Progress of my Treasure Find.

Friday 02 May 2014

At last, I've just had news of my first and only treasure find to date. For me it couldn't have come at a better time as on a couple of other sites recently they had branded me as an irresponsible detectorist.  Its the silver spoon in the pic above. I found it back February 2013 and the letter I just received from the British Museum told me the spoon qualifies as treasure and there is a Museum interested in obtaining it. They just need a minor detail off me and then the spoon can go to inquest. Then an ex gratia reward will be offered. Can't see the reward being much from what I've seen offered for far more better finds, plus I made the find on a detecting buddies permission so we are having a 3-way split, me, buddy and landowner. So I may get a pack of baccy out of it. But the thought of something I found ending up in a museum will outweigh any reward, 

The spoon is early 18th century and was found on pasture with my trusty Garret Ace 250 about 5" deep. I never realized it was a treasure find when I found it. It looked silver but had no silver marks. As you can see it does have lettering and numbers on it and its turned out that they are the initials of the owner of the spoon who lost it. The numbers are the date. At first I thought it said 1772, this would have made it less than 300 years old and thus not treasure, but it turned out the date was 1712, which made it over 300 years old so made it a treasure find.