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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 1020167, member: 66&quot;]UK Treasure laws are some of the best and most sensible in the world.</p><p><br /></p><p>If the coins are declared treasure they are appraised by independant experts and the government or the museums that want them have a few months to come up with the money to PURCHASE them at the appraised value.&nbsp; That money is then split 50/50 between the finder and the owner of the land it was found on.&nbsp; If they are NOT declared treasure or if the museums can&#039;t come up with the purchase price, the coins are returned to the finder.&nbsp; So either way the person who finds a treasure makes out well.&nbsp; It is not an outright confiscation such as many countries do.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finds of individual coins or just a few coins are not considered Treasure unless they are over three hundred years old.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you find a treasure and don&#039;t report it, and then the government learns of it later they will then confiscate whatever you still have of the treasure and I believe you will be fined an amount equal to the total value of the treasure.&nbsp; So if you find one and try to hide it from the authorities and can end up costing a bundle.&nbsp; You might be able to get jail time as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>The way the law is written makes it to the finders advantage to report the finds so that the area can be properly excavated by archeologists because he can&#039;t lose by reporting it, but he can lose big if he doesn&#039;t.&nbsp; If he reports everyone wins.&nbsp; He either gets the coins or the money, and if it is treasure the museums get new material and the archeological excavation provides more information and knowledge about the era. </p><p><br /></p><p>As to the person who mentions that he prospects, raw gold such as nuggets etc are not treasure unless there is evidence that the were deliberately hidden by a person intending to come back and retrieve them later.&nbsp; Basically Treasure refers to worked objects of gold or silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>The references to claiming it as part of our cultural heritage is because of many countries attempts to demand return of items including coins as part of their cultural heritage.&nbsp; Typically these requests are for all coins made in their country (and sometimes that may have been used in their country) before a given date unless there is documentation to prove they were removed legally from the country before that date.&nbsp; This typically means a documented pedigree back a hundred years or more.&nbsp; Can&#039;t document it?&nbsp; It gets confiscated and sent back to the country.&nbsp; China has been trying to get all their coins up to 1911 declared part of their cultural heritage. Italy is trying to get coins included in their agreements which would results in almost all ancient roman coins being subject to confiscation.&nbsp; Just after the first Gulf War They tried to extend it to all Iraqi coins or coins that may have been used in Iraqi unless it could be proven they left the country before 1990.&nbsp; Iraq had been a trade crossroads and it could have included most of the coins of the world.&nbsp; Basically in the case of one of these Cultural Heritage agreements you coin is guilty of being considered stolen unless you can prove otherwise.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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