An incredible gold find -- by a guy who's only been metal detecting for a year.
Peter Astley was participating in a 'lookee-loo' day for his club, the Midlands Detecting Days, at Ashcombe Park Hall in Staffordshire, England. Too many people were searching on the grounds for his taste, so he went nearby, instead.
"I spent three hours searching one field and decided to switch to another one because I hadn't found anything.
'I went to a field close to the hall and decided to search a couple of metres in front of the edge of the field as I thought lots of people would have looked there.
'I spotted some undulations on the surface so I decided to look there. I got a signal and dug down. A clump came out and I broke it up and there was a gold face of a hammered coin shining brightly in the sunlight.
'I realised they were actually two coins together and nothing had come between them in 500 years. I pulled them apart and just thought, "Wow". I checked the hole and got another signal and found another half-sovereign and then another one and then another one."
The final count: nine half-sovereigns, dating back to Henry VIII's reign. (That monarch loses more stuff!**) One, dated from Edward VI's reign, is especially rare. Estimated value: more than 30,000 pounds. Astley thinks they may have been a highwayman's loot, hidden quickly until he could come back and retrieve them. Who knows...
**Here --
and here, too
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