European Dilemma: Awkward When you Find Stuff you can't just Slip in Your Pocket

 

Marius Mangeac and the coins (photo Marius Mangeac via Facebook)

Why would you "stumble across" a hoard of Treasure when ?going for a walk"? When you live in an EU  country that requires you to have a permit to go looking for archaeological artefacts with a metal detector (Andrea Margolis, 'Man stumbles across hoard of priceless coins while out for nature walk: 'Face to face with history' Fox News May 11, 2025)

An ordinary spring day quickly became extraordinary after a nature-loving metal detectorist unearthed a cache of ancient treasure. Marius Mangeac confirmed the discovery to Fox News Digital. He said he found the hoard in a field near Letca Veche, a small village in southern Romania. In a Facebook group, Mangeac said that he found the coins "on a beautiful Saturday that didn't foreshadow anything of what was to come." "I took my detector and went out alone, as I often do, for exercise and to relax in the fields and forests," he wrote in his post, which was translated from Romanian to English. "I didn't think this day would surprise me and bring me face to face with history." But suddenly his metal detector began beeping – and soon, Mangeac was looking at a hoard of 1,469 Roman coins. [...] After two strenuous days of photographing the coins, he handed them over to the town hall in Letca Nouă.

There is no mention one way or another of any search permit or the fate of any previous objects he might have found  while on a nature walk when he "just happened" (as one does) to take his metal detector with him without applying for any permit for the search first.