there to spice things up with an alien landing[1]. It's literally just over the road.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#78
post #18
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Professional coin nerd here) You’d be surprised! It’s all about supply and demand. You can get very common Ancient Greek coins from 300 BC (eg ~2300 years old) for $50 these days. For example: https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/greek/ancients-phoenicia-s... Of course you can also get rare ones for $thousands or $millions. All about who cares and how many there are.

If I was looking for one of those coins as a gift for a friend who is very into ancient Greece, where would I go? Bearing in mind that I know nothing about ancient Greece and coins in equal parts.

I would choose another gift. The trade in ancient coins encourages looters to dig up ancient archeological sites, destroying their value to archeology.

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#79

So metal detection to search for historical artifacts is legal in UK, illegal in Ireland?

Is there any place where metal detection to search for historical artefacts is illegal on private land?

In the UK, if the site is a scheduled ancient monument then you need permission to even dig a small hole.

Re: Hoard of coins from Norman Conquest is Britain's most valuable treasure find

#80
My first reaction to news of these discoveries is a twinge of grief, thinking about the poor sod who didn't make it back. Take the Lewis chessmen. He was probably a guy just trying to make a simple business importing chess sets, and someone whacked him.
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