It's not the kind of thing that any of us are ever going to find at a local car boot sale or from rummaging around a shop somewhere but it's every bit as fascinating to know that there are such treasures out there waiting to be discovered. I was talking with Britain's best known metal detectorist a few years ago and asked him whether or not there were treasures still to be found. "Of course," was his answer, "I think that maybe only a small fraction of what is buried has been found." Bill was clearly right!
The Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo Saxon items numbers more than one thousand - most of it gold and silver and thought to date back to between 675 and 725AD - has been hailed as a hugely important find. It has been valued at £3.28million, a figure set by Professor Norman Palmer, chairman of the Government-appointed committee and he admitted it had been a “difficult task” to reach its worth, saying “values are always speculative”. The money will be split equally between the finder Terry Herbert and the landowner Fred Johnson.
The hoard is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found and if it had come onto the open market t is likely that t would have fetched an even greater price. Professor Palmer said. “All finders of treasure can take encouragement that the most valuable treasure find ever made was dealt with so speedily and yet so scrupulously by all parties concerned, given that the hoard was discovered only in July.”
British Museum Press has published a book about the find, called The Staffordshire Hoard, and £1 from every sale is going to the appeal fund. A selection of objects from the hoard will also go on display at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery from February 13 to March 7 next year.
Mr Herbert, 55, from Burntwood, Staffs, who is on disability benefit, discovered the hoard while searching the field near the M6 toll road between Lichfield and Tamworth on July 5 using his 14-year-old metal detector. He described unearthing the treasure as “more fun than winning the lottery” and said he hopes to buy a bungalow with some of his windfall.
