LONDON: A
British school and a
pia** tuner are to share the reward after hundreds of gold and silver coins from the Victorian era were
found under the keys of a pia**.
The hoard of 913 sovereigns and half sovereigns --dating from 1847 to 1915 -- was
found before Christmas in Shropshire, central England, and might be the largest of the kind in Britain.
On Thursday, authorities qualified the hoard as a treasure, a status usually reserved for coins that are at least 300 years old.
The sovereigns were discovered after the Bishops Castle Community College called in a
pia** technician to retune an upright
pia** that had just been donated to the school.
Martin Rickhouse, 61, finding the keys a bit stiff, ******* them to find the coins carefully stitched into seven cloth-wrapped parcels and a single leather drawstring purse.
“I’d never come across anything like this is my whole life,” he said, describing his discovery as “gob-smacking”.
The
British Museum, tasked with valuing the treasure, wrote in a blog post that the stash appears to have been collected over several decades and tucked away in the
pia** in the late 1920s.
They believe it might have been in response to the Great Depression or to the events leading up to World War II.
“We are **t sure of the value but I would expect it to be hundreds of thousands of pounds,” Peter Reavill, the
British Museum’s finds liaison ******r for Shropshire said.
Some newspapers have estimated the hoard could be worth between £300,000 and £500,000.
Authorities have since tried to find who the real owners of the
treasure were, and over 40 claimants came forward but their claims proved unsatisfactory.
According to Britain’s
treasure Act: “The
treasure Valuation Committee will decide how much the
treasure is worth and how much will go to anyone entitled to a share of the find.”
The couple who donated the
pia** to the school and who had owned it for more than 30 years will **t receive any reward.
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