Finders of gold rings should acquaint themselves with The Treasure Act 1996; this Act came into force on 24th September 1997 and replaced the law of Treasure Trove (see below).

 

Under this Act the finder has a legal duty to report items that might be suspected to be Treasure to the coroner for their area; this may be done directly to the coroner or through the local Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for their area.  Failure to report suspected Treasure is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.  Reports must be made within fourteen days of discovery of the suspected Treasure or fourteen days after the day that of realisation that the find might be Treasure. 

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The Treasure Act covers a range of items but the important points from the point of view of gold rings in this catalogue in determining whether they are Treasure are:

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• They must be more than 10% by weight in gold

• They must be more than 300 years old

• If the ring was found in the same place or had previously been together with another item that is Treasure

 

It should be noted that at the time of producing this catalogue the Treasure Act is undergoing review so the requirements may change in the future.  One of the potential changes is that the threshold age of the ring may change from a fixed 300 years-old threshold at the date of the find to a fixed date but this has not yet been confirmed at the time of this catalogue production.

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It can be seen therefore that correct dating of rings is important as it determines whether or not the ring will be subject to the Treasure Act.  This catalogue aims to assist the Finder of such rings in determining whether rings may be potential Treasure but if any doubt the Finder should contact their local Finds Liaison Officer.  In fact, gold rings should be reported to their local FLO as a matter of course (unless they are obviously modern) as their addition to the PAS database provides further useful information for posterity.

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Treasure Trove Act

Some of the rings in this catalogue were found prior to 1997 when the Treasure Act came into force.  Under this Act, Finders had to prove that the item in question was deliberately buried with the intention of future recovery for an item to be declared Treasure Trove; items not meeting this criterion were thought to be casual loses and therefore not Treasure.

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Processing of finds through the Treasure Act

The British Museum is responsible for processing submissions of potential Treasure and full details are available online (https://finds.org.uk/treasure/advice/discovery-and-reporting).  An abbreviated summary is as follows:

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As part of the process, items are allocated a unique Treasure number.  These numbers can be found in this catalogue.  Sometimes the FLO will determine that a find is not Treasure and therefore does not require submission to the Treasure process; examples are present in this catalogue and they do not have a Treasure number.

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Having determined that an item is Treasure, the item in question is reviewed by a panel of expert, independent valuers and a value assigned; this may vary between valuers.  The Treasure Valuation Committee of the British Museum  considers the values that have been provided and after discussion agree a final valuation; this can be challenged by the Finder and/or Landowner  (see ‘Treasure Valuation Committee valuation’ section) and museums are given the opportunity to purchase the item using this valuation; minutes of the TVC are available online (https://finds.org.uk/treasure/minutes).    Should no museum wish to purchase the item, it is returned to the Finder/Landowner.