It amazes me whenever someone finds a hoard there is always someone ready to stir up trouble, for whatever reason, whether it’s jealousy or just envy. This was copied from the Gloucestershire Echo on Saturday in the comment’s section.
Now this person is obviously a detectorist, and should know there have been many hoards found with more than three emperors present in the collection. He also states he has found Roman hoards over a period of 40 years, which is strange because I don’t recall his name cropping up anywhere in the County, in fact cannot find any record of him, and were these hoards he found recorded.
He would also like to see soil samples taken from the coins and the field, this sounds more like something Paul the vexatious blogger with incredibly itchy underpants would say than a detectorist.
I would also say the reason why the site has not been disclosed, is to deter would be nighthawkers.
It also turns out I know the person quite well who found them, and heard first hand how they were discovered and I have no reason to doubt him, oh! and he is also a member on Detecting Wales , but is too shy to come forward.
Story of Roman coins does not ring true
The story on page 2 of the Echo on October 19th regarding the metal detectorist find of 3,700 roman coins on Bredon Hill, Worcestershire, on farmland does not somehow ring true.
I, myself with two colleagues have found over a period of 40 years Roman coin hoards and many thousands of individual coins within the ploughed soil which are insignificant to archaeologists because they are unstratified.
The hoards we have discovered very seldom exceed the life of three emperors. It is therefore very unlikely a Roman/British inhabitant would save coins of different emperors then hand them down to his/her descendants to collect and bury them 100 years later ( for whatever reason) Also, it was stated the actual find site will not be disclosed-why not?
I would suggest soil samples taken from the coins and also a soil sample from the alleged field.
Brian Dodwell
Cheltenham