Staffordshire's gold hoard to net £3m
Nov 23 2009 by Edward Chadwick, Birmingham Mail
A £3 MILLION price tag will be slapped on the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Treasures this week.
That is the sum that will have to be found by cash-strapped councils in Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent if they are to bring the gold and silver artefacts back to the Midlands.
A government committee will sit down with a panel of experts including specialists from Christie’s and Bonhams auction houses to decide the figure on Wednesday.
It is understood they all believe that the haul of 1,800 pieces is worth about £3 million. The cash would be split between metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert and farmer Fred Johnson, who owned the field near Burntwood in Staffordshire where it lay undiscovered since the 7th or 8th century.
If they agree on the valuation, the two councils will be given four months to come up with the cash before it is offered to other suitors.
Birmingham’s leisure boss Coun Martin Mullaney said he was not alarmed at the figure and was as determined as ever to return the hoard to the region.
“We had been told to expect a figure in the low millions but other estimates had been as high as £20 million,” he said. “Following the valuation, there is still a long way to go because the finder and landowner have to agree to the price.
“It is then up to Department of Culture, Media and Sport to set a sum. We are talking with Stoke and a number of bodies and we are very keen to see it back here.”
Coun Mullaney said plans were being developed to exhibit the Hoard jointly across Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum in Stoke.
Roger Bland, head of portable antiquities and treasure at the British Museum said further artefacts could lie in the ground close to the site.
He pointed out that there was a small Anglo-Saxon find in 2004 about a mile away and further excavation is expected to begin in the spring.
“It is quite possible that other finds from the same period might be in the vicinity,” he said.
