[Pan_Yan]

Very noble of him to call the proper authorities and hand it over knowing that he will get nothing and instead it will be locked up somewhere or sold to pay for more fabulous British health care.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Very noble of him to call the proper authorities and hand it over knowing that he will get nothing and instead it will be locked up somewhere or sold to pay for more fabulous British health care.

Actually, that is a load of rubbish. If they are declared Treasure Trove by the County Coroner, he will share the full commercial value of the coins with the landowner. Not only is this extremely fair, but it dissuades people who find these hoards from disappearing with what they find, cheating the landowner and robbing archeologists of the chance to properly analyze the find and put it in an historical context to learn more about history from this period. It is especially important to have a policy like this with coins of the late third century because Rome was in a state of chaos during this period and left relatively few surviving historical records and much of what we know about Britain in this period is derived from the coins that the Romans/RomanoBritish left behind...

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Very noble of him to call the proper authorities and hand it over knowing that he will get nothing and instead it will be locked up somewhere or sold to pay for more fabulous British health care.

Actually, that is a load of rubbish. If they are declared Treasure Trove by the County Coroner, he will share the full commercial value of the coins with the landowner. Not only is this extremely fair, but it dissuades people who find these hoards from disappearing with what they find, cheating the landowner and robbing archeologists of the chance to properly analyze the find and put it in an historical context to learn more about history from this period. It is especially important to have a policy like this with coins of the late third century because Rome was in a state of chaos during this period and left relatively few surviving historical records and much of what we know about Britain in this period is derived from the coins that the Romans/RomanoBritish left behind...

[Pan_Yan]

Mea Culpa. He'll get something.

[Stentor]

Treasure hunter unearths Britain's largest ever hoard of Roman coins

"Under the 1996 Treasure Act, anyone who finds a group of buried coins has to declare it to the coroner within two weeks. If the coins are bought, as planned, by the Museum of Somerset, the reward will shared between Mr Crisp and the landowner."

[Cheburashka]

Very noble of him to call the proper authorities and hand it over knowing that he will get nothing and instead it will be locked up somewhere or sold to pay for more fabulous British health care.

---

Under English Common Law treasure trove belongs to the Queen, unless someone can prove the treasure belongs to them, i.e. he is the one, or the heir of the one, who hid it. Concealing the fact you found a treasure is a misdemeanor and punishable by fines and a prison term.

In practice the government goes over the treasure, takes the items it feels like keeping, pays the finder for them, and returns everything else to the finder. But you have to report your find to have any chance of getting good title to it.