It’s a great story, much publicised. 913 gold sovereigns found hidden in a piano. Plus, all concerned acted impeccably. The finder said it “would not have been right or proper” to keep it secret and the previous owners said they were “very happy” the money was going to the college and would benefit the pupils. Compare the almost identical “Twinstead Hoard”. As the Mirror put it:

“Metal  detector enthusiasts on a charity day ended up in a brawl after 300 sovereigns worth £75,000 were found in a field. They then ran off with the loot – half of which belonged to the farmer who owns the land – instead of declaring it under treasure laws. One enthusiast said: “The find was made by someone inexperienced who started yelling about a gold coin. Soon there were about 100 individuals digging. It was out of hand. Metal detecting is a cut-throat world. Only two of the 300 coins were in the finds box at the end of the day.”

Unlike the Piano Hoard, PAS played Twinstead down, as did the police. The officer dealing with it, a detectorist himself wrote to the attendees saying “All I want is for the entire hoard to be declared, a decent article in the Searcher and the reputation of us detectorists to be restored. All I want is a sensible resolution to the whole situation. Please feel free to contact me. I am your friend not your enemy”. But 2 weeks later at least 100 known-about coins, £35,000-worth (and heaven knows how many others) had still not been returned. A while back we asked for an update: Any more returned? Anyone prosecuted? But he replied “Can I ask who you are and why do you want this information?” and then “As you were not involved in the initial incident I suggest you submit a FOI request through our HQ, the route these sort of enquires normally go.”

Strange, isn’t it? In Bonkers Britain PAS garners oodles of news coverage from one hoard yet they (and the police) downplay mass theft of an extremely similar one. Such is the consequence of setting up a quango whose sole survival chances depend on pretending that buying a £10 ticket to a detecting rally transforms totally random people into “citizen archaeologists” with immaculate morals.

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PAS Training course, day one.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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