Years of work remain on the coins ! http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/17/roman-coin-hoard-valued-320250:thumb:
"...his troops proclaimed him emperor, and the coins were his Facebook page." *groan* Anyway, moving on... This is the first article I've read about the Frome hoard that comes right out and says they want to keep the entire hoard of 52 thousand coins together in one place if they can raise the money to buy it outright. That sucks from a collector's point of view, and even from a museum point of view I have to wonder what the point is. The visiting public won't be getting a look at all of them, they'll never have every coin on display, and they admit that 11 thousand in the find can't even be identified. I expect if they keep the hoard intact, most of them will end up filed away in backroom drawers, never to be seen again. Sure, cherry pick the rarities and put them in museums, but all the common ones as well? Really? I'd like to know what the other ancient collectors here think about the possibility of the entire Frome hoard never making it to market.
I think its pretty shi**y. But im also not surprised considering thats what usually seems to happen with hoard, especially with this much coverage. Seems like a waste & better off been left in the ground.
I like the idea. Ancient collectors learn a lot from hoards, even later on. Having the hoard intact may yield information 50 years from now that would not be possible if the hoard was broken up. I know of many hoards in the past that if still intact we could today add to our knowledge of the era. There are lots of coins out there guys, a lot more than this is dug up every year, so don't fret the fact that these may never make it to market. Chris Edit: To the OP, just to let you know, this is nowhere near the largest Roman hoard ever found, maybe not even top 5 or top ten. It may be the largest ever found in Britain, maybe. About 500 years ago they found a hoard of 400,000 Roman GOLD coins. Most were melted for the gold
Interesting how the valuation has gone down. When they were first found they were saying 2.5 million. Now it's down to about a half a million, or about $10 per coin. And if they buy the whole hoard and the just put it away in the storeroom somewhere it's OK. When that happens to hoards like this they tend to evaporate over time. Go back to them ten years later and now there's only 20,000 coins etc. One thing I learned from the link, I don't want a VW Polo. 160 Kilos wrecking the suspension? I weigh more than that.
That doesn't really surprise me much. Most of the coins are of common emperors, and it sounds like most aren't in great shape, with over a fifth of them in poor enough shape to still be unidentifiable. I'm pretty sure most of the value comes from those Carausius coins. As for what they plan on doing with them, as much as I'd like a piece of this horde myself, as long as researchers have easy access to these coins, I don't have a problem with them wanting to keep a find like this together.
And the funny thing is, it wouldnt surprise me that if they took the time they could take pics and post them, online collectors could possibly identify alot of them. But thats alot of resources/time.
