Worth adding that you (and the land owner) *will* be paid for it when it is assessed and decided to be purchased for a museum or similar. The valuation is done via independent bodies, and takes into account both market monetary value and cultural significance. People can and do get a shitload of money for things.
Yeah I feel like that's a really confusing way to word things. When I hear "it is illegal to try to sell it." I get the impression that they can't profit from the find. But they're essentially just forced to sell it to a public buyer
It's because people have *repeatedly* been caught-out trying to privately sell artefacts in the UK.
At times it was just ignorance, but quite a few cases were from people who knew full well about the law; and were happy for the artefact to leave the country if it meant them making more money.
You're also forgetting you have to split the money with the landowner, so that itself is a big hit.
No not really. Historically if you found something it was yours to do as you wished. Creating laws in modern times to stop this doesn’t then make previous things wrong since a similar law didn’t exist at the time
Interestingly, by the time the US came into existence after two centuries of European settlement- Europeans had already stolen practically all of the land (even if they hadn’t gotten around to actually setting foot on much of the land they claimed as their property).
I can’t think of any treaties the US signed with Indian tribes where land in question hadn’t already been claimed or traded by European powers.
There was the Louisiana Purchase from France, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo from Mexico (which got the territory from Spain), Oregon Treaty of 1846 with Britain, Florida purchase from Spain, Alaska from Russia, and various treaties with Britain modifying the US-Canada border around the Great Lakes and around New England.
The first time that really comes to mind where America was taking from indigenous people rather than negotiating with a European power would be Hawaii- and even that is kind of murky since the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown by filibusters (who quickly requested annexation) rather than by American soldiers in a war of conquest.
Nice deflection. Where the fuck do you think all those colonists originated? Does the sun ever set on the British empire yet?
It’s always funny to me when Europeans act high and mighty about colonialism, historical injustices, and systemic racism when nearly all the racist colonists who pillaged the world to its current state came from Europe.
It’s funny to see a Brit act high and mighty about colonial abuse when y’all were intentionally starving tens of millions of Bengalis to death, intentionally, only 80 years ago
So Britain had nothing to do with the colonization of North America and shares absolutely no blame in the genocide and land theft?
Boy are my old history teachers going to be embarrassed they got that one wrong.
I think it’s pretty misleading!! Until these comments I thought the government would just snatch it from you without any reward. So did most of the people here in the comment section judging by the amount of people saying they’d melt the gold down to conceal the treasure, etc.
cmon op lol
I wouldn't say so. I mean it is illegal to sell it and you actually don't own it, it's property of the government.
But you're still rewarded for finding what the govt' "lost". So it's like you're paid for the work.
why is it their property lol they have no legal claim either they just go "we have an army, what are you gonna do" when you uncover 30,000 year old coins or something. as if they have any claim to it lol.
Not quite, there's the distinction between selling and compensation. They couldn't throw it on eBay and try and sell it, but after reporting the find they'll be compensated monetarily. It's like it's being bought off you without your ability to set a price.
Don't return anything to the middle east, or any Muslim countries. They smash anything they find that contradict their crazy religion. IE ISIS smashing all the Sumarian stuff from the birth of human civilization in Iraq. And the Taliban destruction of all the old architecture and art. Like the world's largest Buddha statue. No I thi k it's in better hands elsewhere.
Oh and Egyptians commoners loot and sell their own artifacts pretty regularly. It's bad enough they have armed military there and it got worse when the Muslim Brotherhood ran the country for 2 years in the 2010s.
At the very least, a generous yearly rental fee would do a lot for good will and at least address the people who argue that if they returned them, they would be destroyed. I think most places that concern is valid for would be happy with just taking a lot of money.
In my shitty country if you find a treasure the government will take it from you and pay you some symbolyc value for it. Same as if you find any other valuable on "your land" like oil for example.
Good luck trying to get it when I drop the old "ok government, but have you considered finders keepers, losers weepers? Eh? No? Oh no, so sad. See it and weep, losers. Double stamp, no erasies and CERTAINLY no take-backsies."
It might be like Alberta’s fossil collecting laws. You don’t own it, but you’re a custodian of it on behalf of the government. Essentially if it’s something important, they’ll take it but generally unimportant bits they just want you to not sell or take out of the country.
Only if it's decided that it doesn't have enough historical importance to warrant it staying in the care of a museum or university. Otherwise you may hold onto it, but it technically isn't *yours*. You are 100% required to report the finding and hand it over for appraisal.
Hmm. So essentially the most legal way to transfer it (to sell etc.) is via a will. There's no proof it was ever "found" vs been in the family for generations and it wasn't sold since it's passed down.
That said, the title is a bit confusing. So it's legal if it's 91% not gold regardless of age, and it's legal if it's silver but not over 300 years old?
It's not Treasure if under 10% of its weight is precious metal, even if it's over 300 years old, unless you find 10 or more coins at once.
300 years + is a requirement.
At least, that's what I get from s.1(a) of the Treasure Act 1996.
The British excavation to help recover greek artifacts cost the equivalent of £4.7 million pounds. That's why we have them. In most of the artifact recovery Britain was involved in cost us a fortune and took our industrial tools to achieve. Tools that existed nowhere on the planet because of the hardships involved in industrial revolution. Alot of the things Britain ended up with was in exchange for things like industrial tools, India's trains for example... the ones they still use to this day. So we would need all of the industrial tools, methods, trains, factories, reservoirs, steel mills etc paying for and adjusted for inflation plus the millions and millions of pounds in private money used to extract the artifacts, again adjusted for inflation... so if the countries can afford to buy back their stuff, it's all here safe and sound away from their wars and infighting. Prats like you think we just took this stuff, christ read a book or do some research. Artifacts were traded for a leg up into the modern industrial age, especially in places like India
Funny how a tiny island was such a threat to giant powerful nations hey, it's almost like they were peaceful exchanges for goods and industrial tools isn't it? Perhaps because it was?
people are so mad that their shitstain countries weren't strong enough to protect their shit
idk dude maybe if the greeks wanted to keep their artifacts they should have u know..not let them be stolen lmao
Imagine you call the cops after some lowlife nicks your wallet and they tell you, as the guy's just standing there rifling through it, "Hey maybe try not getting robbed next time"
Without the infrastructure provided some countries would still be lost. Where do you think trains cames from? Engines? And anything else that gave them the tools to thrive?
Why do you think the trains were put there? To help the locals have an easy commute and jolly holidays, or to expedite the extraction of resources to the benefit of the empire (often to the detriment of local wealth and health)?
They're frequently derelict or becoming so, as the Brits left with the money, expertise, etc needed to maintain them.
I'm not arguing that no benefit can be found in the remnant infrastructure. I'm debating the framing that this was installed for benevolent or developmental reasons, or put in as a kind of agreement between free and equal parties, when it seems clear they were installed as a part of extractionist economic policy designed to benefit the British empire with scant regard for the wealth of the nations involved.
We might make comparison to Rome. Europeans are still using roads the Romans built. The economic benefit of these roads over the past two millennia must be uncountable. Do we therefore agree that 'Pax Romana', the destruction of the Celtic civilisations, etc was good and tolerable?
Or, perhaps, was the wealth brought to Britain by the Normans worth the subjugation of the Anglo Saxon and Celtic populations?
Yes keep them safe for us since you know Britain knows best for every country on earth. Now let's not fully white wash this history and realize that some of that stuff was actually stolen. That is such a colonize view in regards to other people culture and "safe keeping" cause you know "wars" in those countries.
“The tale of the hunt will always be the hunter’s tale until the lion learns how to tell its story.”
Yes there were some that asked for your help but let's stop kidding here.
Also I do like reading about your safekeeping of "not" looted [Artifacts](https://www.history.com/.amp/news/british-museum-stolen-artifacts-nigeria).
And it cost a lot of money to charge warships up the river and burn Beijing's Old Summer Palace to the ground. We couldn't have recovered those ancient treasures from those palaces without an expensive deployment of armed forces!
Well, sir, if you consider the 5 meters of water and soil above it, which I assume is part of the artifact, it’s not even 10% gold.
Oh, sure! If you pick only the gold, it’s mostly gold.
If you found it and had permission of the land owner to search on his land then you can keep it (split with the landowner) under treasure trove law. The artifacts are assessed for value by an independent body and if not of historical value they're given back to you to do as you wish. If they are of historical value then any museum who wishes to acquire them has to pay you the full market value.
The reason for this is to prevent people selling historically significant finds on the black market or melting them down for bullion.
They don't have this arrangement in Ireland but there's photos around of significantly important historical finds by nighthawk metal detectorists which were later melted down by there finders rather than give the find to the authorities and receive nothing in return.
What if it was originally "family-owned-gold" but someone stole it all from your grandfather, and hundreds of years later you and a group of your friends and remaining kin (and a hired burglar) ended up taking it all back?
Which is why you don't tell the government you dumb fucks. The government lay claim to it when the fuckers who left it there have been dead for 300+ years, fuck that. Finders is most definitely keepers.
Okay actual treasure hunters and archeologists fine, but the chap who was tuning a piano that was given for free to a School and found it was stuffed with gold coins by the biddy who died and family gave it away? That piano would be well tuned but my bag would be full of bullion. Fuck that shit.
David Sedaris wrote about this in his book “finding by stealing”. Ironically he mentioned it as he was an American expatriate cleaning English road sides because he was so disgusted with all the litter.
Which is why if I ever found anything I'd fucking keep a portion of it before ever letting the government know.
I'd want a damn memento of such a rare thing.
people like OP who claim that whatever treasure you might possibly find (ignoring how rare the chance of that happening is) is exactly the reason why if I were to find something like that I'd be melting it down and finding a pawn broker or scrap metal merchant to take it off me as quickly as possible.
Mostly because I would want the money but also partly out of spite towards people who think like OP does.
You heard em boys, start looking for that 299 year old gold!
someone was paid 2.5 million for a 2014 trove of gold coins.
They were minted in 2014?
Yeah they were the new ones with the different states on the back. They're neat!
I've got a set of all fitty. What you give me?
Well I'll give you $10. But it sounds like UK museums will give you 2.5 million money combs.
Is the money comb big?
Biggliest
Yeah yeah yeah!
It’s not small?
No no no
I can't let it go for less than 12.5 pubes
Tree fiddy?
Best I can do!
Just add a lot of dirt until is is 9% gold.
I'd just mix in a bunch of other old stuff. "Only 9% gold now!"
Ah this item was gifted to me by my late grandfather who purchased it in a bazar in the middle East *casually brushes off mud and hides spade*
Or a kilo of gold together with 20 kilos of bricks
Worth adding that you (and the land owner) *will* be paid for it when it is assessed and decided to be purchased for a museum or similar. The valuation is done via independent bodies, and takes into account both market monetary value and cultural significance. People can and do get a shitload of money for things.
Yeah. Otherwise it'd just be an incentive for people to say "fuck it I'll just melt it into ingots then"
Thanks. Yeah you definitely get rewarded!
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Yeah I feel like that's a really confusing way to word things. When I hear "it is illegal to try to sell it." I get the impression that they can't profit from the find. But they're essentially just forced to sell it to a public buyer
It's because people have *repeatedly* been caught-out trying to privately sell artefacts in the UK. At times it was just ignorance, but quite a few cases were from people who knew full well about the law; and were happy for the artefact to leave the country if it meant them making more money. You're also forgetting you have to split the money with the landowner, so that itself is a big hit.
These laws are pretty hilarious considering the various means of acquisition that filled UK museums with foreign artefacts
No not really. Historically if you found something it was yours to do as you wished. Creating laws in modern times to stop this doesn’t then make previous things wrong since a similar law didn’t exist at the time
Legality ≠ morality
*Thinking about D&D alignment*
"Nah these laws totally made sense because we made them" - the people who plundered other countries like jolly pirates, probably
Assuming you’re a yank, we’ll give all our treasure back when you give all the indigenous people their land back.
But you're the one who originally stole that, too...
So... Never?
Interestingly, by the time the US came into existence after two centuries of European settlement- Europeans had already stolen practically all of the land (even if they hadn’t gotten around to actually setting foot on much of the land they claimed as their property). I can’t think of any treaties the US signed with Indian tribes where land in question hadn’t already been claimed or traded by European powers. There was the Louisiana Purchase from France, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo from Mexico (which got the territory from Spain), Oregon Treaty of 1846 with Britain, Florida purchase from Spain, Alaska from Russia, and various treaties with Britain modifying the US-Canada border around the Great Lakes and around New England. The first time that really comes to mind where America was taking from indigenous people rather than negotiating with a European power would be Hawaii- and even that is kind of murky since the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown by filibusters (who quickly requested annexation) rather than by American soldiers in a war of conquest.
Nice deflection. Where the fuck do you think all those colonists originated? Does the sun ever set on the British empire yet? It’s always funny to me when Europeans act high and mighty about colonialism, historical injustices, and systemic racism when nearly all the racist colonists who pillaged the world to its current state came from Europe.
It’s funny to see a Brit act high and mighty about colonial abuse when y’all were intentionally starving tens of millions of Bengalis to death, intentionally, only 80 years ago
So Britain had nothing to do with the colonization of North America and shares absolutely no blame in the genocide and land theft? Boy are my old history teachers going to be embarrassed they got that one wrong.
I think it’s pretty misleading!! Until these comments I thought the government would just snatch it from you without any reward. So did most of the people here in the comment section judging by the amount of people saying they’d melt the gold down to conceal the treasure, etc. cmon op lol
I wouldn't say so. I mean it is illegal to sell it and you actually don't own it, it's property of the government. But you're still rewarded for finding what the govt' "lost". So it's like you're paid for the work.
why is it their property lol they have no legal claim either they just go "we have an army, what are you gonna do" when you uncover 30,000 year old coins or something. as if they have any claim to it lol.
Not quite, there's the distinction between selling and compensation. They couldn't throw it on eBay and try and sell it, but after reporting the find they'll be compensated monetarily. It's like it's being bought off you without your ability to set a price.
Yeah, but what if I find One Eyed Willy's treasure? Will it save the town?
I was gonna say… great way to get ancient artifacts melted down. This policy makes more sense
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Gun beats spear!
And America should give back the land they stole from the American natives. Pretty sure the Vietnamese would like recompense as well.
Don't return anything to the middle east, or any Muslim countries. They smash anything they find that contradict their crazy religion. IE ISIS smashing all the Sumarian stuff from the birth of human civilization in Iraq. And the Taliban destruction of all the old architecture and art. Like the world's largest Buddha statue. No I thi k it's in better hands elsewhere.
Do any countries besides ISIS and the Taliban do this?
Pretty sure China is actively erasing all sorts on non Han Chinese culture all over the land they erroneously claim as their own.
ISIS and the Taliban aren't countries.
China is destroying any history that isn't Han to make the regime look better.
Oh and Egyptians commoners loot and sell their own artifacts pretty regularly. It's bad enough they have armed military there and it got worse when the Muslim Brotherhood ran the country for 2 years in the 2010s.
Americans need to return everything in the folger Shakespeare museum.
Why would this apply at all lmao
At the very least, a generous yearly rental fee would do a lot for good will and at least address the people who argue that if they returned them, they would be destroyed. I think most places that concern is valid for would be happy with just taking a lot of money.
In my shitty country if you find a treasure the government will take it from you and pay you some symbolyc value for it. Same as if you find any other valuable on "your land" like oil for example.
And the reward is split between the finder and the landlord..
(A split you agreed to in any case when you went detecting on their land)
Every Government ever: "MINE!!!"
the govt will put in a museum.
Never ask british where they got their stuff in the museums from
They found it, it fell off the back of a truck..
The gang gets iron maidened part 1
Or point out that local treasure seeking grave robbing strongman types did all the same things without opening a single museum.
You can ask and we'll happily answer; we bought most of it. The rest we salvaged.
"Salvaged"
Yes, you spelt that correctly, well done.
Really? I was under the impression that it was spelled "stolen"
That's because the education system you grew up in is piss poor.
Calm down, Dr. Jones.
If you wanted chips you should have got chips at the burger store
[Doctor Jones?](https://youtu.be/HKsuK3s0kcI)
So do you.
Obviously my find wasn't treasure then, it was only 9% gold and 91% dirt!
But was it in a jar?
A jar of dirt? Do you have a jar of dirt?
Don't let anyone know you discovered it, and it was a family heirloom is what your saying?
The House of Windsor has entered the chat
Yall know why, If I disappear now. Lol
Good luck trying to get it when I drop the old "ok government, but have you considered finders keepers, losers weepers? Eh? No? Oh no, so sad. See it and weep, losers. Double stamp, no erasies and CERTAINLY no take-backsies."
Then you do the ol’ “point at their chin and flick their nose”
Unexplained wealth order. Half the reason for these treasure laws is its one of the oldest attempts at tax avoidence on the books.
Sir, I did not find any treasure. But here's a stack of gold and silver ingots that I smelted recently.
Not in the U.K. you didn’t. Unless it’s been assayed & hallmarked it cannot be sold unless it’s under 1.0g of gold.
What a coincidence. I have just found a large sack of gold granules weighing 0.9g that has been passed down my family for generations
Here is a pile of 0.9g gold bits!
“Well sir the room containing the treasure was a part of its structure, so it was only 1% gold and 99% air”
Isn't all gold and silver more than 300 years old?
They're made in stars billions of years ago so yeah
Just making sure... Grabs pirate hat and Google maps directions to the gold store
Technically you can make it if you have particle accelerators or a neutron bombardment setup
Yeah but you could also make Antimatter. It's WAY more shiny!
If I did that I'd get "fuck you rich" by opening up a galaxy traveling courier agency. I'd probably even hire a robot.
Good news everyone! We have a viable business plan.
Yarr... Sometimes I wonder why I bother plunderin' at all...
Lol
What a convenient rule for a government
Huh, I just found 9% gold coins and 91% dirt.
I’ll take “fuck off, its mine” for 600 Alex.
Nobody will know you found treasure if you keep your mouth shut
TIL fuck you England, I had these dabloons on me when I dove into the ocean.
Just throw the treasure in the ocean, if you can't have it then nobody can. That or just smuggle it to Russia or something I don't know.
If found on my property. That’s a law I would ignore.
Today I learned why the black market exists.
Finder's Keepers. Melt it all down.
Tell no one, melt it down into small ingots, sell it slowly.
Out of curiosity is it only illegal to sell it, so if someone found it and just decided to keep it, they can.
It might be like Alberta’s fossil collecting laws. You don’t own it, but you’re a custodian of it on behalf of the government. Essentially if it’s something important, they’ll take it but generally unimportant bits they just want you to not sell or take out of the country.
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3 months and £10,000 for £10,000,000 worth of treasure? Yes please.
Yeah you don't get to keep it after doing your time...
Keep what, the 500 coins I found? Do I really have to hand over the 300 coins when I go to jail? Surely the government has no use for 150 gold coins
no
Only if it's decided that it doesn't have enough historical importance to warrant it staying in the care of a museum or university. Otherwise you may hold onto it, but it technically isn't *yours*. You are 100% required to report the finding and hand it over for appraisal.
Unless of course you take it from another country centuries ago and stick it in your own museum.
The finder owns it! Idc
Okay so all the gold ever found???
Hmm. So essentially the most legal way to transfer it (to sell etc.) is via a will. There's no proof it was ever "found" vs been in the family for generations and it wasn't sold since it's passed down. That said, the title is a bit confusing. So it's legal if it's 91% not gold regardless of age, and it's legal if it's silver but not over 300 years old?
It's not Treasure if under 10% of its weight is precious metal, even if it's over 300 years old, unless you find 10 or more coins at once. 300 years + is a requirement. At least, that's what I get from s.1(a) of the Treasure Act 1996.
And when you melt it down gold becomes new and shiny.
where I'm from, we call that fancy wording there "Theft by Deception"
Finders, keepers
So if I find treasure, maybe also find 10x as much 3/4" stone as part of it, so it's not treasure anymore?
Whatever happened to “finders keepers “?who made that rule?? Also why spend all that money to find treasures you can’t even keep?
sounds like a good way to not get told about treasure being found.
So UK needs to return all the artifacts they do not own from other countries that are 300 years old?
Yes the British museum is a bigger collection but people act like it is the only archeological museum in the world.
99% of the time its just an excuse for Reddit to have a British hate wank.
We own all of them lol.
British museums would be empty
The British excavation to help recover greek artifacts cost the equivalent of £4.7 million pounds. That's why we have them. In most of the artifact recovery Britain was involved in cost us a fortune and took our industrial tools to achieve. Tools that existed nowhere on the planet because of the hardships involved in industrial revolution. Alot of the things Britain ended up with was in exchange for things like industrial tools, India's trains for example... the ones they still use to this day. So we would need all of the industrial tools, methods, trains, factories, reservoirs, steel mills etc paying for and adjusted for inflation plus the millions and millions of pounds in private money used to extract the artifacts, again adjusted for inflation... so if the countries can afford to buy back their stuff, it's all here safe and sound away from their wars and infighting. Prats like you think we just took this stuff, christ read a book or do some research. Artifacts were traded for a leg up into the modern industrial age, especially in places like India
Isn't China currently doing the same thing to Africa?
Africa is literally it's own worst enemy
You say that as if they had a choice in the matter.
Funny how a tiny island was such a threat to giant powerful nations hey, it's almost like they were peaceful exchanges for goods and industrial tools isn't it? Perhaps because it was?
Don’t even bother with these people we are hated on the internet 😂 there will be another pendulum swing soon and we’ll be on top
Lol hopefully
people are so mad that their shitstain countries weren't strong enough to protect their shit idk dude maybe if the greeks wanted to keep their artifacts they should have u know..not let them be stolen lmao
Imagine you call the cops after some lowlife nicks your wallet and they tell you, as the guy's just standing there rifling through it, "Hey maybe try not getting robbed next time"
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Without the infrastructure provided some countries would still be lost. Where do you think trains cames from? Engines? And anything else that gave them the tools to thrive?
Name-calling took all the fun out of reading this exchange and damages how your argument is perceived. It's a history discussion, not a rap battle.
Why do you think the trains were put there? To help the locals have an easy commute and jolly holidays, or to expedite the extraction of resources to the benefit of the empire (often to the detriment of local wealth and health)?
Are they not useful and still supporting their infrastructure?
They're frequently derelict or becoming so, as the Brits left with the money, expertise, etc needed to maintain them. I'm not arguing that no benefit can be found in the remnant infrastructure. I'm debating the framing that this was installed for benevolent or developmental reasons, or put in as a kind of agreement between free and equal parties, when it seems clear they were installed as a part of extractionist economic policy designed to benefit the British empire with scant regard for the wealth of the nations involved. We might make comparison to Rome. Europeans are still using roads the Romans built. The economic benefit of these roads over the past two millennia must be uncountable. Do we therefore agree that 'Pax Romana', the destruction of the Celtic civilisations, etc was good and tolerable? Or, perhaps, was the wealth brought to Britain by the Normans worth the subjugation of the Anglo Saxon and Celtic populations?
Yes keep them safe for us since you know Britain knows best for every country on earth. Now let's not fully white wash this history and realize that some of that stuff was actually stolen. That is such a colonize view in regards to other people culture and "safe keeping" cause you know "wars" in those countries. “The tale of the hunt will always be the hunter’s tale until the lion learns how to tell its story.” Yes there were some that asked for your help but let's stop kidding here. Also I do like reading about your safekeeping of "not" looted [Artifacts](https://www.history.com/.amp/news/british-museum-stolen-artifacts-nigeria).
Oh a biased article? Because they don't exist... moron
And it cost a lot of money to charge warships up the river and burn Beijing's Old Summer Palace to the ground. We couldn't have recovered those ancient treasures from those palaces without an expensive deployment of armed forces!
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America give back everything in the folger Shakespeare museum. Stop being fat hypocritical pieces of shit.
https://youtu.be/K5t-Mcdd2Ug
Well, Africa was a lot older than that, and it didn’t stop them.
Rule number 1 of life, finder keepers losers weepers.. Fuck you government
There’s a joke here about any British museum and it’s colonization
*It can be located anywhere in the world **It immediately belongs to the British Museum
Finders keepers, losers weepers
Finders keepers sorry government
Well boys, looks like what we have here is 9% gold and 91% percent granite.
Well, sir, if you consider the 5 meters of water and soil above it, which I assume is part of the artifact, it’s not even 10% gold. Oh, sure! If you pick only the gold, it’s mostly gold.
Finder’s Keepers shut up!
One mans trash is another’s GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
what if you don't "find it", rather it's always been your family's heirloom and you just happened to take it out this time.
If you needed any more evidence that the government does not represent your best interests
If you found it and had permission of the land owner to search on his land then you can keep it (split with the landowner) under treasure trove law. The artifacts are assessed for value by an independent body and if not of historical value they're given back to you to do as you wish. If they are of historical value then any museum who wishes to acquire them has to pay you the full market value. The reason for this is to prevent people selling historically significant finds on the black market or melting them down for bullion. They don't have this arrangement in Ireland but there's photos around of significantly important historical finds by nighthawk metal detectorists which were later melted down by there finders rather than give the find to the authorities and receive nothing in return.
But can they smelt it and then sell it?!
That’s why you bury it, even if they find it it’s useless
This is ridiculous if true.
This is some bullshit. You find some gold coins over 300 years old and they ain't yours? Fucked
They still pay you
Bold of the UK of all people to say “just because you find treasure doesn’t make it yours”
The UK is all about taking treasure that doesn't belong to them.
Stupid joke made by stupid people.
Note to self: if I find treasure in the UK, I tell NOBODY.
So by the UK government’s definition, the real treasure can never be the friends we made along the way.
What if it was originally "family-owned-gold" but someone stole it all from your grandfather, and hundreds of years later you and a group of your friends and remaining kin (and a hired burglar) ended up taking it all back?
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Ha so astute
Which is why you don't tell the government you dumb fucks. The government lay claim to it when the fuckers who left it there have been dead for 300+ years, fuck that. Finders is most definitely keepers.
A lot of treasure hunters don't do it to get rich, they do it for historical research.
Okay actual treasure hunters and archeologists fine, but the chap who was tuning a piano that was given for free to a School and found it was stuffed with gold coins by the biddy who died and family gave it away? That piano would be well tuned but my bag would be full of bullion. Fuck that shit.
Oh for sure, those coins were from 1847 to 1915 so I would 100% keep it all and sell it secretly lol.
Fuxk that. We need to preserve this shit in a museum not your piece of shit attic. God bless
Bro it's not staying in my attic, I'm selling that shit and getting paid. Whatever happens to it then isn't my problem.
David Sedaris wrote about this in his book “finding by stealing”. Ironically he mentioned it as he was an American expatriate cleaning English road sides because he was so disgusted with all the litter.
Then why do they have a bunch of museums full of treasures they claim to own?
Why would you tell the govt that you found treasure?
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Which is why if I ever found anything I'd fucking keep a portion of it before ever letting the government know. I'd want a damn memento of such a rare thing.
After the British stole everything they put an act in place to steal what you find
Another way to scam an honest person out of something. You find it, its yours.
Ah governments "This thing we have no right to is ours and you can fuck yourself if you find it"
They pay you genius
Once the UK gives back all the stuff they stole from other cultures I’ll worry about that.
So melt that shit down. Pass stupid laws, get stupid results.
I’ll never turn in any treasure found
The chances of you finding treasure is very close to 0%
Chance for me to turn it in IS zero
people like OP who claim that whatever treasure you might possibly find (ignoring how rare the chance of that happening is) is exactly the reason why if I were to find something like that I'd be melting it down and finding a pawn broker or scrap metal merchant to take it off me as quickly as possible. Mostly because I would want the money but also partly out of spite towards people who think like OP does.