Romanian treasure hunter finds what could be oldest forged coins in hi

[Aurelia]

A Romanian man who found what could be the oldest forged coins in history while out treasure hunting with his son says he will use his fortune to 'buy a new metal detector'.

 

Paul Croituru, 37, dug up the trove of 300 forged silver coins worth nearly £120,000 - more than ten times what he earns a year as a council worker.

 

But the father, who found the ancient Greek coins with the help of son Alexandru, 13, immediately told the authorities and will now lose nearly all of the money because of local treasure hunting rules.

 

Despite being forgeries of the 2,350-year-old Tetradrachm currency, experts say each 5mm penny is worth £400. 

 

More at The Daily Mail

[caesar novus]

immediately told the authorities and will now lose nearly all of the money because of local treasure hunting rules.

.

I read an article about the state of non-official archeo recovery, esp in Europe, and they said it was often catastrophic outside Britain which has rules that reward the honest discoverers. I think they said France was particularly bad in driving discoverers to the black market.

 

But then they said Britain was catastrophic in enforcing a non-binding UN rule about repatriating art to the supposed owner countries. In order to avoid confiscation, this has frozen donations of private archeo/art collections to museums, unless they were obtained prior to the rule of maybe 30 years ago. So that has driven charitable or estate donations to the black market as well.

Edited August 18, 2014 by caesar novus

[Aurelia]

Somehow I think it's quite unfair for the man who discovered the coins to get only a small fraction of what the stash seems to be worth. I'm not sure I would turn everything over to the authorities. I probably would keep some of it myself and perhaps sell it elsewhere...