From stolen crown jewels and tennis ball-sized diamonds to gold stashed in a whiskey bottle, there have been some very exciting, and sometimes unusual, treasures discovered over the last decade. We look back on 51 of the best treasure finds made between 2010 and 2019, spanning around 56,000 years' worth of history.
This rare bronze helmet is one of only three of its kind to have been discovered in the UK, and it was found in the small hamlet Crosby Garrett, Cumbria. The unnamed metal detectorist who unearthed the helmet found it in 67 pieces, but it was reconstructed by an independent restorer before it was put up for sale at auction house Christie's. A telephone bidding war drove the selling price up to a massive £2.3 million ($2.79m), which was more than eight times the estimated price.
Prospector Dave Crisp discovered a hoard of 52,503 silver and bronze coins near Frome in Somerset, England. The coins date between 250 and 290 AD and were purchased by the Museum of Somerset for £320,000 ($388k). The find was so impressive that it was voted as the UK's top treasure hoard of the last 20 years by Telegraph readers in 2017.
Former carpenter Loren Krytzer hit rock bottom after losing his leg in a car accident, which left him penniless and living in a shack. Seeing an episode of Antiques Roadshow that had featured a Navajo textile worth half a million dollars, Krytzer decided to get the blanket that he had inherited from his grandmalooked at. It was a hunch that proved lucrative: experts revealed that the blanket dated from 1840 and was more valuable than the one that had prompted him into getting a valuation in the first place. It sold for $1.5 million (£1.2m).
Clearing out a crumbling mansion in Dorset, England, Guy Schwinge from the auction house Duke's spotted what he thought was an old flower trough. He soon noticed the intricate Roman details carved into the solid marble and realised that what he'd initially mistaken for an ornate plant pot was actually an ancient stone sarcophagus from the 2nd century. The coffin sold at auction for £89,000 ($115k), which was almost double the original estimate.
Sadly money doesn't grow on trees, but it can be found underneath them in the case of a couple from Northern California in 2013. The pair found a pot of 1,427 rare gold coins in mint condition in their garden, most of which dated from 1847 to 1894. The gold had been stashed away during the 19th-century California Gold Rush and had an estimated value of $10 million (£7.8m). Thanks to tax and US Treasure Trove Laws, the couple would see very little, if any, of the cash if they sold the coins as a collection, so instead opted to sell some by auction and others individually via Amazon.
Merchant ship S.S. Gairsoppa lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean until the British Government awarded a salvage contract to US firm Odyssey Marine Exploration. Two years later the company found what is probably the largest precious metal discovery of all time, with 1.8 million troy ounces of silver being brought up from the seabed. A 20% cut of the wealth went to the UK Government, whilst Odyssey Marine Exploration were able to keep the rest.
National Museums Scotland has hailed Derek McLennan's find as "the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland". The collection is made up of more than 100 objects, including several previously unseen styles of jewellery, and various pieces of gold and silver. After a lot of fundraising, the museum organisation was able to keep the stash and restore the treasure ready for public viewing which set them back a cool £2 million ($2.42m).
A field in Lenborough, England, was the hiding place of more than 5,000 late Anglo-Saxon coins, which were discovered by Paul Coleman in 2014. The collection was found wrapped in a sheet and contained coins from 40 different mints around the UK. Two years later it was decided by the Treasure Valuation Committee that the coins were worth £1.35 million ($1.64m) and they were purchased by the Buckinghamshire County Museum.
Three hundred years after a Spanish fleet of ships sunk just off of Florida's Atlantic coast, its precious cargo is still being discovered. Diver William Bartlett and his team found 350 gold coins, nine of which were rare examples known as 'royal eight escudos', as they were exploring the shipwreck. Despite having spent so long underwater, the stash was in impeccable condition and the collection was worth $4.5 million (£3.7m).
In 1708 the San José galleon was sunk off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia. The Spanish shipwreck was carrying gold, silver, and emeralds, but they disappeared along with the ship. For treasure hunters the ship became a 'Holy Grail' with many trying to be the one to find it. Over 300 years later, the boat's location was finally pinpointed in 2015. A salvage operation was set for 2018, but legal issues saw the plan cancelled, leaving the ship's contents an elusive mystery. Experts have big expectations, with estimates of the ship's worth ranging from $1-$20 billion (£827m-£16.5bn). While the ship's inventory wasn't fully discovered during this decade, it's likely that the contents of this special shipwreck is going to be big news in the next.
While sifting through their late great-grandparents' belongings, a family found an old paper bag which they were about to throw away. As a last-minute thought they checked the contents before ditching it, which lead to them discovering seven Ty Cobb baseball cards among old postcards and papers. The cards turned out to be extremely rare collectibles that dated from the early 1900s, meaning that they were worth more than $1 million (£770k).
A shipwreck considered the most important Roman shipwreck find of the 21st century was discovered in the Mediterranean Sea near the port of Caesarea. Israeli divers Ran Feinstein and Ofer Raanan led Israel's Antiquities Authority to this maritime cave of wonders, which included exquisite bronze statues, ornate pottery, and thousands of ancient coins. The port of Caesarea, in Judea, was originally thought to have been a remote backwater, but the discovery of the treasure suggests that it was an important hub of trading and commerce under the rule of the Muslim caliphates, according to the BBC.
A couple in Roanne, France, discovered six gold bars in their garden seven years after moving in. Unbelievably, five years after that, the couple found another 22 bars, with a total estimated value of €800,000 (£688k/$886k). Although the couple followed the legal protocol for declaring the gold, they became the subjects of a criminal investigation when they sold 23 of the bars. The publicity of the case then led to the previous home owners suing the couple over the ownership of the gold bullion, resulting not only in the couple having to hand over the remaining bars, but also reimbursing the previous owners for the bars already sold.
Inheriting a house is quite the gain in itself, but in 2016 one Frenchman got more than he expected when he moved into a property left to him by a relative. After exploring the house in Normandy, it became apparent that it was full of gold. There were coins, ingots, and bars tucked away all over his new home, with some gold stuffed in furniture and even a whiskey bottle. In total there was around 100kg of gold, which generated an impressive sum of €3.5 million ($4.1m/£3.1m) at sale.
A seminal piece of contemporary Aboriginal art was lent to Australia's Northern Territory back in 1978, but it mysteriously disappeared in 1981. Attempts to find Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri's artwork were made but it was eventually forgotten about. Almost 40 years later the Northern Territory head of arts Angela Hill spotted the painting during a meeting. Another official had found it in a storeroom and not knowing its significance, had put it on his wall. The artwork is now on display in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin and is worth at least A$150,000 (US$110k/£90k).
Having invited an auctioneer from Sotheby's over to value a couple of paintings, a homeowner was ecstatic to hear that a painting hanging under the stairs happened to be an original by John Constable. The artwork was actually a preparatory sketch for Constable's 1832 painting The Opening of Waterloo Bridge. The owner was quick to put the painting up for auction and it sold for £2.3 million ($2.8m), overshooting the original estimate by almost £1 million ($1.3m).
A couple had this Old Master painting of St John the Evangelist in the family since the 1800s, but they kept it hidden away as they didn't like it. It was only when an auctioneer visited the couple's home in Oxfordshire, England, that they realised it may be worth some money. Not an expert on paintings, the auctioneer originally valued the painting at £600 ($772), but luckily those bidding at auction recognised its true worth and it sold for £540,000 ($695k).
In March 2018 the 'Lesotho Legend' was discovered by British firm Gem Diamonds. The hefty rock is the fifth-largest gem-quality diamond ever to have been found and it sold for $40 million (£31m) to an anonymous buyer in Antwerp. The gemstone provided a huge profit to Gem Diamonds as they saw their UK company share price surge by 15% following the find.
The University of Aberdeen in Scotland recently learnt that it was in possession of a painting by Canaletto, one of the most renowned Venetian artists of the 18th century. The painting had been gifted to the university in 1863 as part of a collection that also included ancient Greek pottery. Nobody had understood the significance of the painting until senior history of art lecturer John Gash confirmed the painting's authenticity with the help of a Canaletto expert. The painting turned out to be worth £2 million ($2.4 million).
With the help of archaeology enthusiast René Schön, 13-year-old Luca Malaschnitschenko discovered the buried treasure of King Bluetooth. Unearthed on German's largest island, Rügen, the artefacts belonged to Viking ruler King Harald 'Bluetooth', and included coins, necklaces, pearls, and rings. The King reigned in the 10th century and united Denmark and Norway, which is what inspired Intel's Jim Kardach to name the wireless interconnection we know as 'bluetooth' after him.
A large redbrick building was unearthed at the Sa El-Hagar excavation site in northern Egypt in May 2018. The exciting part of the discovery was what was to be found inside, which was an abundance of objects dating from the Greco-Roman period. The hoard included a large number of 2,200-year-old gold coins from the reign of King Ptolemy III, bronze tools, and several pieces of ancient pottery.
When builders were demolishing the old Teatro Cressoni in Como, Italy, they stumbled across a soapstone jar. As the construction work caused the container to become damaged, builders soon spotted the hundreds of mint-condition gold coins dating from the 5th century inside. Former Italian Minister for Culture Alberto Bonisoli told Lonely Planet that the priceless collection was probably a public deposit as it was unlikely that one person would have owned so many coins.
Canadian mining firm RNC Minerals extracted two rocks that are laced with gold from what was predominantly a nickel mine in Western Australia. There is around 73kg (2,560oz) of the precious metal interlaced in the stones that were retrieved, meaning that the gold-laden rocks are worth a staggering $13 million (£10m).
This image of a cow-like animal was discovered in a cave on the island of Borneo, and it is thought to be the oldest work of figurative art on the planet. In 2018 the journal Nature suggested that the Upper Paleolithic cave painting is at least 40,000 years old, but it could date back even further to around 54,000 BC.
In 2018, 24 gold coins and an earring that date back to the time of The Crusades were found wedged between two stones in the side of a well. Found in the ancient Mediterranean port of Caesarea, which is now modern-day Israel, the coins are believed to have been in the well since the Abbasid and Fatimid periods (750-1099 AD).
In 2018 thieves executed a dramatic speedboat heist in order to steal the Swedish Crown Jewels, which are worth around 65 million kronor ($6.8m/£5.2m). The two crowns and an orb had originally belonged to 16th-century monarchs Karl IX and Kristina. However, the historic artefacts turned up in a rubbish bin in Stockholm in February 2019. The criminals managed to leave their own mark on jewels, which led police to arrest them earlier this year.
The jewellery of a Crimean princess, who is believed to have lived at the same time as Christ, was discovered in March 2019 at the Ust-Alminsky site in the Crimea peninsula. The grave contained a priceless collection of 140 pieces of opulent gold jewellery, beads, an incense burner, a wine jug, and frankincense. The discovery is all the more miraculous given that most of the graves in the area had been looted.
Iconic belongings of the British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill were discovered by a refuse worker who couldn't quite believe that he'd found the items in the rubbish. The prime minister's personal effects were showcased on the UK version of Antiques Roadshow along with 200 letters from Churchill's cook to a son, which provided a fascinatingly detailed insight into the prime minister's day-to-day life. The collection was valued at £10,100 ($13,140).
Four amateur treasure seekers took part in a metal detecting rally and chanced upon a cache of 14th-century gold and silver coins in a field near the village of Hambleden, England. The collection is one of the largest troves of medieval coins to have been found in the last decade and consists of 557 gold and silver coins. In fact, 12 of the coins are incredibly rare Edward I and Edward II coins, and another 12 date back to the Black Death. The coins have an estimated worth of around £150,000 ($193k).
Four high school students stumbled across this coin when they were hiking, and it was later revealed that is was around 1,600 years old. Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed that the coin was minted in Constantinople (formerly Istanbul) between 420 AD and 423 AD. This incredibly rare find was discovered on a trail dedicated to the Sanhedrin, the ancient Jewish councils, who had actually been outlawed by Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, who features on the coin.
A diamond the size of a tennis ball was exhumed in a mine in Botswana by the Canadian company Lucara Diamond Corp.. Despite its rarity and impressive weight of 1,758 carats, which makes it the second-largest diamond ever found, the price of the diamond isn’t set to be a record-breaker due to its variable quality and poor clarity. The biggest diamond ever mined is the Cullinan Diamond, which was discovered in South Africa in 1905 and was gifted to the British Royal Family. It weighed-in at a chunky 3,106.75 carats.
Lewis Chessmen are the most important and valuable chess pieces in history, and they are evidence of a strong cultural connection between Britain and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages. This particular 'warder', a castle or rook in modern-day chess, was found in a drawer by the grandchildren of a Scottish antiques dealer, and it sold for a staggering £735,000 ($947k). The dealer had originally bought the chess piece in 1964 for £5, which is the equivalent of £99 ($122) in today's money.
The city of Heracleion has been dubbed as 'Egypt's Atlantis' as it became an underwater treasure trove following numerous natural disasters around 2nd century AD. Originally a bustling port controlling most of Egypt's goods, the ruins of the city were re-discovered in 2000. But it was 2019 that saw the discovery of a wealth of treasure buried amongst the city's ruins of ships and temples, including gold and bronze coins and jewellery.
When clearing out his house, an elderly gentleman in Felixstowe, England, decided to get an old vase valued by the auction house Diamond Mills. The vase had originally been a gift that an aunt had picked up on her travels. The 18th-century Chinese vase was initially valued at £10,000-20,000 ($12,100-$24,250) but in the end it sold for ten times that amount, with an anonymous buyer making a final bid of £200,000 ($261k).
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Metal detectorists Adam Staples and Lisa Grace discovered 2,528 silver coins that date back to the Battle of Hastings in Somerset, England. However, at least three of the coins show signs of counterfeiting with a combination of patterns on each side, displaying both William the Conqueror and the defeated King Harold II, which would allow the counterfeiter to pass it off as legal tender to an illiterate Anglo-Saxon. This reveals the existence of a medieval tax scam. This hoard was the largest Norman treasure find since 1833, according to a report by ITV, and its estimated worth is £5 million ($6m).
This May a whopping 22-carat nugget of pure gold, which weighs 121.3 grams, was found in Scotland. The prospector, who wants to remain anonymous, found the nugget in a river bed by using the technique of 'sniping'. This little-known process involves gold hunters donning a wet suit and snorkel before scouring the bottom of the river using hand tools. This nugget was actually found in two pieces, but they fit together, which led it to be called the Reunion Nugget. Its value is estimated at £80,000 ($104k).
In August more than 70 metal detectorists took to the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England, in search of treasure. Ashley Solly struck gold when he came across a 16th-century bishop's ring depicting the Madonna and Child during the annual rally. The chunky piece of jewellery is solid gold and is likely to be worth tens of thousands of pounds. The ring probably ended up on the island when Henry VIII took his ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn there on holiday, as it is believed that a number of bishops joined the newlyweds as part of the royal entourage.
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