Treasure process - how long between coroner and valuation?

[The Don]

This sounds like a question for The Don.

She has just been through this process, and it took an age.

The Don here! We have had the valuation at last, ring found 30 August 2020, reported right away, coroners court November 2023, valuation 23 September 2024, awaiting dosh still 25 October 2024.
My timeline to date, could do with the money with no winter fuel allowance!

The Don

[The Don]

HI all
Three and a half years ago I was incredibly lucky to stumble across a sizeable hoard of medieval silver pennies, all from c1220-40. Mainly English, but with a handful of Irish and Scottish too.
Obviously, I reported them to the FLO straight away, and handed them over.
The identification/logging of the coins took from then until earlier this year, and last week I attended the treasure inquest, where it was indeed decided that they were treasure. The next stage is for them to be given a market value by the British museum bods, as a local museum has apparently said it would like to purchase them. So, my (probably unanswerable) question is: does anybody know, or have experience of, how long this next stage might take? Hopefully not another 3.5 years!
Many thanks in advance
Wurzel

I'm into year four now! See the other post I did for timeline!!!!!

The Don

[Erik_the_Viking]

An amazing find, well done.

I wonder what kind of wealth that represented when it was buried, and what it might equate to now.

[ManOnTheMoon]

I would hope that everyone is reasonably familiar with the 'Treasure Act 1996: Code of Practice (3rd Revision)'? It has within it Section E, with the heading 'The Treasure Process', and starting at paragraph 11 is a further subsection with the heading 'How long does a treasure case take?'. This is all contained within pages 24 to 26 of the document.

It is a very useful guide to how long the treasure process should take. And if the process is being inexplicably dragged out, then the detectorist/s and landowner concerned should be writing to the folks in that treasure process and asking pointed questions. If the result seems to be a fobbing off, then keep escalating up the chain, to the head of PAS if necessary.

Don't be put off by wishy-washy answers - if the treasure process has been officially codified by those charged with administering it, then we need to politely ask them to explain why they aren't adhering to it. Continue sending written reminders, monthly if need be! There is no point in having the process formalised within a written document if the people who are paid to administer it aren't doing their jobs. So keep up the pressure. Yes, it requires some effort to write emails or letters, but unless someone 'holds their feet to the fire' then the collective heel-dragging will likely continue to get worse.

Returning to the wider contents of the 'Treasure Act 1996: Code of Practice (3rd Revision)', it really is a fundamentally important document for UK detectorists. Download it to a laptop, tablet, smartphone, whatever, and get familiar with it. Read it, and keep coming back to re-read it. No one is expected to remember it in it's entirety, but becoming familar with the contents allows the appropriate information to be more easily located when the need arises. This document is vital for detectorists, in order to avoid getting on the wrong side of the law regarding the handling of treasure. We don't want a criminal record, do we?

The Code of Practice can be downloaded from two sources:

1. The UK government website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... d-revision

2. The Public Antiquities Scheme (PAS) website:
https://finds.org.uk/treasure
(from the weblink titled 'Full code of practice for the administration of Treasure')

[Worzel]

An amazing find, well done.

I wonder what kind of wealth that represented when it was buried, and what it might equate to now.

The FLO Chappy reckoned one of those silver pennies would have bought you a cow
That's the only scale of reference I have really!
W

[Worzel]

That is just mind blowing! Well done on finding them. Can you remember how far down they were and what was the signal like on your detector? Were they in a pot or vessel of some type?

Would you have a photo of them in situ? Well done again.

I have a photo of a few in situ, but they were pretty well spread out over about 3m square. The first few I found were just under the surface, maybe half an inch (it had been recently ploughed), and then the following 70 or 80 or so were at varying depths down to about 7 inches or so. The second big hit of them, the following year, after it had been ploughed again, were the result of digging a metre-square trench by hand, to a depth of about 2ft. The motherlode was at about 18ins down, and a few of them had green staining on them, which the FLO reckoned might have been the remnants of some kind of vessel they were being carried in.

The signals they gave depended on the depth/orientation, obviously, but on my Simplex+ most were solid and around the 52-55 mark, with very crisp two-way signals. Most of the half pennies were very scratchy, but I had to dig them.

The mind boggles as to why they were there. Were they stashed/buried because of impending conflict/danger/taxes? Were they just dropped accidentally. I have no idea, but I'd love to have a Time Machine just to nip back quickly and see what happened!

W

[Erik_the_Viking]

The FLO Chappy reckoned one of those silver pennies would have bought you a cow
That's the only scale of reference I have really!
W

Well that’s a better gauge than I had before, so thank you Mr Gummidge!

[Stubble trouble]

That’s an incredible find, thanks for showing.Good luck with the treasure process, it can certainly be long winded, the remit was that it was supposed to be speeding up.

[Riggers]

On my treasure case https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts ... id/1017805 It was delcared treasure by the coroner around the 27/10/21, was given a payment figure on the 10/08/22 and payment was made on the 18/11/2022.

Amazing find, well done I found a small hoard of 4 Post Medieval hammered coins which are going through the treasure process now. I have a couple of questions. On your PAS record it says “Awaiting validation” Can you please explain what this means? I’m new to detecting this year and don’t understand some of the terminology. Also it says “Submitted for consideration as treasure” but obviously it has been declared as treasure already. Do they not update the records when an item is declared as treasure? I only found the coins in August and have not received the first report yet so I guess I have quite a long wait. Thanks and well done again on finding the amazing ring

[Barrie0]

Amazing find, well done I found a small hoard of 4 Post Medieval hammered coins which are going through the treasure process now. I have a couple of questions. On your PAS record it says “Awaiting validation” Can you please explain what this means? I’m new to detecting this year and don’t understand some of the terminology. Also it says “Submitted for consideration as treasure” but obviously it has been declared as treasure already. Do they not update the records when an item is declared as treasure? I only found the coins in August and have not received the first report yet so I guess I have quite a long wait. Thanks and well done again on finding the amazing ring

Hi Riggers,

No idea to be honest. I can only presume the records on the PAS website haven't been updated by the FLO.

The process is detailed here - https://finds.org.uk/treasure & on this PDF https://finds.org.uk/documents/treasure_act.pdf

treasure_act.jpg

treasure_act.pdf