The beep that made me leap: Housewife discovers £250,000 gold treasure after seven years

Daily Mail ^ | 24 June 2009 | Dalya Alberge

[BGHater]

After seven years of combing fields and beaches with a metal detector, the only thing housewife Mary Hannaby had to show for her hobby was an old dental plate.

But all those efforts paid off when her first proper find turned out to be a 15th-century gold treasure valued at £250,000 or more.

The find is thought to be part of a high-quality reliquary or pendant, and depicts the Holy Trinity.

Mrs Hannaby, 57, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, heard her metal detector's tell-tale beep while out on one of her regular six-hour Sunday detecting walks with her son, woodcarver Michael, 33.

For 500 years, the treasure had lain buried four inches below the ground, despite repeated ploughing.

The discovery is all the more astonishing as this was not the first time the Hannabys had scoured the arable field between Ashridge and Great Gaddesden.

'You get a buzz every time you get a signal, but chances are it won't be anything,' said Mrs Hannaby.

'This time, it popped up all of a sudden,' said her son. 'You can literally miss things by inches. We couldn't believe it. We always dreamed of finding treasure.'

And the pair struck gold again when the landowner refused Mrs Hannaby's offer to split the money equally and said he wanted only 30 per cent, saying he would never have known about the treasure if not for her.

Under the Treasure Act of 1996, finders must report potential treasure such as gold and silver objects more than 300 years old.

Finders are offered the market value for their discoveries which museums have first option to buy.

At 2.8cm by 2.3cm, the treasure is barely larger than a postagestamp, but its importance is exciting experts.

[BGHater]

Note

I had to edit title to fit into header. Correct title is:

'The beep that made me leap: Housewife discovers £250,000 gold treasure after seven years of hunting with a metal detector'

[BGHater]

General bling ping.

[I Hate Obama]

Only 4 inches below the ground? Amazing.

[Daffynition]

Cool. She'll be able to afford a butler now.

[neal1960]

I’ve found pull tabs at 6 inches. She has nothing on me!

[Roccus]

The plowing is prolly what kept it near the surface.

[Does so]

About 10 - 15 years ago, requilaries were being smuggled, wholesale, out of Russia. (But this doesn’t look Russian).

[taxtruth]

I’m sure the government wants their cut.

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks BGHater. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

If she sells it, they might do in terms of capital gains tax, I don’t know. However, the treasure act isn’t about the government taking a ‘cut’ it is about giving museums first refusal on archeologically significant finds...