Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjcon | Hacker News Reader

Did I read that right? If you find an old coin on your land in England you could go to jail for not reporting it? So not only do you not own it, the crown owns it because it is ‘treasure’ and you can go to jail for not reporting the find? Huh… looking at the linked law they give you 1 day to report the finding or else risk jail time… England takes their treasure seriously I guess.

View on HN

Tiny nitpick, but you need to find two coins to qualify:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Act_1996

I think that's the right call. A common person can find an old coin and not really think about the historical impact it has. Merely keep it on his or her shelf or bring it to a shop for some extra cash.

But once you're in the realm of finding multiple coins, the onus kinda changes. There may be more, greed sets in and wanting to conceal the find is bad. Also, England doesn't "take their treasure" it buys it off of them if the museum wants to buy it and for a fair price.

That system sounds reasonable, except that if "greed" is at all common in practice, that's good evidence the price is not fair. I followed the wikipedia link to the committee in charge but it didn't say anything about this question.

If it were common, I think the press would have a field day with it, especially the international press. There should be enough pressure on both sides for this not to be a problem, but I'm not an expert in English treasure.

I know some people living in villages in Eastern Poland who regularly dig up historical coins and such on their land. They promptly hide or destroy them due to fear/unwillingness to deal with authorities.

I used to be annoyed/bewildered at it, but ever since the time sitting on a bench in the park got criminalised, I get it. There is no common good in a low trust society.

> sitting on a bench in the park got criminalised

What does that mean?

COVID restrictions probably

Or vagrancy laws.

Finders need to report their find within 14 days.

It's not that ot does not belong to them: if the find is deemed a treasure they are obligated to offer it to museums for purchase at a price set by a valuation committee.

If museums are interested then they keep it and can do whatever they want with it.

If museums are not interested then they (the metal detectorists) keep it and can do whatever they want with it.

Ah yes, of course. Too late for me to correct now.

If you are obligated to offer something for a purchase price set by a valuation committee, you do not in practice own it. The committee, though ostensibly bounded by some rules or guidelines, nonetheless could set a price different from what the market would actually bear. If they're truly offering competitive prices then the rule requiring a coin-finder to sell at the committee-determined price would be unnecessary.

What is a competitive price for such items?

IMHO, either you sell at auction to find out orr you ask experts to value.

Since the sale is not on the open market they picked the second option, which is reasonable.

Without a market, there is no fair evaluation of value.

There is a market for ancient coins. Hence experts can give an estimate in the same way experts can estimate the value of antiques or art pieces.

Markets can determine price, not value.

Can the museum turn around and sell it at a profit?

Apparently the price offered is not cast in stone though ... I was in correspondence with one of the finders of the recent Rauceby (UK) hoard who mentioned there was some negotiation with the British Museum over the price they paid for the portion they chose to keep. Still well below prices the remainder of the hoard, returned to the finders, has been fetching on the open market though.

This is common to most countries, not particular of England. If you find an archeological object it is part of the country patrimony. It is particularly interesting when you are working in a construction and the building is completely halted because it is in a new discovered archeological area.

The spirit of this kind of laws is not only to protect the patrimony but to keep the objects within the boundaries of the country. Without these laws the objects will fly to the best buyer in the globe.

The Netherlands lost a lot of paintings before the government stepped in and funded the Rijksmuseum. Then for a 150 years they bought as many of them back as they could.

Whenever I'm in a museum abroad I always like to visit the Dutch/Flemish masters section. There are good ones in Spain but those are honourable spoils of war. The American museums are wealthy industrialists buying paintings at an auction.

In general, fine art work has a different treatment that archeological artifacts but also has a relationship with the time of ownership and where/how you find/buy it.

There are also more complex cases, for example the recovery of stolen art from the Nazis.

> There are good ones in Spain but those are honourable spoils of war. The American museums are wealthy industrialists buying paintings at an auction.

Are you saying that taking paintings via violence is ethically better than buying them on the open market?

It’s stronger than that. ‘Honourable’ would suggest the stealing was a good thing.

The post must be a joke or sarcasm surely?

What is an honourable spoil of war? Surely it's just theft?

Roald Dahl, of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame, wrote a non-fiction account about one such unreported find, the Mildenhall Treasure. The find was made during WWII. No jail time but almost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mildenhall_Treasure

Quite right too, just because you paid some guy to buy their land shouldn't give you total control over any historical objects on that land.

Although these guys obviously wanted to make a quick buck and to hell with history.

Nor do you get rights over human remains on your land. You may even be required to report a dead body if you find one on your land, under threat of fine and jail.

If the human remains are of ancient Native American origin, then there may be other restrictions of what cane be done with the remains and any associated funerary objects.

Nor (in the US) do most people get to use birds, eggs, or even feathers of 1,000+ species of birds, even if found on their land, because of endangered species law (starting with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918).

And someone may have ownership rights to the land, but not mineral rights.

Therefore, land ownership clearly does not mean ownership and control of everything on the land.

Actually in countries like Portugal, you can lose ownership when that land is required for public good.

You are entitled to fight in court, and if you lose, you get whatever the goverment feels right to pay for the land.

That's pretty much every country including the US.

That's pretty normal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

Without it, you couldn't build things like roads.

For comparison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove#United_States

Any treasure finds in the UK are usually passed onto archaeologists and/or historians in the first instance for study, and almost certainly end up in a museum thereafter if they have historical worth. They are allowed to be sold for profit if those criteria aren't met.

Only certain items are covered, you have 14 days to report such items [1]

1. https://www.gov.uk/treasure

There is a hobby dedicated to using metal detectors to find treasure and a somewhat recent BBC television series about this https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06l51nr

In Ireland you can't even use a metal detector on your own land.

Yes, taking your history seriously is a good thing.

Can you guess why is that? ;)

There are a great many historical artifacts that are privately held but have been available for study. Conversation on disposition of treasures tends to conflate two issues, ownership and accessibility. I seriously doubt that anyone willing to spend six figures on some coins would be reluctant to let scholars examine them (if such ownership was legal).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com