A group of treasure hunter unearthed 178 Henry I coins scattered across a remote patch of farmland near Knaresborough, North Yorkshire worth £40,000. The 15 members of the West Riding Detector Group struck silver with the largest hoard of the coins ever discovered in the North of England. The coins were declared official treasure on Wednesday by the North Yorkshire County Coroner and will now be sent for valuation before being sold to a museum. The proceeds will be split between the group and the landowner whose field the hoard was discovered in. The group discovered the hoard between April 2008 and April 2009.
Peter Spencer, a member of the group, said: "Usually when you are detecting you find bits of old cartridge case or worthless metal, but that day every time you heard a bleep it was another coin."
"We weren't even supposed to have an outing that day and it was organised at the last minute, but we're all pretty pleased we went."
Delivery driver Julian Szulc, 49, said: "It was like winning the Lottery."
"I have been detecting for 10 years and this is something you can only dream about."
"I think we might get about £40,000 for them, which is a brilliant amount, but it is about more than the money for us."
Peter Spencer said: “There were 178 coins from the reign of Henry I, most of them were pennies, but a few were cut half-pennies."
“It was tremendously exciting. Hoards of Norman coins are very far and few between. Detectors find things on a daily basis so in a year I would see maybe seven or eight individual Norman coins, but a hoard of this size is the only one that I have ever found in England which contains just one type of penny.”
Mr Spence said the coins, which date from about 1132, would today have a face value of between £7,000 and £8,000.
Jeffrey Warden, one of the finders, said: “It’s a special feeling – it’s like winning the lottery. We knew within minutes we had found something special. I have been doing this 27 years and it’s the best thing I have found.”
The find, known as the Knaresborough Area Hoard, was the centre of a hearing in Harrogate yesterday.Following the recommendation of an expert from the British Museum, coroner Rob Turnbull classified the coins as treasure. They will now be officially valued and any museums interested in obtaining them will have six months to come up with funds. Several institutions have expressed an interest, including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Source: Daily mail.UK, Yorkpress.co.uk.
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