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Under the Treasure Trove Act, the landowner and the detectorist split the money. If the government wants the coins as national heritage, they have to pay fair market value as determined by a panel of experts. Amazingly, the windfall is not taxable.

Such a law would be an enormous improvement over American law.

Under American law, the "detectorist" gets nothing, the landowner probably gets nothing, and the government gets everything.

It is an amazingly stupid law in the United States.

It puts almost all the incentives on the side of breaking and evading the law.

“Under the Treasure Trove Act, the landowner and the detectorist split the money. If the government wants the coins as national heritage, they have to pay fair market value as determined by a panel of experts. Amazingly, the windfall is not taxable.
Such a law would be an enormous improvement over American law.

Under American law, the “detectorist” gets nothing, the landowner probably gets nothing, and the government gets everything.

It is an amazingly stupid law in the United States.

It puts almost all the incentives on the side of breaking and evading the law.”

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In the 1960’s the Ocala Star Banner (Ocala, Florida) ran a story (with pictures) about a discovery of Spanish treasure from the waters of the Ocklawaha River. It seems fishermen came across a sunken Spanish galleon from the 1600’s. Over several days the men used diving gear to explore the galleon, and recovered numerous coins/jewelry/treasure. The newspaper printed several pictures of the recovered treasure.

Soon thereafter someone informed the discoverers they would have to give up their find to the government. However, (supposedly) the men took the treasure back to the river location where they found the galleon, and threw the treasure back into the black waters of the Ocklawaha River. The newspaper quoted the men as saying, “We had to find the treasure, now let the government find it if they want it.” They had kept secret, the location of the galleon.

It puts the incentives to leaving everything in the ground to disappear forever. Since if you are even seen with a detector on any historic site you will be approached, you don’t do it. I love metal detecting, but am pretty much limited to my own property for fear of onerous penalties. I really do think the UK has got it right; make public lands public, and give all parties an incentive to find historic artifacts for posterity.