Barrie Plasom and Dave Phillips
Posted on 10/29/2008 7:16:05 PM PDT by BGHater
As the credit crunch hits pensioners across the country one pair have hit the jackpot by finding buried treasure.
The collection of bronze coins, which may be worth hundreds of thousands in sterling, were discovered in a field north of Newport Pagnell and have now been declared as treasure.
It was discovered by a pair of experienced metal detectorists on ploughed farmland on December 1, 2006.
An investigation into the find was concluded by the Milton Keynes Coroner yesterday.
The court heard that pensioners Dave Phillips, from Dunstable, and Barrie Plasom, from Aspley Guise, were searching together using metal detectors with permission from the land owner.
The pair, who have been detecting together for three years, were on opposite sides of a field when Mr Plasom 'struck gold'.
Mr Phillips, who has been involved in nine previous significant finds, said: "Barrie found the first six stuck together and rang me on my mobile.
"Ten minutes later he called again and said he had 22 now.
"I said hang on and ran across the field."
They continued to dig a hole three feet deep and found more than 1,400 bronze coins and pieces of pottery.
"It was about 5.30pm at this time of year so it was pitch black and we couldn't see a thing," added Mr Phillips.
"We laid on our bellies and kept pulling out coins.
"It is difficult to explain how you feel when you are finding coins left, right and centre.
"We are a couple of old men and we suddenly became like young men.
The coins are inscribed with the heads of various Roman emperors and leaders and some with words translated as 'Happy times are here again', which date from around 348AD and was meant to reassure Roman citizenry of their safety against barbarian raids.
It is believed the hoard was deposited on a Roman rubbish pit.
The pair, who have both been metal detecting for 30 years, declared their find to Bedford Museum, though later realised the site was 250 yards inside the Buckinghamshire border.
An investigation by the coroner was called for as the Buckinghamshire County Museum, in Aylesbury, wants to acquire it.
Coroner Rodney Corner declared the hoard and its ceramic holder as treasure under the Treasure Act 1996.
The collection will now be valued by a committee of experts and the museum will then decide if it can afford to buy it.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Roman ping.
‘Happy times are here again’
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Thanks BGHater. Those coins look great. |
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Bronze, was it inflationary coinage? I wonder why it was in/near a garbage dump.
It was stamped out by the roman federal reserve to bail out the Italian real estate market.
my thinking on hoards like this in the time and location given is that maybe it was an emergency placement which the owner(s) did not survive to reclaim.
ROFL!
You are on a roll today!
Makes sense.
I am a numismatist myself, and despite the fact I collect coins, I agree with the principles behind the treasure act, and so do most metal detectorists in this country. They will probably base their appraisal on the values contained in David Sear’s ‘Roman Coins and their Values’ vols I-III, which is in my experiance, a pretty accurate appraisal of the value of the coins within and most dealers buy the coins for around the price in Sears, and sell them at the price of the grade above (unless you haggle them down)...
Makes tragic sense in fact.
I hope I never get to see such days, but sometimes I wonder and worry...
Si tu vales, valeo!
Depends if it’s declared as ‘treasure trove’ or not. If it is, the treasure is basically requisitioned and the finder is compensated along with the landowner for the commercial value of the coins. My understanding is that a find has to be unique or unusual in some way to qualify as treasure. Most of those look like bog-standard post-Diolectianian reform 3rd to early 4th century roman coins to me. Although the condition they’re in is pretty good for a bronze hoard....
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