Dean,
The old English Common Law is that a Tresure Trove is
buried gold or silver that was being hidden or "banked"
and was meant to be recovered later and is presumed to
be so old that the owner and any known desecendents are
dead. It becomes the property of the Crown, just as
abandoned bank accounts become the property of the
state unless claimed by the owner or an heir. Just
finding it is not enough to claim it. (Scotland and Wales
have their own common law provisions.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove#United_Kingdom
details the Treasure Act of 1996, which generously broadens
and re-defines legal "treasure" as the property of the Crown.
If the treasure is to be transferred to a museum (as this will)
the Secretary of State is "required to determine whether a
reward should be paid by the museum before the transfer to
the finder or any other person involved in the finding of the
treasure, the occupier of the land at the time of the find, or
any person who had an interest in the land at the time of the
find or has had such an interest at any time since then. If the
Secretary of State determines that a reward should be paid,
he or she must also determine the market value of the treasure
(assisted by the Treasure Valuation Committee), the amount
of the reward (which cannot exceed the market value), to whom
the reward should be paid and, if more than one person should
be paid, how much each person should receive."
For example, the huge find at Sutton Hoo was NOT a treasure
trove because there was no intention to recover it -- they were
grave goods. In March 1973, a hoard of 7,811 Roman coins was
found buried in a field at Coleby in Lincolnshire. It was made
up of antoniniani believed to have been minted between 253
and 281 A.D. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales held
in the 1981 case of Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster
v. G.E. Overton (Farms) Ltd. that the hoard was not treasure
trove as the coins did not have a substantial silver content.
Thus, it belonged to the owner of the field... (Note: the
antoniniani was originally a silver coin valued at two denarii
but with only 1.5 denarii worth of silver in it; the rest was
bronze. It was "inflation money." The Empire kept adding more
bronze in place of silver until it was worthless. But if you find
7800 of 'em, let me know.)
One hopes that the reward intentions of the Crown are
generous, but there seem to be no guarantees in the law.
There don't seem to be bones with this "treasure," so the
finders can't argue that it was, like Sutton Hoo, grave goods.
It seems to be a clear-cut case of "hoard." I suspect the
general elation over the find will incline government to
reward the finders. Failure to do so would incline future
finders to loot sites and that's the last thing they want.
On the black market, this find would be evaluated at a
worth of tens of millions.
Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "dean bessey" <deanbes...@yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 10:10 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT - Gold Hoard Found in England
Well, I am not that up on british law and maybe there is a british legal
clause that the guys dont own it. That is however different from what
the article says as it clearly says that they will split the proceeds
(Not that reporters always get the details right when it comes to
value).
It is also contrary to what my friends who are coin and artifact dealers
have to say about british cultural property laws. Most of them are quite
happy with how the british handle things and you never hear stories
about how they got screwed by the cultural property department (Compare
what people have to say about britain to what they say about canadian
cultural property laws for example).
Maybe though you are right and that these guys will in fact not get a
cent. I am not a lawyer. But I am leaning toward thinking that they will
get a fair shake come payoff time. But if I am wrong and these guys do
get their loot legally stolen from them by the government you can bet
that the next gold stash that is found wont end up being studied and on
public display but will discreetly get sent to switzerland shaped as not
so small shiney cubes.
My bet is that the guys running the cultural property system in britian
is smarter than that.
Cheers
DEAN
--- On Thu, 9/24/09, ensorama...@ntlworld.com <ensorama...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:
From: ensorama...@ntlworld.com <ensorama...@ntlworld.com>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT - Gold Hoard Found in England
To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 3:46 PM
Hi Greg, Dean, All,
This amazing hoard was found just a short distance away
from me near a place called Brownhills at the side of the
A5. Lots of discussion about its value on the news as usual.
I think that in this case it will be classed as treasure as
it was deliberately hidden ( I think the law is different if
it is classed as lost ) and will not belong to the landowner
or the finder, so will not be sold but go to the museums.
Once valued their will be a reward allocated which in this
case will belong to the finder as he got permission to
search from the landowner. Apparently he has agreed to share
that with the landowner...which only seems fair.
I intend to visit the museum in Birmingham over the weekend
to see this exciting historical find right on my doorstep.
Graham Ensor, UK
---- dean bessey <deanbes...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> > From: Greg Hupe <gmh...@htn.net>
> >
> > think also that the true story is all about good
luck and
> > the willingness to get permission and agreements
from
> > property owners!
> >
> It is more than that. It is also an example of common
sense historical artifact laws at work. Britain has
constructed their artifact laws in such a way that it is in
a finders best interest to report all of their findings (It
is also illegal to not report your findings but that dont
really give you much incentive and wont work anyway).
> As a result whenever artifact or coin hoards get found
in UK everybody who is interested gets to study them and
learn as much history as possible from the stash. And the
actual finder gets more money for them than if he tried to
sell them in secret on the UNESCO black market (Probably has
to pay taxes on the sale of the hoard also). Finder,
science, general public, government, land owners - everybody
wins with british cultural property laws.
> If this stash of gold was found in Italy, Israel,
Egypt or Peru, the site would have been very quickly
destroyed behond recognition and reburied (After dark and
probably all in one night) to hide any evidence of the sites
existance, and the gold melted down, stamped Johnson matthey
and (With the governments full blessing) shipped out of the
country.
> Rather than being studied by researchers as this hoard
will be, it would have gone on the next fed ex flight out
and went directly from the archaeological site to a swiss
bank vault.
> It would have been UNESCO at work
> Sincerely
> DEAN
>
>
>
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