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Men jailed after unearthing $15M Viking hoard


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Oh? I did not realise the law clarified in no uncertain terms what EXACTLY counts as "treasure" and what does not. Or is that the idea? If you're not sure, just declare everything you find, so they can take all they fancy and leave you the junk?

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16 minutes ago, Rolci said:

Oh? I did not realise the law clarified in no uncertain terms what EXACTLY counts as "treasure" and what does not. Or is that the idea? If you're not sure, just declare everything you find, so they can take all they fancy and leave you the junk?

No that's not how it works, if it's deemed 'treasure trove' you have to declare it in 14 days, if it's of historical interest and the museum wants it they have the right to buy it off you at full market value, if they can afford it, the irony is if these idiots had declared there find they'd now be rich and not in jail.  

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1 minute ago, Rolci said:

Oh? I did not realise the law clarified in no uncertain terms what EXACTLY counts as "treasure" and what does not. Or is that the idea? If you're not sure, just declare everything you find, so they can take all they fancy and leave you the junk?

That isn't how it works. The Treasure Trove laws in the U.K. are simple, if you find a hoard of treasure you must report it to the local corners office.  A designated museum official will come and examine the items found and determine if it is treasure. Then he will place a value on the find, and Museums will be given a chance to bid on and purchase the items. The amount paid will then be divided among the Finder, the Land owner, and if the land is rented the person who is the lands current occupant.

So you see nothing is returned if it is treasure, you only get paid. 

By the way, this is a very fair law, so only a fool wouldn't comply with it.

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2 hours ago, Rolci said:

Oh? I did not realise the law clarified in no uncertain terms what EXACTLY counts as "treasure" and what does not. Or is that the idea? If you're not sure, just declare everything you find, so they can take all they fancy and leave you the junk?

I think you'd need to be pretty brazen to consider silver ingots and jewellery to not be treasure. The law is to prevent this kind of thing happening. If a guy 1000 years ago buried his stuff and we found it, it's been in the nation for a 1,000 years and thus has historical value. If you then sell it to, lets say, a Chinese businessman or a Thai businessman or a Brazilian businessman or a Bhutan Museum, you've removed the historical connection and just turned it into money. The irony being that museums pay market value for the items and usually keep them in nation meaning the historical connection is preserved. The only advantage to selling 'behind the back' is that you might get a little bit more for the sale and there is no split. But I mean, £12m is a lot of money, even split three ways and then in half between the two would have resulted in around £2m for each man. A hefty sum. Now they have nothing and have to enjoy Her Majesties Pleasure for a long time. I mean, if I was metal detecting, I'd be chuffed to have a plaque in a museum naming me as the finder! A legacy of sorts. The money would be the icing on the cake. Treasure Laws exist all around the world and it causes a great deal of issue. For example, a Spanish Galleon laden with gold from South America was sunk by the British centuries ago; the galleon was found. Who does it belong to? The current political entity of Spain? The British under 'war spoils'? The current political entity in which maritime waters the wreck was found? Or the native people of the area? The Russian ship laden with gold that was sunk around South Korea has been prearranged split between South Korea and Russia (not quite sure if they found it yet).

As harsh as the sentence is, you gotta show people you're better off following the procedure in the first place.

Edited by Troublehalf
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1 hour ago, NCC1701 said:

Quite a hefty punishment, in some European countries you can rape, torture and kill multiple people before you get such a sentence.

There is multiple offences involved. Firstly they detected on the land without permission. They then declined to report the find. They then sold the goods (and thus considered stolen). They deleted evidence and so on. So it all adds up. Trespassing, not declaring, selling stolen goods, tampering evidence, etc. Another man was sentenced for 5 years on the concealment charge. Another man is going to be sentenced on a concealment charge. So, it isn't just because of the not declaring.

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After reading some comments I guess they are stupid & greedy for not turning the treasure in. I didnt know they could of made money off of the find. I thought it would of just been a hanshake or a high five

Edited by AllPossible
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7 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

That isn't how it works. The Treasure Trove laws in the U.K. are simple, if you find a hoard of treasure you must report it to the local corners office.  A designated museum official will come and examine the items found and determine if it is treasure. Then he will place a value on the find, and Museums will be given a chance to bid on and purchase the items. The amount paid will then be divided among the Finder, the Land owner, and if the land is rented the person who is the lands current occupant.

So you see nothing is returned if it is treasure, you only get paid. 

By the way, this is a very fair law, so only a fool wouldn't comply with it.

I don’t think it’s a fair law. I think if it’s found on private property that is the business of the land owner and the second party if it is not the owner that finds it. To think that something automatically belongs first to the government if it’s buried in the ground and the owner is long dead is bull, but the feeling that is fair seems very English so I’m not surprised. Often things go for more than the market value if put up for auction with the correct buyers attending. This law doesn’t give you the opportunity to do that if a museum decides they want it, and yet neither the museum nor the government has put forth any resources or effort in the recovery. There is no good reason either entity should profit.

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1 hour ago, OverSword said:

I don’t think it’s a fair law. I think if it’s found on private property that is the business of the land owner and the second party if it is not the owner that finds it. To think that something automatically belongs first to the government if it’s buried in the ground and the owner is long dead is bull, but the feeling that is fair seems very English so I’m not surprised. Often things go for more than the market value if put up for auction with the correct buyers attending. This law doesn’t give you the opportunity to do that if a museum decides they want it, and yet neither the museum nor the government has put forth any resources or effort in the recovery. There is no good reason either entity should profit.

Treasure Hoard Law in USA is dependent on state to state, for example, Idaho and Tennessee follow the idea that the land owner is the sole owner of items found, regardless who found it. This was done to prevent rewarding trespassers.  Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin consider the finder to be the owner. That's purely for 'treasure hoard' in regards to finding gold, silver and paper money. However, the find must be considered concealed for a length of time which makes it unlikely that the true owner will reappear to claim it (and the general consensus, based on my knowledge, is that it has to be at least two decades old) However Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 states that any object over 100 years old, regardless of what it is (as long as it is of human origin, which makes me wonder about any theoretical alien items, heh) becomes Federal property under 'archaeological resource'. Furthermore, anything found on Native American land, even if it is under 100 years old, counts as 'embedded property' and thus belongs to the land owner. So, if this was found in the USA, it would be Federal property and you wouldn't be entitled to a reward. Whilst the Crown is not obligated to fund a reward, a treasury provision in 1886 stated that finders should get a reward (and thus encourage them to turn it in) and the reward is based on the market value.

So your comment on it being 'very English to find it fair' (which is a rather unfair comment, in my opinion) is quite amusing because compared to USA laws, it is fair. Since you get a reward of some sort. You don't in the USA. Since the law in the UK is specifically about ancient items, not items in the last decade.

In any case, allowing items that were buried by ancient people to be sent around the world for personal profit to end up in private collections is a bit of a shame when the entire world can benefit by it ending up into a public museum. I'm pretty sure most cultures that have existed for thousands of years would object to their ancestors relics being sold off for profit (and it is just this that caused friction between Greece and Ottoman Empire/Turkey and UK). It's not like the finders in the UK would have gotten nothing to show for it. A hefty sum of money, appreciation from the archaeological and anthropological and historical societies AND a legacy in a museum exhibit they could show their kids and grand-kids and so on. As the judge said, greed. I think most people do it as a bit of a hobby and finding something like that is a dream. Turning it into purely about how much money you can make, when the sum you would have gotten would have been life-changing to most people irks many.

Edited by Troublehalf
Concealment Length and Final Paragraph
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1 hour ago, OverSword said:

don’t think it’s a fair law. I think if it’s found on private property that is the business of the land owner and the second party if it is not the owner that finds it. To think that something automatically belongs first to the government if it’s buried in the ground and the owner is long dead is bull, but the feeling that is fair seems very English so I’m not surprised. Often things go for more than the market value if put up for auction with the correct buyers attending. This law doesn’t give you the opportunity to do that if a museum decides they want it, and yet neither the museum nor the government has put forth any resources or effort in the recovery. There is no good reason either entity should profit.

If it were gold or silver nuggets or diamonds it would be.  The land has been English longer than it has been owned by the farmer or his family. Items like that are considered a cultural treasure. and a heritage held in common by the English.

Apparently these guys did not get permission  from the farmer either.

One side benefit to the law is that it might reduce the thievery of artifacts and Black Market sales.  Most countries have some sort of antiquities act, Greece and Egypt come to mind.  I am only guessing, but an English goal is probably preferable to an Egyptian one.

In America we have, to borrow a word from Farmer, degenerate Scum, who desecrate native graves, keep the jewelry, pottery and other artifacts for black market sale and maybe a bone or two.  The rest they scatter

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1 hour ago, cathya said:

Report it to the coroner's office?  Why?  

You report it to what's known as the 'FLO'  Finds Liaison Officer, why, because it's the law.

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1 hour ago, OverSword said:

I don’t think it’s a fair law. I think if it’s found on private property that is the business of the land owner and the second party if it is not the owner that finds it. To think that something automatically belongs first to the government if it’s buried in the ground and the owner is long dead is bull, but the feeling that is fair seems very English so I’m not surprised. Often things go for more than the market value if put up for auction with the correct buyers attending. This law doesn’t give you the opportunity to do that if a museum decides they want it, and yet neither the museum nor the government has put forth any resources or effort in the recovery. There is no good reason either entity should profit.

The simple fact is they'd ban metal detecting if people didn't declare treasure trove, many countries have banned it, in American there's vast areas where you can't detect not even take a stone, we don't want that to happen here, i have a good collection of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, viking, medieval and every other period, i can detect ancient land every day of the week and that's how i want it to stay.

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3 hours ago, AllPossible said:

After reading some comments I guess they are stupid & greedy for not turning the treasure in. I didnt know they could of made money off of the find. I thought it would of just been a hanshake or a high five

They'd have got the market value, just goes to show what complete idiots they were.

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7 hours ago, NCC1701 said:

Quite a hefty punishment, in some European countries you can rape, torture and kill multiple people before you get such a sentence.

It's to deter others, 99.9% of detectorists in the UK are happy with the sentence.

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1 hour ago, Tatetopa said:

If it were gold or silver nuggets or diamonds it would be.  The land has been English longer than it has been owned by the farmer or his family. Items like that are considered a cultural treasure. and a heritage held in common by the English.

Apparently these guys did not get permission  from the farmer either.

One side benefit to the law is that it might reduce the thievery of artifacts and Black Market sales.  Most countries have some sort of antiquities act, Greece and Egypt come to mind.  I am only guessing, but an English goal is probably preferable to an Egyptian one.

In America we have, to borrow a word from Farmer, degenerate Scum, who desecrate native graves, keep the jewelry, pottery and other artifacts for black market sale and maybe a bone or two.  The rest they scatter

Yes I understand why the law is in place I just disagree with it.

As far as limiting black market sales, they are only black market because a faceless entity created the black market by declaring they defacto own anything in the ground and use force to make it true.

This is not historical art representing a culture we are talking about, it’s loot hidden by a foreign marauder millenia ago and not really anything too unique.

I know in this case the treasure hunters stole this as it was found on private land but I’m talking about the law in general and not just this case.

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1 hour ago, hetrodoxly said:

The simple fact is they'd ban metal detecting if people didn't declare treasure trove, many countries have banned it, in American there's vast areas where you can't detect not even take a stone, we don't want that to happen here, i have a good collection of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, viking, medieval and every other period, i can detect ancient land every day of the week and that's how i want it to stay.

There are places in America where you can’t go digging around because the are National Parks or environmentally sensitive areas. Metal detect on private land all you want. You’re not likely to find native artifacts with a metal detector. Apples/oranges 

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31 minutes ago, OverSword said:

This is not historical art representing a culture we are talking about, it’s loot hidden by a foreign marauder millenia ago and not really anything too unique.

It is a collection of mostly Anglo Saxon pieces dated from 400-800 AD.  It may or may not contain unique pieces.  Some of them had been knocking around for 400 years before being nicked and buried.  There could have been brooches, or rings, or other artifacts from a number of kings and nobles from the various Anglo Saxon kingdoms that might also have historical value  as well as intrinsic.  Or maybe not, but a museum should get a look at it anyway.

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33 minutes ago, OverSword said:

There are places in America where you can’t go digging around because the are National Parks or environmentally sensitive areas. Metal detect on private land all you want. You’re not likely to find native artifacts with a metal detector. Apples/oranges 

Are you saying there'd only be native artifacts in the national parks? in the Britain we can dig as many native artifacts as we like.

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16 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

It is a collection of mostly Anglo Saxon pieces dated from 400-800 AD.  It may or may not contain unique pieces.  Some of them had been knocking around for 400 years before being nicked and buried.  There could have been brooches, or rings, or other artifacts from a number of kings and nobles from the various Anglo Saxon kingdoms that might also have historical value  as well as intrinsic.  Or maybe not, but a museum should get a look at it anyway.

Yeah, they should get the same look as everyone else.

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15 minutes ago, hetrodoxly said:

Are you saying there'd only be native artifacts in the national parks? in the Britain we can dig as many native artifacts as we like.

No, I’m saying that you’re not generally allowed to dig in or otherwise alter a national park and that you’re not likely to find Native American artifacts with a metal detector. And I do believe that due to treaty in most cases disturbing native artifacts is not allowed and most wouldn’t be monetarily valuable anyway.

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7 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Yeah, they should get the same look as everyone else.

Could it be viewed as akin to mineral rights?  As in federal and state lands, the government owns the mineral and timber rights.

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Title of this should be Men jailed for attempting to sell Viking horde on black market.

 

 

Edited by Future_Ikann
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3 hours ago, Troublehalf said:

, if this was found in the USA, it would be Federal property

Where, in what you posted does it say that?

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