In England and Wales, anyone who finds an object that legally counts as treasure has to report it, and if it is acquired the reward is normally split down the middle between the finder and the landowner. Seven detectorists shared half of £4.3 million for 2,584 coins. - ScienceBlog.com

By Science Blog Editorial Team · Edited by Mal James

Half of £4.3 million is a lot to share between seven people, but that is roughly what happened when a group of metal detectorists dug up a hoard of Norman-era silver pennies in a Somerset field. The Chew Valley Hoard of 2,584 coins was valued at £4.3 million, the largest and most valuable treasure acquisition on record in the UK. The finders took one half of that reward; the landowner took the other.

Below is a plain-English account of how that system works: what the law counts as treasure, how fast you have to report a find, who sets the value, and how the money gets divided.

We are reporting on the rules here, not giving legal advice. If you ever find yourself holding something that might qualify, the right move is to speak to the professionals named below.

What the law actually counts as treasure

Treasure is a legal category with specific tests. The Treasure Act 1996 spells them out. For coins, the usual rule is that two or more coins from the same find count if they are at least 300 years old and are at least 10% gold or silver. Coins made of cheaper metal have to number ten or more from the same find. A single object that isn’t a coin can qualify if it is at least 300 years old and has enough precious metal in it.

When a find meets one of these tests, it belongs to the Crown from the moment it comes out of the ground. That is the part people miss. You have not found something you now own. You have found something the state has a claim on, and your job is to tell them.

The Chew Valley pennies are a clean example of the coin test in action: silver, well over 300 years old, and far more than two of them. They date to the years around the Norman Conquest. The British Museum’s Gareth Williams, its curator of early medieval coinage, suggested the hoard likely belonged to someone comfortable rather than aristocratic: “It probably didn’t belong to someone from the very top level of society, but this is within the range of a wealthy landowner or merchant.”

Report it, and report it fast

Once you have found something you believe is treasure, or have reasonable grounds to believe it, you have 14 days to report it to the coroner for the area. Miss the deadline or fail to report and you could be committing a criminal offence. The short window is deliberate. It stops finds from quietly disappearing into private collections before anyone official has seen them.

In practice, most people don’t cold-call a coroner. They go through their local Finds Liaison Officer, part of the Portable Antiquities Scheme , who records the find and helps move it through the legal process. Careful digging matters here too. When Adam Staples and his group hit the Chew Valley hoard, they worked the ground thoroughly before leaving. “We didn’t leave the site until we thought we’d got all the coins,” Staples told the Derby Telegraph. Recovering the whole find, and recording where it came from, is part of what makes it valuable to a museum later.

What happens after you report

If a coroner declares a find to be treasure and a museum wants it, the money side is handled by an independent body called the Treasure Valuation Committee . It recommends a market value based on expert advice, and that value becomes the reward paid out.

For the Chew Valley Hoard, the committee recommended a value of £4.3 million , and the South West Heritage Trust secured the coins for the Museum of Somerset. That figure reflected both the size of the find and its historical weight: a large, coherent snapshot of England’s money at the exact moment of the Norman takeover. The hoard was dug up on 26 January 2019 , and the valuation and acquisition took years to work through.

How the reward gets split

The default division is simple: the reward is split 50/50 between the finder and the landowner. It is not an automatic legal formula in every case, and the two sides can agree different terms in advance, but the even split is the norm the scheme works to.

One person spotted it; the other owns the ground it was in. Both have a real claim.

The finder’s “half” in the Chew Valley case was not one person’s windfall. As CBS News reported, drawing on AP, Staples and six fellow detectorists split half of the £4.3 million, with the other half going to the landowner. The £2.15 million on the finders’ side was then divided seven ways. Still a serious sum per person, but a useful reminder that a headline treasure value is rarely what any single finder walks away with.

Where the rules are heading now

The definition of treasure has recently grown. From 30 July 2023 , a new class was added. A metal object at least 200 years old can now count as treasure if it offers exceptional insight into national or regional history through its rarity, its location, or its link to a person or event. The National Council for Metal Detecting described it plainly: “This change adds a new class of Treasure, called ‘significant’ to the existing law.”

The reform was driven by gaps in the old rules. Objects like the Crosby Garrett Helmet , a Roman find made of cheaper metal, fell outside the definition and sold at auction for £2.3 million to a private buyer, lost to public collections. The widened rules are meant to catch more finds of that kind before they slip away.

For anyone thinking about picking up a detector, the system rewards doing things properly from the start. Ask the landowner’s permission, agree the terms of any future reward before you dig, and know who your local Finds Liaison Officer is. The £4.3 million figure is the rare exception. The reporting duty, the 14-day clock, and the shared reward are the everyday rules, and they apply just as much to a single old coin as to a field full of them.

Science Blog Editorial Team