Be Careful What Type Of Coin You Find In The UK !

That is funny. she should have just said it was a family heirloom, given to her in 1995.

I would read this as it not requiring to be reported! As 'The exact use of piedforts is unknown'

At least she took it to a museum - which means it could be recorded along with its find location etc. This is the most important thing IMHO.

Its no wonder people are worried about reporting things they find - If you do find something incredible like the recent Saxon find in the Midlands then for the good of Archaeology and the British museums then it should be Treasure Troved but I think its unfair that small finds are treat like this.

In most cases a lot of these items will be taken and just disappear into Museum vaults never to be seen again by the general public - I think thats wrong. As much as I love the British museum (going there today) only 8 million of its 23 million artefacts are on show. Will I ever get to see the other 15m? I bet not even though it was my ancestors that made / used them.

I also think Archaeologists who get on there high horse about items offered for sale on ebay should get off their soapboxes. Why should they be the only people allowed to handle and own these items. Its like the school yard bully wanting all the shiny marbles for themselves.

I would back an act that insisted all found items be taken to a museum for study but as far as I'm concerned it should be finders keepers on these smaller finds.

"Under the Treasure Act 1996, treasure is defined as any single object at least 300 years old which is not a coin but has a precious metal content of at least 10 per cent."

Anyone else find this a bit tight fisted?

Are their "treasure rights" in the UK, similar to mineral rights in the US?




I'm sorry, I don't follow the logic. Because there is a lot of treasure it has to be reported?

Its like almost everything else in the UK - far too complicated and long winded for the 'man on the street' to understand so most people like Kena dont hunt and most of the ones who do just ignore it. Here is a link to the actual act - with a 'full' explanation of the meaning of 'treasure' which does more to confuse than explain.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts199...n_1#pb1-l1g1




Its to stop important items and sites being found and plundered and also to stop important items from leaving the country by being sold privately. On the whole if you find something incredible you have nothing to worry about as the media hype around the find and the positive outcome for the finder is good publicity for the act and will make future finds more likely to be reported. Its reported and then you and the land owner (you must have their permission to hunt) will split the reward. You will be paid the full market value of the items but will not be allowed to keep them, they will go to a museum.

Unfortunately the act is still viewed with suspicion because of the way the Crown has acted in the past - they have not been 100% fair and there were some very odd laws which meant items were often taken with no reward being given (this can still happen). We still have the remnants of some very odd laws here - not sure if these ones still stand but they used to:

If something is found at low tide on a beach you can keep it, if its high tide its the Crowns.

If the item was buried deliberately its owned by the Crown if it was lost you can keep it.

We even still have a law that makes it legal to loot things washed up on a beach - a few years ago a container ship sank in the Channel and everything from motorbikes to nappies washed up and the locals helped themselves!




The reason its the coroner is because it was their ancient duty to protect the property of the Crown and to protect their financial interests. I think they also still have some other odd rights like the ability to arrest people.

When the law gets hazey and people get annoyed is with items that are worth enough money and are interesting enough the be taken by the crown but are not 'big' enough to merit them reaching the newspapers. Stories of people waiting 5 years to receive rewards for there finds and even finds going missing are not uncommon.

Kena - If you are interested in getting your metal detector out then by far the best thing to do is try a farmer - not sure where your based but the south is covered in farms and also had a lot of Roman habitation and most farmers when told they will get half the value of a large find will be more than helpful and more than happy to let you do all the hard work. There is no need to report the odd Roman coin that you do find, and you will find them, all you have to do is settle up with the farmer somehow.

You have 2 choices when trying to find out who owns the land. You can try the following website:

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/

But it costs about £4 per enquiry and could come back with no results - It does however have a facility where you can just put a push pin into a map so no need to worry about map refs or addresses.

The other option is to ask around - I cant tell if you have many houses around you but if you know any locals just ask them if they know the owner. Maybe even if they dont they will know some other owners nearby. If you have a local pub thats even better, get yourself a beer, buy the landlord one and see what info you can get out of him.

I would just go upto one of the local farms - its harder for people to say 'no' face to face. Introduce yourself, say you live locally and ask if they would mind if you metal detected their fields. Explain to them that you would not be digging huge holes but mainly looking for things that have come to the surface during ploughing. Tell them that they would be entitled to half of anything you find and it couldn't hurt to mention the Staffordshire hoard and the £3 million of Saxon gold that was found recently.

Written permission is best for 100% piece of mind though it can scare some people off. If you can get them to sign something like the following (it also includes an example letter if you would rather write to them):

http://www.treasurefish.com/permission.htm - you would need to add 'all finds to be split 50/50' etc to it.

The chances are you wont find anything of huge value so if you do find something just ask them what they want to do about splitting it, be honest in your evaluation of what you think its worth, if its just the odd coin then I doubt they will even care. Here is a good link from Herefordshire Council - all UK Councils will operate a similar system.

http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/htt/112.aspx

Two things to be careful about - make sure the person giving you permission is the land owner and not a tenant as they cant give permission. Ask them if they have Scheduled Monuments or Sites of Special Scientific Interest that you should keep away from. If they have these on the land they will know - basically they are identified sites that you are not allowed to detect on.

One thing not brought up in this is that if the museums decide they don't need the object for their collections (and that is VERY frequently the case) the finder is allowed to just keep the item. Frankly Great Britain has one of the best laws relating to the finding of buried items of precious metal. In many countries finds are simply the property of the government and they are just confiscated. (These same governments then complain about archeological sites being looted. Of course they are being looted. If you gave the finders a chance to either legally keep what they find or being paid for them as long as the finds and sites are reported, you would be much more likely to be able to work and study the sites.) A coupke members of one of my local clubs go over to England for a week long metal detector hunt, They've found early british copper, hammered silver, roman coins, Roman jewelry, one of the group has even found a couple of hammered gold coins. They have to report all their finds but so far everything has been returned to them. One member of the local club was tickled to death that he got a letter from the British Museum informing him that they were holding onto a Roman Broach that he found a little longer for further research because they thought it might be important enough to keep. He thought it was thrilling that he might have found something important enough to be considered a national treasure. Eventually though they decided they didn't need it and they returned it to him. He now keeps it displayed with the letter.

I think it is a good thing that someone who didn't report the find gets charged and fined. It makes it more likely that finds will be reported and sites can be properly studied. If finds are reported properly it's a win-win situation. A site is discovered and studied and the finder is compensated. And if the find is important the landowner is rewarded as well which makes landowners more likely to permit searches.