Saturday, November 29, 2008

Treasure Blog: Coins In A Dutch Cornfield

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered an important cache of ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.

"It's exciting, like a little boy's dream," Paul Curfs, 47, said Thursday after the spectacular find was made public.

Archaeologists say the trove of 39 gold and 70 silver coins was minted in the middle of the first century B.C. as the future Roman ruler Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area.

Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.

"It was golden and had a little horse on it — I had no idea what I had found," he said.


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Lovely, and in apparently great condition, at least the gold coins. Silver tends to tarnish heavily as the centuries pass, but gold stays bright forever.

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