Monday, 21 December 2015

Lenborough Anglo Saxon coin hoard pledges reach £12,000


Each coin pseudo-methodologically individually numbered
on the table-top, no position-related numbers were assigned
at all to them while they were in the ground. To the universal
praise of PAS colleagues they were tipped out loose from
a carrier bag onto the farmer's table (photo British Museum)

BBC, 'Lenborough Anglo Saxon coin hoard pledges reach £12,000', 19 December 2015
A museum fighting to keep a hoard of Anglo Saxon coins in the county where it was found has attracted £12,000 in donation pledges [...] The hoard was declared treasure by an inquest in November and is now at the British Museum awaiting valuation. Once this is known, trustees will decide whether the Bucks County Museum has enough money to buy the collection.[...] It is the largest Anglo Saxon coin hoard discovered since the Treasure Act was introduced in 1996 and is thought to be worth up to £1.3m.
In a non-bonkers country, a museum would not be "fighting" to secure the country's heritage and the public would not be being asked to dig into their pockets to buy "back" their own heritage from Treasure hunters.   I think the museum should display a few selected originals alongside a heap of shiny replicas for display value and the Treasure hunters and ticket-selling farmer can shove the rest on the market which would depress prices and make coins already in collections lose value. That is what Britain's damaging bonkers "heritage policy" should do - actually be a policy.
 

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