Excellent bit of luck with the site Herbie which Just goes to show if you do it all above board with your farmers then you can only win and well done to your skill in finding the coins. Those 3 all appear to be Constantine, are the rest from the house of Constantine era? that is going to be one of the deciding factor on whether it might be regarded as a hoard.
The ones you have posted "appear" to be official coinage and this is another factor, are there any barbarous issues amongst them?
The simple fact of having that many coins is not going to be considered a hoard although that's what it says in the treasure act. There are 4 sites over here that we detect, each of which have produced far more coins from a small area and none of these have been recorded as a hoard.
Had that many coins come up and consisted of 1st. 2nd or even 3rd century pre tetrarchy, that would be more likely to be a hoard, but this period is rich in coinage as funding is being pumped into Britain to "secure" it's allegiance with Building etc.
However if they appear to all be official coinage then they could be the "good stuff" that's been stashed away. If it is a bronze hoard then you have the job of not only finding the main spot but also finding the silver one that goes with it as 90% of bronze hoards will have a silver counterpart somewhere in the area.
Thanks for the info Chef, the three that are pictured are the best of the bunch so far, the rest were pretty grotty, certainly not in any condition to give a positive ID on them, but only spent about a half hour in total detecting the rest of the time was spent chatting with the farmers.
Will keep you all posted
Herbie
