Recently forty-one Celtic gold coins that were found by a metal detectorist sold for £35,500. The coins, were found over a three-year period scattered across a ploughed field near Westerham in Kent. Celtic coinage, staters, are the most frequently found items from the years before the Roman invasion.
There were three staters and thirty-eight quarter staters, mostly depicting a horse surrounded by various motifs; the design was copied from Greek coins. One of the coins was incredibly rare and was attributed to a ruler named Diras. It is thought he came from north of the Thames and while it was expected that the coin might fetch £4,000 it went for £10,500 to a dealer in New York.
It’s far from the biggest hoard of staters that have ever been discovered. In1995, 206 staters, along with a Roman ring and bracelet, were found by two metal detectorists on farmland near Alton in Hampshire. They were one foot below the surface; shortly afterwards they found a second hoard a few feet away containing fifty gold staters. Both hoards were declared treasure trove and valued at £102,074
