An amateur treasure hunter who uncovered one of the largest hoards of Anglo Saxon coins ever found in Britain - worth £1million - almost missed the dig because he couldn't afford the petrol.
Paul Coleman, 59, persuaded his son and a friend to join him on the excavation on farmland in Lenborough, Buckinghamshire just before Christmas so he could split the £45 cost for the journey.
But the unemployed father-of-two hit the jackpot when he dug up the pristine collection of more than 5,000 silver coins made in the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-1035).
It is thought that the find could be connected to a mint established by Ethelred at nearby Buckingham and which remained active during the time of Cnut.
The 5,251 coins were in a lead-lined container buried two feet under ground. Only some have been properly cleaned but all have proved to be in excellent condition.
The expedition was an end-of-year rally for members of the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club.
Amateur treasure hunter finds £1million hoard of 1,000-year-old Anglo Saxon coins - after a whip-round for petrol to get there
By Andrew Levy for Daily Mail and Gemma Mullin for MailOnline
2 January 2015
Daily Mail
Discovery: Paul Coleman, 59, found the stash of Anglo Saxon coins worth £1million during the dig
An amateur treasure hunter who uncovered one of the largest hoards of Anglo Saxon coins ever found in Britain - worth £1million - almost missed the dig because he couldn't afford the petrol.
Paul Coleman, 59, persuaded his son and a friend to join him on the excavation on farmland in Lenborough, Buckinghamshire just before Christmas so he could split the £45 cost for the journey.
But the unemployed father-of-two hit the jackpot when he dug up the pristine collection of more than 5,000 silver coins made in the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-1035).
It is thought that the find could be connected to a mint established by Ethelred at nearby Buckingham and which remained active during the time of Cnut.
The 5,251 coins were in a lead-lined container buried two feet under ground. Only some have been properly cleaned but all have proved to be in excellent condition.
The expedition was an end-of-year rally for members of the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club.
Mr Coleman told the Daily Mirror: 'I found a piece of lead and thought it was junk. But then I looked back in the hole and saw one shiny coin. Then I lifted a larger piece of lead and saw row upon row of coins stacked neatly.
'By that point the excitement had built up and I was grinning from ear to ear.
'I recently borrowed a little bit extra on the mortgage just to tide me over. But this means I will never have to work again - it's a massive weight off my mind.'
The grandfather-of-four said he will share some of his fortune with his metal detector friends - a customary tradition with a big find - and has pledged to buy a new house for his wife Christine, 53.
Mr Coleman, who owns a Southampton-based wedding cars business, has been metal detecting for four decades and will also split the proceeds from the 5,251 coins with the landowner.
Ros Tyrrell, who is based at the county museum in nearby Aylesbury, was there to record the finds.
Mr Coleman with his wife Christine. He has promised he will use the money to buy them both a new house
Hoard: One of the largest hauls of Anglo Saxon silver coins in British history has been found by an amateur treasure hunter in a field. The volunteers put the silver in sandwich pouches inside a Sainsbury's carrier bag
Special: The diggers knew they had stumbled across something remarkable when they picked up a signal the size of a manhole cover. The coins were hidden inside a lead bucket with the top folded in, they said
She said: ‘The coins were wrapped in lead sheeting and were covered in clay and silt which had seeped through where the lead had started to deteriorate but they were otherwise pristine.
‘Those that we cleaned dated from the time of Ethelred the Unready and Cnut. There was a mint in Buckingham during their time so the find is possibly connected to that, or indeed the Saxon burgh – a defended encampment – also in the area.
‘We cleaned mud away from only a handful of the coins so it’s possible there could have been older or newer coins in there too.
Pete Welch, the club's leader for 23 years, said: 'It looks like only two people have handled these coins, the person who made them and the person who buried them. This would have been a huge amount of money'
Origin: The coins could have come from King Canute's Buckingham mint 15 miles away, one of 70 at the time
Treasure: The man who found the coins, named only as Paul, could be in line for a six-figure payout
Commomn: The early pennies were made of silver by workmen who could stamp more than 2,000 a day
Miss Tyrrell said the find, which has been sent to experts at the British Museum for analysis, could be worth around £1million.
Simon Keynes, professor of Anglo Saxon at Cambridge University, said the collection ‘straddled an extraordinary period of history’ during which the Vikings took control of England.
He added: ‘The question is, how do we account for the composition of this hoard? Is it a hoard of a Viking – his accumulated wealth – or is it something else? Only half of the coins have been cleaned so far – the eventual date range could prove to be much more expansive.
‘Until then, the hoard could be difficult to explain, but it is certainly an extraordinary find.’
Mr Coleman's son Liam, who helped his father excavate the coins with Miss Tyrrell, said he had been delighted.
Liam, a 29-year-old sign fitter and metal detector enthusiast, added: ‘People consider finding just one of those coins a once in a lifetime event, let alone a stash of thousands. Just being able to hold one was an honour.’
Peter Welch, 56, who organised the dig on December 21, said the coins were like mirrors and had not been scratched.
Dig: More than 100 people turned up to the day of metal detecting on a farmer's field in Buckinghamshire
Gathered round: The club members awaiting the results of the find. A spokesman for the Buckinghamshire County Museum said: 'This is one of the largest hoards of Anglo Saxon coins ever found in Britain'
He added: ‘It looks like only two people have handled these coins. The person who made them and the person who buried them.’
A coroner will decide whether the coins are legally treasure. If that is the verdict, the money from their sale to a museum will be split between the unidentified landowner and Mr Coleman.
Ethelred became king at the age of seven after the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at Corfe Castle in Dorset.
In 1002 he ordered the massacre of all Danes in England to eliminate potential treachery but 11 years later was forced to flee to Normandy when Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him.
Ethelred – whose nickname ‘Unready’ comes from the Anglo Saxon for ‘ill-advised’ – returned to rule after Sweyn’s death in 1014, but died during the Danish invasion of 1016. He was the first king of England to be buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.
He was succeeded by Edmund II and then Cnut, the son of Sweyn, who consolidated his position by marrying Ethelred’s widow Emma.
Cnut was also king of Denmark, and even extended his rule into Norway and parts of Sweden – putting him in charge of what is now seen as a North Sea Empire. Following his death in 1035 he was buried in Winchester.
In July 2009, unemployed metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert discovered the largest ever hoard of Anglo Saxon treasure in a field at Hammerwich, near Lichfield in Staffordshire.
Consisting of more than 3,500 gold and silver warrior artefacts, the ‘Staffordshire Hoard’ was valued at £3.3million with the money split between Mr Herbert and farmer Fred Johnson.
WHO WAS ON THE THRONE AT THE TIME THE MONEY WAS IN USE?
King Canute (pictured) was King of Denmark, England and Norway at the same time
Ethelred became King of England at the age of seven following the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at Corfe Castle, Dorset, by Edward's own supporters.
Given the nickname 'Un-raed' or 'Unready' (meaning 'no counsel', or that he was unwise), Ethelred failed to win or retain the allegiance of many of his subjects after the church transformed his brother into a 'royal martyr'.
In 1002, he ordered the massacre of all Danes in England - the St Brice's Day Massacre - to eliminate potential treachery.
Unable to soldier, Ethelred defended the country against increasingly rapacious Viking raids from the 980s onwards by diplomatic alliance with the duke of Normandy in 991.
In 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy when the powerful Viking Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him. Ethelred returned to rule after Sweyn's death in 1014, but died in 1016.
Meanwhile, King Canute, also known as Canute the Great, lived between 985 and 1035.
Although Danish he was King of Denmark, England and Norway at the same time.
Canute's claim to the throne of England was initially rejected by this country's noblemen so he returned home.
There he raised an army of more than 10,000 men and in 1016 launched an invasion force that sailed up the Thames.
According to legend he believed himself to be so powerful his command could hold back the tide.
He tested this theory by having his throne placed on the shore where he vainly tried to command the tides back until he nearly drowned.
However, some historians argue the demonstration was proof of his wisdom in showing courtiers he was not taken in by their flattery. After his death Canute was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester.
During the English Civil War, his coffin was among those smashed by parliamentarian soldiers and his bones scattered.
His bones remain at Winchester Cathedral but are intermingled with those of other deceased English kings.
SAXON ENGLAND'S 70 MINTS MADE COINS AS WE KNOW THEM TODAY
The coins discovered this week were made under the reign King Ethelred the Unready - a time which pioneered the mass production of the solid silver currency.
Silver had replaced Roman gold and early Anglo Saxon copper in the 8th century, and by the time Ethelred took the throne England had more than 70 mints including in London, Winchester, Lincoln, and York.
The early 'pennies' weighed around one and a half grams each and bore portraits of early monarchs which were pioneering for their time.
Coins were struck with a die at royal mints by skilled workmen who could stamp more than 2,000 blanks a day.
It took 240 pennies to be equivalent to a Tower pound, the standard unit of weight used by the Royal Mint until it was replaced by the troy pound in 1526.
As the mints developed in technology and number, the coins became more uniform and many of the traditions we take for granted were made commonplace - including the view of a monarch's head on one side.
Dr Rory Naismith, a research fellow in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies at Cambridge University said: 'Ethelred's reign was dominated by Viking raids, which began on a small scale in the 980s and escalated gradually thereafter.
'The king taxed his people hard to buy off some of the attackers: altogether he raised at least £174,000 (in eleventh-century prices - many times that in modern terms; perhaps a billion or more).
'But this did not succeed in halting the raids, or their development into a full-blown conquest led by the king of Denmark, Swein Forkbeard, in 1013.
'The years between 1014 and 1016 were dominated by ferocious conflict between the English (led by Ethelred's oldest surviving son, Edmund Ironside, even before the death of Ethelred in April 1016) and the Danes under Cnut, with one of the leading English aristocrats, Eadric Streona, changing sides multiple times and significantly altering the balance of power between the two sides.
'Eventually, after a bloody victory for Cnut at 'Assandun' in Essex, he and Edmund split the kingdom along the Thames, with Cnut taking everything to the north, but when Edmund himself died only a few months later - November 1016 - Cnut inherited the whole kingdom.
'Although he was a Dane, Cnut as King of England seems to have tried to follow many of the precedents of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors.
'He issued charters, coins and laws following English tradition, and brought a welcome measure of stability, though one of his first actions as king was to impose a final and extremely heavy tax of £72,000 on his people, with a further £10,500 for London alone.'
Read more: Amateur treasure hunter finds hoard of Anglo Saxon coins in Buckinghamshire | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Paul Coleman, 59, persuaded his son and a friend to join him on the excavation on farmland in Lenborough, Buckinghamshire just before Christmas so he could split the £45 cost for the journey.
But the unemployed father-of-two hit the jackpot when he dug up the pristine collection of more than 5,000 silver coins made in the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-1035).
It is thought that the find could be connected to a mint established by Ethelred at nearby Buckingham and which remained active during the time of Cnut.
The 5,251 coins were in a lead-lined container buried two feet under ground. Only some have been properly cleaned but all have proved to be in excellent condition.
The expedition was an end-of-year rally for members of the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club.
Amateur treasure hunter finds £1million hoard of 1,000-year-old Anglo Saxon coins - after a whip-round for petrol to get there
Paul Coleman, 59, stumbled upon silver coins in dig in Buckinghamshire
He was on dig with Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club on December 21
Initially father-of-two wasn't going to go because he couldn't afford petrol
Vast hoard of 5,251 pieces described as one of largest in British history
They were buried 'carefully' in a lead container and have no scratches
Finders could be in for a hefty windfall if coins are declared treasure
He was on dig with Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club on December 21
Initially father-of-two wasn't going to go because he couldn't afford petrol
Vast hoard of 5,251 pieces described as one of largest in British history
They were buried 'carefully' in a lead container and have no scratches
Finders could be in for a hefty windfall if coins are declared treasure
By Andrew Levy for Daily Mail and Gemma Mullin for MailOnline
2 January 2015
Daily Mail
Discovery: Paul Coleman, 59, found the stash of Anglo Saxon coins worth £1million during the dig
An amateur treasure hunter who uncovered one of the largest hoards of Anglo Saxon coins ever found in Britain - worth £1million - almost missed the dig because he couldn't afford the petrol.
Paul Coleman, 59, persuaded his son and a friend to join him on the excavation on farmland in Lenborough, Buckinghamshire just before Christmas so he could split the £45 cost for the journey.
But the unemployed father-of-two hit the jackpot when he dug up the pristine collection of more than 5,000 silver coins made in the reigns of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016) and Cnut (1016-1035).
It is thought that the find could be connected to a mint established by Ethelred at nearby Buckingham and which remained active during the time of Cnut.
The 5,251 coins were in a lead-lined container buried two feet under ground. Only some have been properly cleaned but all have proved to be in excellent condition.
The expedition was an end-of-year rally for members of the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club.
Mr Coleman told the Daily Mirror: 'I found a piece of lead and thought it was junk. But then I looked back in the hole and saw one shiny coin. Then I lifted a larger piece of lead and saw row upon row of coins stacked neatly.
'By that point the excitement had built up and I was grinning from ear to ear.
'I recently borrowed a little bit extra on the mortgage just to tide me over. But this means I will never have to work again - it's a massive weight off my mind.'
The grandfather-of-four said he will share some of his fortune with his metal detector friends - a customary tradition with a big find - and has pledged to buy a new house for his wife Christine, 53.
Mr Coleman, who owns a Southampton-based wedding cars business, has been metal detecting for four decades and will also split the proceeds from the 5,251 coins with the landowner.
Ros Tyrrell, who is based at the county museum in nearby Aylesbury, was there to record the finds.
Mr Coleman with his wife Christine. He has promised he will use the money to buy them both a new house
Hoard: One of the largest hauls of Anglo Saxon silver coins in British history has been found by an amateur treasure hunter in a field. The volunteers put the silver in sandwich pouches inside a Sainsbury's carrier bag
Special: The diggers knew they had stumbled across something remarkable when they picked up a signal the size of a manhole cover. The coins were hidden inside a lead bucket with the top folded in, they said
She said: ‘The coins were wrapped in lead sheeting and were covered in clay and silt which had seeped through where the lead had started to deteriorate but they were otherwise pristine.
‘Those that we cleaned dated from the time of Ethelred the Unready and Cnut. There was a mint in Buckingham during their time so the find is possibly connected to that, or indeed the Saxon burgh – a defended encampment – also in the area.
‘We cleaned mud away from only a handful of the coins so it’s possible there could have been older or newer coins in there too.
Pete Welch, the club's leader for 23 years, said: 'It looks like only two people have handled these coins, the person who made them and the person who buried them. This would have been a huge amount of money'
Origin: The coins could have come from King Canute's Buckingham mint 15 miles away, one of 70 at the time
Treasure: The man who found the coins, named only as Paul, could be in line for a six-figure payout
Commomn: The early pennies were made of silver by workmen who could stamp more than 2,000 a day
Miss Tyrrell said the find, which has been sent to experts at the British Museum for analysis, could be worth around £1million.
Simon Keynes, professor of Anglo Saxon at Cambridge University, said the collection ‘straddled an extraordinary period of history’ during which the Vikings took control of England.
He added: ‘The question is, how do we account for the composition of this hoard? Is it a hoard of a Viking – his accumulated wealth – or is it something else? Only half of the coins have been cleaned so far – the eventual date range could prove to be much more expansive.
‘Until then, the hoard could be difficult to explain, but it is certainly an extraordinary find.’
Mr Coleman's son Liam, who helped his father excavate the coins with Miss Tyrrell, said he had been delighted.
Liam, a 29-year-old sign fitter and metal detector enthusiast, added: ‘People consider finding just one of those coins a once in a lifetime event, let alone a stash of thousands. Just being able to hold one was an honour.’
Peter Welch, 56, who organised the dig on December 21, said the coins were like mirrors and had not been scratched.
Dig: More than 100 people turned up to the day of metal detecting on a farmer's field in Buckinghamshire
Gathered round: The club members awaiting the results of the find. A spokesman for the Buckinghamshire County Museum said: 'This is one of the largest hoards of Anglo Saxon coins ever found in Britain'
He added: ‘It looks like only two people have handled these coins. The person who made them and the person who buried them.’
A coroner will decide whether the coins are legally treasure. If that is the verdict, the money from their sale to a museum will be split between the unidentified landowner and Mr Coleman.
Ethelred became king at the age of seven after the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at Corfe Castle in Dorset.
In 1002 he ordered the massacre of all Danes in England to eliminate potential treachery but 11 years later was forced to flee to Normandy when Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him.
Ethelred – whose nickname ‘Unready’ comes from the Anglo Saxon for ‘ill-advised’ – returned to rule after Sweyn’s death in 1014, but died during the Danish invasion of 1016. He was the first king of England to be buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.
He was succeeded by Edmund II and then Cnut, the son of Sweyn, who consolidated his position by marrying Ethelred’s widow Emma.
Cnut was also king of Denmark, and even extended his rule into Norway and parts of Sweden – putting him in charge of what is now seen as a North Sea Empire. Following his death in 1035 he was buried in Winchester.
In July 2009, unemployed metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert discovered the largest ever hoard of Anglo Saxon treasure in a field at Hammerwich, near Lichfield in Staffordshire.
Consisting of more than 3,500 gold and silver warrior artefacts, the ‘Staffordshire Hoard’ was valued at £3.3million with the money split between Mr Herbert and farmer Fred Johnson.
WHO WAS ON THE THRONE AT THE TIME THE MONEY WAS IN USE?
King Canute (pictured) was King of Denmark, England and Norway at the same time
Ethelred became King of England at the age of seven following the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at Corfe Castle, Dorset, by Edward's own supporters.
Given the nickname 'Un-raed' or 'Unready' (meaning 'no counsel', or that he was unwise), Ethelred failed to win or retain the allegiance of many of his subjects after the church transformed his brother into a 'royal martyr'.
In 1002, he ordered the massacre of all Danes in England - the St Brice's Day Massacre - to eliminate potential treachery.
Unable to soldier, Ethelred defended the country against increasingly rapacious Viking raids from the 980s onwards by diplomatic alliance with the duke of Normandy in 991.
In 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy when the powerful Viking Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him. Ethelred returned to rule after Sweyn's death in 1014, but died in 1016.
Meanwhile, King Canute, also known as Canute the Great, lived between 985 and 1035.
Although Danish he was King of Denmark, England and Norway at the same time.
Canute's claim to the throne of England was initially rejected by this country's noblemen so he returned home.
There he raised an army of more than 10,000 men and in 1016 launched an invasion force that sailed up the Thames.
According to legend he believed himself to be so powerful his command could hold back the tide.
He tested this theory by having his throne placed on the shore where he vainly tried to command the tides back until he nearly drowned.
However, some historians argue the demonstration was proof of his wisdom in showing courtiers he was not taken in by their flattery. After his death Canute was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester.
During the English Civil War, his coffin was among those smashed by parliamentarian soldiers and his bones scattered.
His bones remain at Winchester Cathedral but are intermingled with those of other deceased English kings.
SAXON ENGLAND'S 70 MINTS MADE COINS AS WE KNOW THEM TODAY
The coins discovered this week were made under the reign King Ethelred the Unready - a time which pioneered the mass production of the solid silver currency.
Silver had replaced Roman gold and early Anglo Saxon copper in the 8th century, and by the time Ethelred took the throne England had more than 70 mints including in London, Winchester, Lincoln, and York.
The early 'pennies' weighed around one and a half grams each and bore portraits of early monarchs which were pioneering for their time.
Coins were struck with a die at royal mints by skilled workmen who could stamp more than 2,000 blanks a day.
It took 240 pennies to be equivalent to a Tower pound, the standard unit of weight used by the Royal Mint until it was replaced by the troy pound in 1526.
As the mints developed in technology and number, the coins became more uniform and many of the traditions we take for granted were made commonplace - including the view of a monarch's head on one side.
Dr Rory Naismith, a research fellow in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies at Cambridge University said: 'Ethelred's reign was dominated by Viking raids, which began on a small scale in the 980s and escalated gradually thereafter.
'The king taxed his people hard to buy off some of the attackers: altogether he raised at least £174,000 (in eleventh-century prices - many times that in modern terms; perhaps a billion or more).
'But this did not succeed in halting the raids, or their development into a full-blown conquest led by the king of Denmark, Swein Forkbeard, in 1013.
'The years between 1014 and 1016 were dominated by ferocious conflict between the English (led by Ethelred's oldest surviving son, Edmund Ironside, even before the death of Ethelred in April 1016) and the Danes under Cnut, with one of the leading English aristocrats, Eadric Streona, changing sides multiple times and significantly altering the balance of power between the two sides.
'Eventually, after a bloody victory for Cnut at 'Assandun' in Essex, he and Edmund split the kingdom along the Thames, with Cnut taking everything to the north, but when Edmund himself died only a few months later - November 1016 - Cnut inherited the whole kingdom.
'Although he was a Dane, Cnut as King of England seems to have tried to follow many of the precedents of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors.
'He issued charters, coins and laws following English tradition, and brought a welcome measure of stability, though one of his first actions as king was to impose a final and extremely heavy tax of £72,000 on his people, with a further £10,500 for London alone.'
Read more: Amateur treasure hunter finds hoard of Anglo Saxon coins in Buckinghamshire | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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