Roman coin hoard discovered by amateur detectorist
A newcomer to detecting found 268 Roman silver denarii on Herefordshire farmland in 2019. Six years on, the hoard has come home and is on free public display in Leominster.
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Discoveries by category
Hoards
Buried groups of coins and precious metal, hidden for safekeeping and never reclaimed.
Latest Hoards
11 finds · page 1 of 2
Staffordshire Hoard: Metal detectorist uncovers gold; museums secure treasure
In 2009 a Staffordshire detectorist found the first pieces of what is still the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered: almost 4,000 objects and fragments, most of them fittings from weapons.
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Lenborough Coin Hoard Discovery: Paul Coleman uncovers 5,248 Saxon pennies; £1.35m reward split 50:50
More than 5,000 silver pennies of Æthelred II and Cnut, buried in a lead parcel around 1035 and found at a detecting club rally near Buckingham in 2014. Valued at £1.35 million, the hoard is now in Aylesbury.
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Roman silver hoard with 45 coins and a gold ring found on Sweden’s Gotland
A detector survey ahead of a military expansion on Gotland has found 45 Roman silver coins and a gold ring, buried at an ancient farm around AD 450.
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Two people made an extraordinary discovery inside an iron box while on a leisurely hike in the woods
Two hikers in north-east Czechia found 598 gold coins and a box of jewellery hidden in an old field wall, and handed everything to the regional museum the same day.
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A farmer lost a hammer in his field and went looking for it with a metal detector — instead he found nearly 15,000 Roman coins
In November 1992, farmer Peter Whatling lost a hammer in a Suffolk field and asked his friend Eric Lawes to help find it using a metal detector. Instead of just the tool, Lawes uncovered what became known as the Hoxne Hoard—one of the richest Roman treasure finds in Britain, consisting of nearly 15,000 gold, silver, and bronze coins, alongside silver tableware and gold jewellery dated to around AD 407. Recognising the find's significance, Lawes halted his digging immediately and notified authorities, allowing archaeologists to excavate the chest with its historical context fully preserved. Lawes was awarded £1.75 million for the discovery, which he split with Whatling (who also recovered his lost hammer), and the event eventually spurred the creation of the UK's Treasure Act 1996 to regulate future archaeological finds.
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Norway’s largest known Viking Age hoard found
The article reports on the discovery of the Mørstad Hoard in Innlandet county, Norway—the largest Viking Age coin hoard found in the nation's history. Discovered in an Østerdalen field by two metal-detectorists, systematic excavations revealed 4,886 silver coins (with expectations to exceed 5,000) alongside fragments of hacksilver, vastly outnumbering any previously known Norwegian Viking coin hoard. Minted under prominent figures like Cnut the Great, Æthelred II, Otto III, and Harald Hardrada, roughly 95% of the coins originate from England and Germany, highlighting Østerdalen’s integration into international trade routes driven by local iron production. Estimated to have been buried around AD 1046 or 1047 in an organic container long since decayed, the find offers historians significant insight into Norway’s changing medieval economy and global trade connections.
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A Metal Detectorist Dug up 52,503 Roman Coins
The article details the discovery of the Frome Hoard, Britain's second-largest coin hoard, which was unearthed in April 2010 by metal detectorist Dave Crisp near Frome in Somerset, England. Contained within a single cracked black burnished ware clay pot, the collection comprises 52,503 debased silver and bronze coins spanning 253 to 305 C.E. and weighing roughly 350 pounds. Because the pot was too fragile to carry such immense weight, archaeologists determined it was buried empty in a pit and filled on-site as a single event—likely serving as a communal religious votive offering rather than stored wealth intended for recovery. The hoard includes coins representing 21 Roman emperors, breakaway Gallic rulers, and the largest single collection of coins from the rebel Britannic emperor Carausius, making it a critical historical artefact now preserved at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton.
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