The former bricklayer, 68, digs for six hours-a-day, three days-a-week on fields close to his home in Waterlooville, Hants. He has sold a Roman pendant worn by Caesar for £30,000 and is selling a Norman ring later this year with a guide price of £80,000. His biggest sale was a haul of 250 Roman coins found in fields near Petersfield for £100,000 to the British Museum in 1996. (more…)
Amateur treasure hunters have hit the jackpot after digging up a rare hoard of pennies from the reign of Henry I. The 15 members of the West Riding Detector Group struck silver when they unearthed 178 12th century coins scattered across a remote patch of farmland near Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. (more…)
Behind a family portrait on the wood-paneled basement wall of the suburban home of one of Chicago’s most notorious mobsters, federal agents made a stunning find: a secret compartment containing almost three-quarters of a million dollars in cash, 1,000 pieces of stolen jewelry, and seven loaded firearms. (more…)
For a man with family treasures worth a fortune, Jaume Grau-Pla was somewhat cavalier about security. His 12th-century relics and jewels are worth hundreds of millions of pounds, a dazzling collection that others might have locked away or consigned to a bank vault complete with an expensive insurance policy. (more…)
The Cuerdale Hoard is the greatest Viking silver treasure trove ever found, outside Russia, far exceeding in scale and range any hoard found in the Scandinavian homelands or in the western areas of Viking settlement. Containing around 8,600 items of silver coins and bullion when found, and weighing some 40kg, it is an astonishing assemblage, as impressive even in its slightly depleted form today as it must have been when it was first put together in the early tenth century. (more…)
The Bactrian Treasure (also known as the Bactrian Gold or Bactrian Hoard) is a treasure cache that lay under the “Hill of Gold” (also known as the “Golden Hill”, or Tillia tepe) in Afghanistan for 2,000 years untilSoviet archeologists exposed it shortly before the 1979 invasion. The hoard then went missing during subsequent wars in Afghanistan, until it was “rediscovered” and first brought to public attention again in 2003. (more…)
In 1912, a small boy was exploring the village of Mala Pereshchepina, which is 13 km from Poltava, Ukraine, when he fell into the grave of Kuvrat, the founder of Great Bulgaria and father of Asparuh, the first Bulgarian Emperor. The boy discovered a vast treasure containing more than 800 items. (more…)
In 1989, Donald Scheer, a Philadelphia financial analyst, purchased a painting in an Adamstown, PA flea market. He didn’t particularly like the painting, but bought the item for the old frame. It cost him $4. When taking the painting out of the frame it subsequently fell apart, but he noticed a peace of paper lurking within. It was an old copy of the United States Declaration of Independence. He had it appraised and to his surprise it was an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that was printed by John Dunlap. (more…)
Środa Śląska is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. On June 8, 1985, construction workers discovered gold and silver coins during demolition of an old building. The authorities secured the original find of 3,000 Prague groschen. Three years later during a demolition in the vicinity of the first discovery, an even bigger find was reported. Most of the treasure was looted and disappeared before it could be taken by the authorities, although many important and valuable historic artifacts were found. (more…)
A 2,221-year-old silver coin dug up as part of a hoard is the oldest piece of Roman money ever found in Britain. Dating from 211 BC and found near the Leicestershire village of Hallaton, the coin was uncovered with 5,000 other coins, a helmet and a decorated bowl. Unearthed in 2000 by a metal detectorist, staff at the nearby Harborough Museum have only just realised its significance. (more…)