I’ve learned from the experience of others. If I were ever to find something like this cache of coins and stuff, I’d melt it down and throw in a silver coin to mess up the gold content and then sell the gold. The government will usually just confiscate finds like this.
DING DING DING, We have a winner.
Im with You but I’d have keep THAT RING!!!
” ... The government will usually just confiscate finds like this ...”
A buddy of mine found a brass cannon from one of the ships that Commodore Perry burned to keep out of the hands of the Brits during the War of 1812.
He spend half a summer getting it out of the mud in Burnt Ship Creek, taking it home to his garage and cleaning 2 hundred years of caked on grime and organic stuff from it.
He just finished and was so proud of his find when the State of New York showed up and seized it without compensation.
England has a policy of paying for the find. This is to prevent the melting down of ancient gold and silver and allows the discoverer to be easily compensated.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Act_1996
I think Britain has fairly good finders law.
Something like this the item is appraised museums get first crack at buying it.
If they don’t want it, it is sold on the open market finder gets the money.
A lot better than we well take that screw you US law.
I think most people would want to preserve the historical value, even at risk of a few hundred or a few thousand dollars of personal gain.
People who hunt for these things probably value history.
NO. Stupid to melt it down OR turn it in, since Britain only pays the “market rate” for finds. Ridiculous. Best to take your time and find a dealer who sells such items to collectors in the black market. Could easily get $25,000 for an item like this, whereas “market value” even if 24k gold would be less than $2k.