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a massive Saxon hoard found  :o on the weekend wanderers rally ive seen the carrier bag full of silver saxon coins 

heres a bag full of them

(http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss63/jayhay69/saxoncoins_zps075388d4.jpg) (http://s562.photobucket.com/user/jayhay69/media/saxoncoins_zps075388d4.jpg.html)

Wow

Yer its amazing what you can get at sainsburys this time of year  ;D

wow ;)

Wow Umbelievable!!!!!     ;D

very nice that there saying over 3,500 and 7,000 Cnut's and Ethelreds

Good god, what a fantastick hoard, can't wait for the full story what a way to end the year :o

Incredible! I hope no one on here has invested in Cnut and Ethelred then as the price has just plummeted lol

To true geoff .

5 years ago the few of us that went for the Deus were told we were wasting our time.

What a change over the last few years.

Only this week some were posts on another site  were stating that it was not a deep seeking machine

The hole looked pretty deep to me.

Good luck to the finder less work and more detecting for the rest of his life.  ;) :)  Jerry.j

ye jbm looked at least two foot maybe more / wonder if he was using the big coil ;D

I love to go through that lot picking out the Bristol's, well done to the finder ;)

Unreal most of us dream of finding one saxon what a find .

i am going to start digging those large coke can type signals :o

Apparently found with a Deus, now if that's true some nice PR for them ;)

Even better publicity if they dug them up themselves.


Val

I wonder how many people wandered over that signal and didn't dig it because it was too strong - given the size of the hoard, it's amazing it hasn't been found before - fantastic find.

I remember about 10 years ago (or maybe slightly longer) there was a massive hoard (same sort of scale) of Cnuts found and the price of them dropped to about £75 a piece - they'd been bumping around the £150 mark before then.

Given that they seem to be going for £200-£250 at the mo, I can see them drop back a bit (if they ever get to market, which they probably won't). Still that's something of the order of £150K for some people for Christmas.....

Where was the rally held?

The Deus is great but,  sorry, not buying the 'Deus has proven itself claim' here. A hoard that size would be picked up by any machine. As has been stated before, the chances are its not been dug as the signal was too big.  :)

ps Dale, even at £100 a coin the value would be over a million not 100k, You dropped a zero somewhere :)

Someone's going to have a nice Christmas.   :)

the find was excavated by the FLO and at the count 5225 coins were declared!

Brilliant hoard, well done :)

few would have dug a 2 foot hole so its good they kept at it

Robs completely correct probably would have been found by most machines , but I got to say any one who fails to investigate a large signal does so at there loss, I have never left any large signal until I have defiantly ruled out a hoard, proof of pudding our last rally that turned out to be a bucket took 20 minutes nearly killed me, 2 foot hole, but at least I knew ;) ;) my Patera hoard was a massive signal with my Sovereign and there was no way I was going to leave it without investigating.The top skillet was 2 foot down in Flint which took me 40 minutes to remove. When any one finds hoards there machines generally get some good PR it's the Deus!s turn now at last :D ;)

I bet Alain Loubet and his XP team are over the moon.

Wait till the good news hits the telly and detecting magazines.

Not so good for the collectors as so many coins may be effected with their current market value.

I remember a few years back a single Mule Saxon coin fetching near £3000 from a collector.

Iam really pleased for the finder and his family as this could be a life changing experience for them. ;) :)  Jerry.

OK to put a little flesh on the bones of this story the detectorist was using a Deus and got what he described as an iffy iron'ish signal so he called to a friend to check it with his machine his friend did so and told him to keep digging, his friends machine was a Fisher so you'll have to argue amongst yourselves which machine actually led to the find seeing the light of day.
I was just going to get on my soap box and rant about detectors only detecting multiple targets not one huge one but it seems that in this case I would have been completely wrong as the whole hoard (5225 coins) was contained in a lead box/bucket so whichever machine gave the ultimate "dig" signal it's proved that it can find a big bit of lead at 2 foot  ;D
The whole hoard was excavated by the local FLO etc....Here's a pic from Facebook of the hoard still in situ after the lead top had been removed.

Stunning sight pity no close up pictures from of said coins.  But weldone to the finders.  And if it was jcb Jones they wold be stuck in his scrap bucket.  :-D

Or a big bucket of bleach :D

Thanks for the extra information Chef - it's great to have some more meat on the bones of the story - and to see that other picture of the hole. I know I would have probably have given up before gettting to 2'........

Me too Roland after a foot down one word would have been flashing through my brain and that would have been "IRON" ;)

how many iffy ish iron signals did i not dig on sunday .scary .the indicator said iron and the numbers were well down under 30ish

I think the majority of us would do the same Geoff.  After you've dug up buckets, hub caps and field gates you sort of get the burnt finger syndrome.

Val

Rob you got the wrong man lol :D

You would need 10,000 at £100 to get the million though, Geoff said 5225 coins were declared, its still a good holiday....... Im getting confused now with all these £££'sss :-\ :D

ethelreds can be bigger money

Yes, it was me who couldn't add up :).... doh

hoards usually contain 1 or 2 coins that are unique and never been seen before and that could add up to a 5 figure sum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLY1YQbgdwA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLY1YQbgdwA)[youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLY1YQbgdwA][/youtube]

WOW! This really is what dreams are made of!!! Great video
I think I'm going to start next year digging all those big signals I've walked away from in the past 4 years!!!😳

Well done Ceri for getting it on video great to watch ;)

Wow that's amazing! Well done too the finder bet the person was touching cloth  :D

did i just see the Arci or PAS rubbing the mud off those coins? Tut Tut,And so many hands taking coins Mmmmmm!!

Coin rubbing is more of a collectors obsession when they're in that condition it was dropping them all in the same bag was what got me, I'm amazed they didn't block lift it ???

thats what i thought surly taking it out in a block would of been the right way, oh well lets see if the valuation is gonna be £1.3 million or more like £250,000,then again the BM if they have it will probably offer £25,000 if that.

Agree I thought the same, the way it was excavated was very unprofessional.

They can learn so much about how it was deposited by block lifting - it was exciting to see them being lifted - I just hope none were broken on the way to storage...and just think of the information that has been lost.

Is block lifting more of a bronze fussed together hoard method? extracting loss silver may be different, but did I read somewhere it was in a lead bucket, I haven't seen and photos of that, they must of left it behind :D

Well - unless the bags of coins they have lifted out were in sequence and labelled as such, they have lost any information pertaining to how the hoard was deposited - and to be honest in the bags as they are, they don't have any information of whether the coins were parcelled up into smaller bags in the lead box / bucket / sheet of lead covering them - it certainly looked as if they were in some kind of shape in some of the pictures - but they didn't seem to be in a square shape which would have indicated something like a wooden box

I agree it does seem a shame that the hoard was not lifted out in one.
Is there a set of rules or procedures that FLO should follow or can they do want that feel fit?
 ???

I would think the reason they didn't block lift was that the extent of the hoard wasn't imagined to be as big the hole itself is far too narrow to excavate the hoard "properly", Mellonhead told me that they started out bagging layer by layer but as the light was failing it became obvious that they had to think more of getting it to safety.
Dale block lifting is used either for items that are very fragile and are being held together by the surrounding soil or for anything that you want to study "as is" in more controlled conditions.
If the coins are as reported just from Ethelred and Cnut then you're only looking at a 57 year period and so the chronology of how the hoard was laid down isn't quite as great but I'm quite sure that the rally site will be having a good investigation now by the local county archaeologist as having seen its location I feel pretty confident that the hoard was buried below the floor of a manorial complex with attached village. ;)

 ;) thanks chef

I see cheers for the info ;)

Better pics and report now up on WW site.......Not sure whether to go WOW! and drool or just be sick ;D

http://www.weekendwanderersdetecting.com/INTRODUCTION/Calendar_of_Events/SAXON_HOARD_/saxon_hoard_.html (http://www.weekendwanderersdetecting.com/INTRODUCTION/Calendar_of_Events/SAXON_HOARD_/saxon_hoard_.html)

As you say geoff  well actually what can you say !! but WOW

Thanks for the link.

Even my missus has shown some interest in that hoard. She wasn't bothered about mine..........!

Yes - serious drooling here  ;D

Any chance of a id on the cleaned coins Doc?

WOW  WOW  WOW

Truly an awesome hoard, worth a fortune monetary wise and for future research  ;) from the looks of the field there's some interesting earthworks going on as well, settlement of sorts, no doubt all will be revealed in time. The only problem I foresee is bettering the find in 2015  ;D ;D

Just quickly, they all seem to be Aethelred II apart from the bottom right which is Cnut. I'm sure there will be an interesting reason why they were buried and not recovered - will have to wait to see if any later coins are included (i.e Harthacnut, Harold I etc) to tie it down to events.

I hope the site is now excavated to give some of these answers, what I can't get out of my head is as you say Roland are there any later coins or is that an early bucket full with possibly later coins in another container close by :o
I doubt it will ever be known why it wasn't recovered though the place where it was found was owned by Earl Leofwin, Harold's youngest brother, who like Harold was killed at Hastings ???
Actually if you think about it it's amazing that there aren't a lot more hoards from around 1066 :-\

And now in the press
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2893568/Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-1-000-year-old-hoard-Anglo-Saxon-coins-worth-1million-buried-farmer-s-field.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2893568/Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-1-000-year-old-hoard-Anglo-Saxon-coins-worth-1million-buried-farmer-s-field.html)

There proberby are its just us detectorists are not finding them or we are finding some but not digging them

 i know ive not carried on digging when a foot or so down and still getting a signal im assuming it a horse shoe or some farm impliment and usually thats what it will be , but had a change of tactics now

Interesting additional information - it all helps to build a picture.

There have been numerous occasions where there have been multiple hoards in areas (a local one for instance is the three sully hoards - first found in 1895) - so you never know there might be another one - although sometimes it's a case of 'well this is a good place to bury a hoard' but in different eras.

Looking at the photos, it looks as if they did a good job of the excavation, the first photos we seen it didn't look to good, cheers for the post ;)

I think its to do with the Viking raids, large amounts of silver was paid to the Vikings to keep peace. I read that any Scandinavian who could buy a boat and get a few men together were on their way across the North Sea. It was like charity! large hoards of this time has been found in Scandinavia... I watched a documentary about the Viking raids and it was said Aethelred II struck the hand of providence onto coins to send a message to the Viking raiders, but for the life of me I cannot remember what the message was ??? :D

It will be interesting to get the full date range of the hoard and see what comes of it ;)

What Viking raids in the middle of Buckinghamshire? lol

Its surprising how far up stream the Viking ships went :D......... It is a little in land.

Coming up on BBC WALES 1 o'clock news, a report on 1000 year old find worth £1 million.


Val

With ref to "david999 comments I totally agree with what he said,yes we get a good signal and start to dig,dig,dig,propointer in and out the hole,ding,ding ding,still something there!!dig,dig,dig,propointer,so on and so forth,its going on in your head as David said," probably a horse shoe,maybe a bit off a plough!!can't be much!! "Can it ?". I have now learned from today,I bought a detector which cost me quite a lot of cash to detect buried metal,this detector tells me that there is buried metal beneath my feet then why do I give up,fill in the hole,stamp back down on the turf and walk away from WHAT!!!

Because 999 out of 1000 it's going to be that horseshoe - two foot down.....

I guess we are trying to balance out weather to spend that 20 mins digging that big hole 999 times to find that potential one  hoard or to spend all the extra time whilst not digging 999 holes detecting  lots  more area and finding lots of single item s..... we all have that choice to make

The hoard seems to fall in datiing no later than 1050 and would not surprise me if it was Royal bullion pay of .The reason that coins were used in bullion (weight) hoards that each bit of silver can tested for silver value by a knife.The last Viking hoard found he had peck marks virtually on every coin..This will be interesting to see if a deal was done between Vikings and Saxons at about that time by the peck marks on coins ..

Rob was the last hoard a UK find? most are found peck marked in Scandinavia and the Balitc region, its surprising how many Saxon pennys gets sold on eBay peck marked

We're going to have to wait and see on so many questions as if Cnut is the last king of the hoard then it can't date any later than 1035 with the last great Danegeld being paid in 1018, one thing that does give weight to your idea of it being a silver hoard rather than a coin hoard is that under the coin reforms of Edgar in 972 these coins (Ethelred and Cnut) wouldn't have been in circulation at the same time ???
The manor does seem to have been a very wealthy one for its size, in 1066 it paid £6 tax for only 10 households which in 1066 speak is a massive amount but this hoard would still represent over three and a half  years of tax.
I think that archaeologically this hoard could be far more important than the Staffordshire hoard ;)

Dale what I find intriguing with the peck marked coins is that OK you can't show anything by biting a silver coin so a knife is your only way it does give the impression that counterfeiting was rife but if so then where the hell are all the counterfeits ???

My first thought as well Geoff.  One thing is for sure, it wasn't some ones savings.  Unless that some one was very, very important. ;)

I noticed on the News report the commentator said about it raising so many questions 'was it hidden from the Vikings'  who do they think Cnut was.  

Val

LOL very true Val

Again in the Mirror they've said 'probably hidden in 1066 to hide it from Williams' army' - so why aren't there any coins of Edward the Confessor in it then - they're pretty common......

It'll be interesting to see how far into Cnut's reign they actually run to as well - if it were the finally issues, you could make a claim perhaps for the jostling for position between Harold I and Harthacnut......

And given it was a wealthy establishment with some important people living there, you've got to wonder who buried it and how come no-one else noticed it being buried and had the chance to recover it....