Ancient coins discovered by a man with a metal detector have been auctioned for more than £35,000.

The 41 Celtic gold coins, dating back to the first half of the 1st century, were found by a mystery collector in a Kent field.

Morton and Eden auction house in London said one of the treasures broke records for a Celtic coin found in the UK.

The hoard fetched three times the expected price because many of the coins had been preserved in pristine condition, auctioneers said.

Morton and Eden said the precise location of the field is being kept secret to deter bounty hunters.

But a spokesman did disclose that the coins were found by a metal detector user over a three-year period between 2003 and 2006 near the town of Westerham.

The record-breaker was a gold stater which bears the name of an obscure ruler called Diras, thought to be from north of the Thames in an area governed by the Trinovantes and Catuvelauni tribes.

Only one other example is recorded, now in the British Museum. It sold to a New York dealer for £12,075, setting a new world auction record for a UK Celtic coin. It was estimated at between £3,000 and £4,000. (more…)

By Amy Wilson - HERALD-LEADER.COM

Worley Charles’ grandfather told the story of when, as a boy, he marked timber somewhere along the Licking River and then rode the logs down the river. Somewhere along upper Devil’s Creek, 12 feet up on the ridge, he saw a hole in the ledge.

He climbed out of the water, cut a pine tree into a ladder and made his way up to look inside.

There, he found a set of hinged money molds in a bundle of leather. He had heard many times the story of Kentucky’s lost silver treasure, and how a man named John Swift had found or hid or smelted thousands in glistening nuggets and coins somewhere in these woods named now for Daniel Boone. But the man who hid the vast cache had gone blind. Blind!

Superstitious, Worley Charles’ grandfather never went back for more.

But his grandchild Worley was not so easily scared. He has been looking for John Swift’s silver since he started reading the copies of the 40 different Swift journals he’s gotten his hands on. He’s been looking for 35 years.

There’s a lot of cinematic hullabaloo this weekend about an intrepid archaeologist named Indiana Jones and a treasure of crystal skulls (which are real things, apparently.) Because movies require it, there’s lots of derring-do and a big finish.

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All right, it isn’t actually a bake sale, but it might as well be. On May 15, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5872, an act “To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America, and for other purposes.” The other purposes? The sale of the coins by the Secretary of the Treasury, with a surcharge on each coin sold to “be paid to the National Boy Scouts of America Foundation.” In other words, this is a congressionally mandated fundraiser for the Boy Scouts.

With the act allowing for up to 350,000 of this coin to be issued and fixing the surcharge at $10 per coin, the Boy Scouts could receive as much as $3.5 million from their sale. Never before, in the long history of U.S. government-issued commemorative coins, has this benefit been granted to an organization that promotes religion or discriminates based on religion.

What is a Commemorative Coin and How Does the Program Work?

A 1996 U.S. Mint report titled “Commemorative Coins Could Be More Profitable,” described the issuance of commemorative coins as follows: “Every commemorative coin program is authorized by an act of Congress. Congress authorizes commemorative coins primarily as a means of honoring certain events and individuals and raising funds for the coins’ sponsors. On occasion, the proceeds from commemorative coin sales are applied to the national debt. Commemorative coins are legal tender but are purchased and retained by collectors, rather than used as a circulating medium of exchange.”

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BENBROOK (CBS 11 News) ? More than $200,000 in rare coins was gone in a flash.

The coin heist happened in the middle of the night at a business in the 8000 block of Camp Bowie West in Benbrook.

“They were $1,000 - $3,000 a piece,” said Ron Swiney, the coin seller. “They knew exactly what they were looking for I think.”

Police say the thieves came in through the ceiling, drilling through rebar and 8 inches of concrete into the vault.

“Then they got in there drilling a hole through the top of the safe with a rotor hammer drill,” Swiney said. “I think it probably took about three or four hours to drill that hole out of there.”

The thieves appeared to be in quite a frenzy. Any coins dropped were left behind.

“They missed this one,” Swiney said, holding a coin worth $35,000. “It’s the rarest coin of the Morgan Dollars, and it’s not in very good shape.” His only insurance was a surveillance camera. But the thieves cut it. “I figured sooner or later it would happen. Been lucky for 6 and a half years basically,” said Swiney.

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