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

cnn.com

21–30 of 87 posts

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

#21
> For the group of seven metal detectorists who discovered the 2,584 silver pennies in the Chew Valley area, about 11 miles south of the city of Bristol, it marks a lucrative windfall since they will pocket half that sum. The landowner on whose property the coins were found will receive the other half.

I'm curious how this arrangement came about; is it mandated by law? Negotiated on a case-by-case basis? Is 50/50 the "standard" split?

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

#22
post #2

A thousand year old coin for $1000? That seems rather cheap.

You used to be able to get uncleaned late Roman bronze coins from the Balkans for about a buck apiece in the early 2000s, so I’d guess they’d be maybe $3-5 each now. Then you get the fun of very carefully removing the encrustations to reveal the coin underneath. You generally ended up with a coin worth about what you paid for it, but it was fun.

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

#23

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

It's more complex than that.

Firstly, the UK is three separate legal jurisdictions, each with their own rules on metal detecting: England/Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.

Secondly, these rules are not binary legal/illegal, but on a continuum of permissiveness. You always need some kind of permission. England/Wales is more permissive (where most non-protected land can be detected on with the landowner's permission) than the Republic of Ireland (where you need state approval to use a metal detector anywhere).

Some of the details here: https://detecthistory.com/metal-detecting/uk/

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

#24
post #7
post #4

One wonders if they are worth face value given inflation. It would be a fun exercise to figure out their value in pounds sterling and then calculate what that number would be in the present. That said, my kids and I buried 50 copper coins in a forest in the sierras, perhaps a thousand years from now the aliens visiting our dead planet will find them. :-(

It's have to be deflation for them to be worth more. The only thing here that would be the equivalent would be the value of the silver. I'm _guessing_ that the silver is worth like 1% of the valuation (from looking at the photos). Doesn't seem like it's 2500 kilos of silver (~$1100 per kg at current prices)!

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.

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

#25

> For the group of seven metal detectorists who discovered the 2,584 silver pennies in the Chew Valley area, about 11 miles south of the city of Bristol, it marks a lucrative windfall since they will pocket half that sum. The landowner on whose property the coins were found will receive the other half. I'm curious how this arrangement came about; is it mandated by law? Negotiated on a case-by-case basis? Is 50/50 the…

Yes, it's enshrined in UK law so that museums get opportunity to buy detectorists' finds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Act_1996

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

#27
From the article...

>A hoard of Norman-era silver coins unearthed five years ago in southwestern England has become Britain’s most valuable treasure find ever, after it was bought for £4.3 million ($5.6 million) by a local heritage trust.

Different article about the discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasure...

>The exact value of the Sutton Hoo treasure isn't widely known, in part because the items in the treasure have never been up for sale. They were donated to the British Museum by Edith, and have remained there ever since. Typically, the items are described as "priceless," suggesting that their value to the museum and as historical artifacts makes them incredibly valuable.

>Given their historical significance, it's easy to imagine that the value of the items in the treasure would be valued in tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

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

#28
post #4

One wonders if they are worth face value given inflation. It would be a fun exercise to figure out their value in pounds sterling and then calculate what that number would be in the present. That said, my kids and I buried 50 copper coins in a forest in the sierras, perhaps a thousand years from now the aliens visiting our dead planet will find them. :-(

> perhaps a thousand years from now the aliens visiting our dead planet will find them. :-(

aliens will likely find us the same way we find dinosaurs but probably no one will find us. 1000 years from now things will be very different but i suspect humans will still exist. imo we as a species have very little chance of living 1M years, tho.

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

#29
post #2

A thousand year old coin for $1000? That seems rather cheap.

I was similarly surprised recently when I found out you can legally purchase many ancient artifacts, like lamps, seals, and burial items. They're by no means cheap, but they aren't priceless treasures either. We've always mass produced stuff, and the museums aren't interested in most of it.

Trash is cheap
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