History | Landscape | Alternative Britain
Hunt for the Treasure Hunters
Who are the people who dig up coin hoards and ancient gold, silver and bronze?
You’ve probably noticed them from the road as you passed by in the car, purposefully pacing up and down a field, sweeping detectors from side to side, looking for all the world like some kind of dress-down Friday forensics unit.
An interesting assortment of characters, from the part-paramilitary look to the beard and jumper, it is a countryside pursuit that has wide appeal, not least because of occasional media coverage of major finds, enormous hoards of coins and countless other treasures.
But there’s a lot more to it than that.
Buried Treasure
Paul Coleman found himself at the focus of one such story this year after he found over 5,000 coins, in a buried lead bucket, in a Buckinghamshire field. The realisation that it was such a major find dawned on him in stages from the initial beep of the detector.
“You hear the sound and although you can gauge the size — it was a loud signal and I could tell it was quite large — you don’t really know exactly how big it is until you dig. As I dug further down it seemed to be getting larger and larger. A horse shoe buried two inches in the earth sounds big but deeper down much less so. By the time I had dug down two feet, I could tell it was huge.”
It’s a distinct contrast to most metal detecting experiences, according to Peter Welch, the owner of the thousand-strong Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club who were on the scene with Paul when he made his find.
“Lots of people get disappointed quite quickly when it turns out that it’s not instant riches, that they have to put in the time, walking up and down…