On an early-summer trip to Michigan, my family stopped at a public beach to take in the sunset. With several hundred others we watched the giant orange orb drop down to the horizon for what they call “the big sizzle.” That was coined because it appears as if the fiery sun is slowly lowering into the endless expanse of the lake. It’s always a remarkable sight....
That evening, many in the crowd noticed a man in the water ignoring the sun. Ankle deep in the water he waved a metal detector under the surf with his right arm. In his left hand was a metal sieve with a long handle with which he could scoop up sand (and treasure?) should he get a signal. I explained he was probably looking for gold rings, bracelets or necklaces that slipped off swimmers in the cool water.
A few people commented on how the man was missing the sunset. He reminded me of a man in Missouri who enjoyed taking his metal detector to cemeteries. He paid no attention to the ornate gravestones but dutifully scanned the ground around them. Often, he found nothing. One day, in front of one large grave his detector blared. He checked again. Another blaring alert.
He pulled out his trowel and began digging. Just inches below the surface he found the lid of a large old mason jar. He pulled the jar from the earth filled with vintage silver dollars and some gold coins. Buried a hundred or so years earlier, most of the coins were in Mint condition. Many of the dates and mintmarks were also quite rare.
Clearly, someone had stashed several thousand dollars of their fortune in front of a particular grave to mark where to recover it one day. Evidently, before they could retrieve the treasure, they too succumbed. Perhaps they were interred nearby. Yet, there sat the jar until someone with a detector took the time to pass by.
Because of its age, England is rife with such fabulous finds – most far more valuable than the one in the American cemetery. One turned up not long ago near the village of Hoxne. A farmer had lost a hammer in a field. He asked a friend who had received a metal detector as a retirement gift to help. The man brought the detector and scanned the furrows in the field.
At last, he got a pronounced “beep.” The man dug a spade full of dirt from the earth. To his astonishment it glittered with gold and silver. He dug more to unearth bracelets, silverware, goblets and over 15,000 gold and silver Roman coins from a chest buried centuries prior. The dates on the coins pinpointed them to around the year 400 when Rome-controlled Britain was waning.
That hoard was valued at close to five million dollars. More remarkably, at the time it was buried, its value was the equivalent of the annual income for 200 soldiers of the ancient day.
The five million price tag was just the “bullion value” of the gold and silver. What of the modern numismatic value? That depends on what coins the collection contains.
The experts at the British Museum where the collection is being evaluated will look closely for an “Eid Mar” gold or silver aureus or denarius. The “Eid Mar” stamped into the coin refers to the “Ides of March” when Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus and other senators. Hence the admonition, “Beware the Ides of March.”
Those coins feature the profile of Brutus between two daggers issued soon after the stabbing assassination. Presently, only 100 silver denarius and two gold aurei coins are known to exist. But, surely, more are out there.
Interest is high because, in 2016, an “Eid Mar” silver denarius in excellent condition sold for $330,000. That sounds like a lot. But, wait. Of the two known gold aurei’s, just six months ago, in 2020, one was estimated to bring $650,000 at auction. In fact, the gold aureus was hammered down for a staggering $4.188 million.
Finds such as these are confirmation we are all on this earth for just a fleeting amount of time. So, is it better to miss a sunset or potentially uncover a treasure? I’d say, flip a coin.
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