Two Men Accused of Trying to Sell Anglo-Saxon Coins, but Nabbed by Undercover Police

Operation "Fantail" grinds slowly on. Two men (Roger Pilling, 74, of Rossendale, Lancashire and Craig Best, 46, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham), are currently on trial at Durham crown court accused of trying to sell rare coins from a Viking period hoard worth over a quarter of a million pounds. They have denied a joint charge of conspiring to convert criminal property, namely the Anglo-Saxon coins, for money. They also deny separate charges of possessing criminal property (Mark Brown, 'Two men accused of trying to sell rare Anglo-Saxon coins to undercover police' Guardian 11 Apr 2023 )

"Two amateur history enthusiasts (sic) have been accused of trying to sell ancient coins from a Viking hoard to representatives of a mystery American buyer who were in fact undercover police officers.[...] Matthew Donkin, opening the case for the prosecution, said the two men had known that the culturally important coins from the reign of Alfred the Great came from a Viking hoard. The court was told the value of one particularly rare coin had been estimated at £70,000 while the combined value of the coins, 44 in total, was about £766,000.[...] Donkin said the prosecution did not allege that the two men were the original finders of the coins. “But someone discovered them,” he said. “They are extremely rare, ancient coins and they have been dug up or unearthed by someone who chose not to declare them.” The rightful owner of the coins, he said, was the crown.

[on behalf of all of us]. This is the next stage in the court case resulting from Operation Fantail and a postulated "Durham Hoard" of Anglo-saxon coins. The case has been covered by this blog, primarily because of the lack of transparency on what had been going on:

'UK Knowledge Thieves Lose their Coin Haul', PACHI Thursday, 30 May 2019

"Operation Fantail" and The Eye/Leominster Hoard', PACHI Friday, 4 October 2019 

'Friday Retrospect: Durham Area Coelwulf Hoard, One Hoard, Two Hoards, Three?' PACHI Friday, 17 April 2020

' And Maybe they'll Manage to Finish Operation Fantail in 2021?' PACHI Sunday, 3 January 2021

'Friday Retrospect: Two Years to Prosecute a Case? What Went Wrong?' PACHI Friday, 2 April 2021

' "Operation Fantail", What Took you so Long? Charges in Durham Ceolwulf II Coins Case' PACHI Monday, 23 August 2021

' Two Men in Court in Viking Hoard Case' PACHI Wednesday, 8 September 2021.

In the recent part of court proceedings, it turns out that the conspiracy to sell the coins began in 2018, when Best had contacted a US collector (radiology professor at the University of Michigan, Ronald Bude). Bude suspected that the coins were fake. When that was raised, and then he decided not to buy them, he received an email from Best that contained an important statement: 

"They are a hoard as you know they are this can cause me problems all you had to do was say you didn’t want them and that was the end of it.” The court heard Best had also told Bude the coins were so good that he would need to fly over for them. In an email he had said: “These coins are big money I will send you a sim card with them all on if you want. I am looking at £2-250k for all of these that’s how good they are.” 

The coins were taken by Best to "an expert at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge" who pronounced them genuine and possibly as a result of this consultation, "news of the discovery had then spread through the community of coins professionals" [and archaeologists?]. Accounts are unclear, and contain nothing specific, about collector Bude's role in alerting authorities in the UK. 

One reason for the media interest in these coins are the ambitions of coin-fondlers to be seen, not as the barely-relevant nerds that some seem to be, but as representatives of an "exciting" discipline that can "rewrite the history books" . In this case what was exciting them was the presence among the coins  on sale dating from AD874 to AD879 was a “King Alfred two-emperors type silver penny” issued in Wessex and Mercia and representing Alfred, the king of Wessex, and Coelwulf II, the king of Mercia and had been (Coins like this: 'Ashmolean from Home: The 'Two Emperors' Coins'). Prior to 2015, only two coins of that type had been discovered. Then along came the Watlington Hoard found and correctly reported by metal detectorist James Mather in 2015, and the illegally-dispersed Eye (Leominster) hoard found by metal detectorists George Powell and Layton Davies also in 2015.  

The two men were arrested after an undercover police operation, the court heard. They had thought that a man, “Hugh”, was a broker and “Max” was a coin expert when they had in fact been police. The prosecution alleged Best took three coins to a meeting in a Durham hotel bar. [...] Donkin told the court Pilling and Best would claim that they did not know the coins were treasure.

After Best's arrest, correspondence fund in his phone led them to Pilling and when his house was searched, police found some 40 Anglo-Saxon coins  (and, it seems from some accounts, an ingot fragment) and he was arrested and charged too.  No information is given in accounts of the court case on where Pilling says he got the coins from. 

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