Dave's Right - They're Ours!

Numismatic News' Dave Harper comments on the recent double eagle find in Great Britain. Based on recent cultural property assertions regarding world coins (background info here http://ancientcoincollecting.blogspot.com/2010/10/yin-and-yang.html), these coins belong to the U.S., right?

Dave's post here http://blog.numismaticnews.net/buzz

 

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Seems Dave forgot to link to the story he mentioned, it was also sent out in a Coin Update.com e-newsletter a couple of days ahead of his thread:

Hackney gardeners dig up hoard of American gold coins from The London Evening Standard [10/18/2010]

 

Interesting quote : "If the coins are declared Treasure, they will become Crown property and will be valued."

In other words, the British government will steal them from the discoverers ?

 

That gardner should have kept his mouth shut and offed the Hoard piece by piece . It's not that difficult to do.

 

Not exactly.

'Under the 1996 Treasure Act, [see Ownership of treasure which is found.] anyone who finds a group of buried coins has to declare it to the coroner within two weeks.' If the coins are bought, as might a museum, the reward is typically shared with the finder, as was the case with a recent Roman horde found in Somerset.
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But it is against the law and if caught might be more costly than selling off the found coins. Also, it appears from the Standard article that it was not just one gardener, but a group of honest law abiding people.

 

I was only joshing to a degree. I personally have prospected in the Black Hills and many other parts of the southwest, and made some terrific finds. Now according to the letter of the law, who owns my finds ? Over my cold dead hands! lol

 

I thought that privately found coins are personal property of the land owner here, so not seeing how our government steals them Doug. In Britain, found coins are considered the Queens and the government, as a courtesy, agrees to "share" it with the finders. We fought a couple of wars to have different rules.

To anyone who does not know, this is a tongue in cheek poke at countries who claim that they "own" any coin that is found or was ever minted there, and want to prohibit importation into the US of any coins from their country before a very arbitrary cutoff date.

 

How do the British define "treasure"?? is it just anything valued at a certain amount like a box of cash? or do the items have to be some sort of historical treasure that is priceless?

 

READ the above link I provided to the UK Treasure Act.

 

I'm not a legal export but from what i could gather form the law, is if the coins were 200 years old they would be "Treasure" but since they are not, they would have to be of "outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance" to be "Treasure"....

I think the coins are a nice find but its hard to call coins that you can buy on Ebay items of "outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance" but i dont think the U.K. government will see it that way.

 

They belong to me! My Dad told me that he had buried them in 1944 before the Normandy invasion on June 6.

Chris

 

1) Yes - the US govt should demand the immediate return of these important American cultural artifacts to their home. After all, this is what every scumbag country has been doing for the past few decades.

2) "Treasure" = anything of value that the POS British government can confiscate. It might be the law, but that does not make it moral, decent, or right.

 

If the U.K. thinks the "treasure" status on these coins is good enough to warrant confiscation then i think the U.S. should step in and demand our 'archaeological" coins of cultural importance be returned at once!!

 

Sounds like a great deal. You guys get those coins back, and the rest of the world gets back what had been buried in the ground elsewhere and "somehow" ended up in museums in the US ...

Christian

 

What about all the unexploded ordnance the US dropped on Laos, its metal and buried, will they want that as well.

You can have the coins back if you promise to take back all the rusty Ford cars and junk American TV programmes and movies.

 

Well since we make the most entertainment in the world by far, I am guessing the world views British tv programmes and movies as the junk, no? And British cars? Lol, MG, Triumph, yeah, you make cars immune to rust!

 

I don't think that's true at all! Certainly not now, with "reality" (sic) shows the norm on US TV. Sure, the US made good stuff a while back. However, you really can't beat good old Brit comedies, such as Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, the Blackadder series, at al.

Unfortunately, the UK follows the US 'lead', and produces its own junky shows in the mould of the US junky shows.

Just because a stash of US coins were found in the UK (remember - we're your best ally) doesn't mean that xenophobic and jingoistic statements are warranted. My guess is that they'll be sold [to a museum or similar] or returned to the finders, and if the former, they'd get a good-sized %age of the proceeds. Wish I could find that kind of treasure!

Personally, I think the treasure trove rules are a bit silly in these cases.

Rule Britannia!!