The National Museum Cardiff began cleaning and cataloging a hoard of Roman silver and bronze coins delivered this week by metal-detector enthusiast David Moss, 36. Curators said the assessment would finish next year, with a full academic report due in 2026; if the collection were formally declared treasure, a national institution could seek to acquire it after a valuation panel set a market price.
Moss found the coins in August while sweeping an isolated farm in north Wales with fellow hobbyist Ian Nicholson. Their detectors registered two clay pots about 30 centimetres below the surface. “A rainbow appeared minutes before the signal was found. I couldn’t believe it,” said Moss.
After six hours of digging, thousands of coins spilled from the first vessel and another jar lay nearby. Experts estimate 10,000–15,000 pieces weighing more than 60 kilograms, a mix of denarii and silver-washed radiates minted roughly 2,000 years ago.
Moss guarded the site from his car for three nights, then alerted the landowner and placed the cache in a plastic box for the four-hour drive to Cardiff, fulfilling the 1996 Treasure Act that requires discoveries to be declared within 14 days. The law transfers ownership to the Crown while dividing any reward equally between finder and landowner. “He’ll get half the money and the landowner will get the other half,” said Anthony Halse, chairman of the South Wales and Monmouthshire Numismatic Society, according to Enikos.
Museum conservators will clean each coin, identify emperors’ portraits and mint marks, and compare the assemblage with other Welsh finds. If the National Museum wishes to keep the hoard, it must purchase it and may seek guidance from the British Museum on long-term care.
Moss, who has been metal detecting for nearly a decade and had logged about 2,700 Roman coins before the discovery, said the moment he lifted the first pot sent “goosebumps” through his body. “They were so valuable that I was afraid to even blink,” he said.
Archaeologists already consider the discovery the largest Roman coin hoard excavated in Wales, surpassing the 10,000-piece Chepstow find of 1990. Across Britain, only the 2010 Somerset hoard, with more than 50,000 coins, was larger. Specialists said the trove “may redraw the map of Roman influence in North Wales.”
For security reasons, officials have not revealed the exact location of the farm. The two earthenware vessels and their cargo remain under laboratory lights in Cardiff while conservators remove soil and corrosion. “I felt it was a sign. My persistence was rewarded; we brought to light many more than I dared to dream,” said Moss, according to Enikos.
Written with the help of a news-analysis system.