Treasure Trove And The Protection Of Antiquities
| Author | N. E. Palmer |
| Date | 01 March 1981 |
| Published date | 01 March 1981 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1981.tb02745.x |
TREASURE TROVE AND T€IE PROTECTION
OF
ANTIQUITIES
AT
no time in English history has there existed
so
intense and
acquisitive
a
popular interest in the recovery of indigenous
archaeological treasures. The growth of the metal detector industry
in
particular, and the corresponding increase in both private and
commercial treasure hunting, have brought to light many valuable
antiquities. They have also caused problems with which the law
is
deplorably ill-equipped to cope.
A
recent decision of Dillon
J.
illustrates some of the inadequacies.
In
Attorney-General for the
Duchy
of
Lancaster
v.
G.
E.
Overton
(Farms) Ltd.‘
a
searcher with a metal detector had unearthed
7,811
coins
of
the third century in Quarry Field, at Coleby, Lincolnshire.
The field (which lay within the liberties of the Duchy of Lancaster)
was owned and occupied by the defendant company, and
it
was
accepted that, subject to any right in the Crown, the coins belonged
to the company rather than to the finder.2
A
coroner’s inquest held
the coins
to
be treasure trove and, as such, the property of the
Crown. The defendant company now resisted the Attorney-General
for the Duchy of Lancaster’s action and challenged the finding that
they were treasure trove.
Two questions confronted Dillon
J.
:
was
the Crown’s prerogative
right to treasure trove confined to gold and silver articles, or could it
extend to artefacts made from base metals; and,
if
the prerogative
were thus limited, were the coins in this case properly classifiable as
silver within the rule? These questions arose because the coins were
antoniniani,
issued by the Roman Empire principally during the
period
A.D.
260-280
at
a
time of rampant inflation and substantial
debasement of the currency. Tests conducted on a sample batch
of
15
coins revealed a silver content varying from almost
6
per cent.
to
0.2
per cent. Metallurgical research on earlier occasions, taken
in conjunction with the historical identification
of
some
923
of the
present coins, suggested
a
maximum silver content of
18
per cent.
and an average of considerably under
10
per cent. Such findings
were to be contrasted with the original silver content
of
50
per cent.
at the time
of
the original issue
of
the
antoniniunus
in
A.D.
215.
After
a
short period of parity with the
denarius
(which itself had
already declined from
98
per cent.
to
50
per cent. silver content,
and
of
which the
antoninianus
had been designed to represent twice
1
[I9801
3
All
E.R.
503;
The
Times,
June
27,
1980.
See generally Hill,
Law and
Practice
of
Treasure Trove
(1936).
2
[1980]
2
All
E.R.
503, 504. This conclusion accords with leading authority,
such as
Elwes
V.
Brigg Gas
CO.
(1886)
33 Ch.D. 562 and
South
Staffordshire
Water
Co.
v.
Sharmun
[I8961
2
Q.B.
44.
But
precise decisions in point are surprisingly
hard
to
elicit.
3
See
The Times,
June
24,
1980.
178
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