Second Largest Coin Hoard Find In UK - $1,000,000

The coins of Carausius are more a bronze alloy.
Let's hope a lot of them have survived without too much corrosion. Fortunately, they are in the hands of a museum, so it would follow that professional cleaning would be an important early step.

With 52,500 coins, let's also hope that a lot of them will find their way onto the legitimate collector market, and more collectors will be able acquire a 'Carausius', or even a scarcer 'Allectus'.

The Frome Hoard is under lock and key - you wont see any of that on the market. When I visited the British Museum department of Coins & Medals (during which I sold the Museum a unique coin for inclusion with the next batch of reference books) they showed me some of the rarer Carausian coins from the Frome hoard (and compared the style of the coin I brought them to the work of a particularly adept celator). Very interesting.

Everyday!

I can quite understand that the whole 'find' is under lock and key just now. EVERY coin in it needs to be closely cleaned and examined; it will most probably mean that literally YEARS of study on the hoard may be required.

Nevertheless 52,500 coins is a lot of coins.

After the hoard is fully analysed and fully documented, and the best coins are sent to museum collections around the World, there is STILL going to be a lot of coins left over.

I have not the slightest doubt that the remaining unNEEDed coins will be auctioned by the Museum for much needed funds to further the Museum's activities.

It may be more than 10 years before the 'you and I' collector will have a chance to bid for any pieces from the hoard will come up for auction, or a chance to buy in a secondary sale from a dealer, who may have been successful at the primary auction.

What is very important is the fact that there is eventually going to be quite a few GENUINE coins, LEGALLY available for sale, by whatever means. That has to be welcomed, and a breath of fresh air to the ancient coin collecting fraternity.

Carausius is by no means a rare find over here - the inflated price for good examples is sentimental because of his relation to the island. 1840 were counted in Ras' spreadsheet on ruler rarity, so the hoard represents a relatively large increase in them, but they are not available to the market and many of the unusual coins are in the British Museum.

The rest of the hoard - the 50000 odd coins remaining - are on permanent display at Somerset Museum, in the original vessel they were deposited in.



The Mossy Bottom Barn Hoard (which is the source of a lot of gallic empire issues) was split for sale because it was not declared Treasure. This hoard is legally Treasure, and therefore became property of the Crown. The Museum acquired the hoard for £320k.

A lot of British stuff is from hoards, but once a hoard is pronounced treasure, theres very little chance of ever seeing any of it. Especially once a museum acquires it. I dont think they legally could sell any of it, even if they wanted to.

Heres a hoard displayed differently, in cross section, the Chalgrove hoard, found 2004. It had a lone coin of Domitianus in it, thus proving the manw as real after experts decided a coin found 100 years earlier in france could not be trusted as historic evidence. The hoard is bottom right - this was the only picture I could find.