Britain | Gold diggers

Britain’s treasure-hunting hobbyists get professional

But only on their own terms

IN A FIELD next to his local pub, Luke Mahoney found a gold coin and a sixpence piece, before heading off for a bite to eat. After lunch, the businessman, who runs a firm selling metal detectors, discovered that a plough had cracked open a pot two feet down. His detector went mad. That afternoon he unearthed 1,080 silver coins, possibly dating back to the civil war, which he thinks could be worth £400,000 ($520,000): “Christ, we literally skipped across the field from the pub, and found 400 grand!”

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Gold diggers”

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