I found more than a dozen gold coins dating back centuries – now I’m selling them for a fortune
A METAL detectorist discovered gold coins dating back centuries – and he’s flogging them for a fortune.
The owner uncovered the Civil War gold coins in a field and is now selling them for an eye-watering £24,000.
Steve Simmons, 63, had only been detecting for two months when he unearthed two Charles I gold Unites in a rocky field near Box, Wilts.
He hadn’t found a single coin in his first two months – so his treasure find came as a pleasant surprise.
He put the pair in his pocket and went home to research them as he did not recognise them at the time.
After realising they were valuable, he returned a few days later to the same spot to look for more.
The second time round, digging 18ins down, he uncovered a stack containing another 12 gold coins.
Steve, a former restaurant owner in Exeter, found a mixture of James I and Charles I coins dating from 1606 to 1643.
They are believed to have been buried by Lord Hopton’s Royalist forces in 1643 ahead of the Battle of Lansdowne Hill.
He would have hoped to retrieve them after the battle, but the army officer’s forces were routed.
The coins, which were found in August 2020, each had a face value of £10, enough to buy a horse.
Steve is selling the 14 coin hoard with London-based auctioneers Noonans and hopes to spend the proceeds on his retirement and a more modern detector.
Nigel Mills, consultant at Noonans, said: “We can imagine that on July 4, 1643 at a Royalist encampment near Box in Wiltshire, an army officer knelt and started digging in the dirt.
“He took off the gold half laurel that hung around his neck and added it to the leather pouch that contained a further 13 gold coins and concealed them in the small pit.
“Serving under Lord Hopton he would be facing the Parliamentary forces at Lansdowne Hill the next day, a battle they would lose with heavy casualties including his own.
He added the coins had a face value of £10 which would have been enough to buy a horse – and equates to more than £2,000 today.
Nigel explained the coins show portraits of James I and Charles I and date from 1606.
The latest coin in the set dates back to 1641-1643 from the mintmark ‘triangle in a circle’ that appears above the bust of Charles.
The sale takes place on 4 April.
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It comes as many people begin to discover treasure – some even in their own homes.
One secret gem sat in plain sight collecting dust for 89 years before being discovered – and it could be worth £60,000.
The small jade box was bought by a Dorset farmhouse seller’s grandmother for just £8 as a present for her husband in 1934.
But the Chinese antique, thought to date from the 1800s, is now estimated to sell for 750 times its original price.
Meanwhile, a coin collector is flogging an incredibly rare coin designed for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee for an eye-watering £50,000.
The coin, which is on sale on eBay, is listed as being “brand-new” and was made as a tribute to Her Majesty’s 70 years of service.
Another woman found a rare hidden treasure in her mum’s socks.
Margaret Hood kept the haul of antique items hidden away from relatives and carers who had no idea they existed until she died last October aged 90.