Massive hoard of Roman coins found in Bath, UK

[ParthianBow]

This find - 30,000 coins - is only 9 miles/15 km from where I live!

[66kbm]

Silly question but one i dont know the answer to but how do they know its 30,000 coins if they are fused together and does silver "fuse"?
Also if found by Archeologists then why do the coins need to be purchased...treasure trove?
Still it shows what is still out there to be found.
Kevin

33 kg of silver if my calculationsare correct
Value on the market...just silver content not historical context...
£20,000 working on 0.925 purity content :eek:
A good days work then.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Treasure act, silver and gold items found on private or public lands are government property.

[66kbm]

OK....I dont understand why ,if the govt owns it,why cant it go straight to a museum?....in fact i can understand because it makes revenue for them.
Shame on them.
Still a big lump of silver though
Kevin

[Vindex]

Not sure I understand this.

If the hoard was found by archaeologists, yes they still have to declare the treasure but under any excavation the pre planning phase HAS to nominate which museum will receive the artefacts with the agreement of the County Archaeologist.

One can only assume that the landowner has made a prior claim on the hoard which necessitates the museum having to buy it instead of receiving it as a gift/donation (which is the norm). :roll:

[66kbm]

I knew summit sounded odd....Straight from the horses mouth (avatar pic)..thanks Moi.
I think we havn't been given the facts, as usual, so all we are doing are speculating, buts its fun to do so.
I know nothing about the find/dig?...but i presume the landowner was informed prior to the necessary details involved if anything was found and i dont think the dig was random so there was a pretty good idea summit would of been found.
Re my prior post....how big a lump is 33kg of Silver?...a foot square?
Ideas anyone?
Kevin

[Vindex]

I know silver ingots have been found but 33kg is a lot of silver even if it is of dubious/unknown quality.

An ingot of lead might get to that sort of weight...and just for you Kev, one of said ingots which has Leg II Aug stamped on it :wink: (I was concentrating on the water wheel but you can see it to the bottom left). The wheel is a reconstruction from the gold mine at Luentinum, not entirely sure where the ingot came from now...it'll be in a catalougie of finds somewhere!

[ANTONIVS MAGNVS]

Kevin from the picture it appears that most of the coins are not denarii (silver) but Antoninianii which would make them base metal with a silver wash applied to them or very low silver content (it depends). If the picture is of the actual find they appear to be Gordian III and that era. I would imagine that museums and scholars would only be interested in a hoard analysis but wouldn't be too interested in the coins themselves since most from this era are quite common and readily available.

It would be cool however if they were displayed "as found" and it appears that that is what is intended for them.

[66kbm]

Re ingots of lead...i'm sure they came from Chaterhouse in the Mendips...big lead production....ingot with Leg II stamp found in southern France...moving on...
Maybee one can relate to 30kg of silver as a 20kg bag of cement as in size...thats a pretty dense material.
Still a stunning find.....one day my day will come here in Devon hock: Honest
Kevin

Thanks Jay
So it appears the media are not telling the whole truth or are "selective" in what they decide to tell us...its good you people out there know your "stuff" and can keep the rest of us informed.
It SHOULD be displayed as it was found...agreed, what other use is the hoard to anyone.
If common coinage my "mills denari calculator" goes to pot...lol
I do apologise but i seem to have hijacked this thread.
I'm sorry
Kevin

[ANTONIVS MAGNVS]

Well a hoard analysis will tell us the oldest and newest coin so we can pinpoint the date it was buried, not earlier than the last coin. It also helps determine any die matches which help us see the rate of wear to the dies and how far coins were distributed from their mint origin. Also there may be some rare or new types which are unknown which helps us date events through titles found on coins. This in particularly the case when dies are modified for new titles, so there is a lot to learn from a hoard but as individual coins usually there is not a lot of value per piece. A common Gordian III Antoninianus can be had for about $30...but when there are 30 000 of them! hock:

[66kbm]

Yet i recently purchased a Silver Denarius of Vespasian at £12, very fine. luck of the draw on E-Bay...but thats not a value of the coin.
Depends on quality of coinage and mint marks as you said...but thats collectors not historical context.
"its only worth what someone is willing to pay for it"...i do hope in this case that the price stays low and the hoard remains in the custody of the local museum.
As for you points on the wear/type/new/rare...surely as this hoard was found by archeologists then those details have allready been logged/recorded.
Still one hell of a hoard....congratulations to the man/woman who found it.
Kevin

[Vindex]

Yes, the coin report from both this and the hoard near Devizes will keep numismatists busy for years. :wink:

[66kbm]

Numismatisitsts....i cant even say it...lol..I hate that word ...even though i know what it means....numismatic...i can understand why it is needed in the archeological world but to "Joe Public" why not say....currency.
Less big words and more youngsters following...who knows wether they may find the next great hoard.....off subject sorry.
From recent readings i can undersatand why such a hoard was left at Bath.legoi II and XX were in the vicinity....but not XX the date produced by the coinage...but also recorded gravestones of legionaires.
In the long run in the late 3rd cent a huge amount of coinage was left at Bath....i say there is more earlier to be found.
If found please return to
Kevin Mills
Blah Blah
Blah
Blah
LOL
Keep hunting people....it all starts to fill in piecies of the jigsaw that we do not know what the whole picture looks like.
Kevin

[Robert Vermaat]

If it's indeed all from one year (but how can they tell without researching every coin?) it could be one issue from a particular mint (Londinium?) to pay officials and military.

So it appears the media are not telling the whole truth or are "selective" in what they decide to tell us...

So when do they ever? Most journalists are quite lazy, newspapers are only interested in fast, gaudy stories. It's what sells that counts, not what's well-researched. :x

[Robert Vermaat]

Numismatisitsts....i cant even say it...lol..I hate that word ...even though i know what it means....numismatic...i can understand why it is needed in the archeological world but to "Joe Public" why not say....currency.

Numismatists.

Definition: (1) A numismatist is a scholar who studies the science of Numismatics. Among coin collectors, the term numismatist is used to mean anybody who is really serious about their coin collecting, or who grades, catalogs, or sells coins for a living.