Got it - a horde of posts in response to my OP on a hoard! 
And “Roman gold” doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the property of the government of Rome, anyway. It just means that the face stamped on the coins was some Roman emperor, but the treasure might well have been some individual’s private property. So you’d be looking for a human heir, not a successor state, except that it’d be impossible to track an inheritance that far.
Since I read the title as being “Horde [sic] of ancient (Roman & Celtic) coins found in [New] Jersey” I found the thread to be both amusing and educational! I was picturing the Celts taking their summers on the Jersey shore.
Those Celts better remember the sunscreen…
It is not clear that the Roman State owned the coins. As the coins were not found in Italy, they are not part of that country’s national patrimony.
I want to point out that you can buy Roman bronze coins, in poor-fair condition, at prices well under $1 each, in lots. I know a dudes who buys the rights to metal detect fields in England, and he will sell you lots of poor qualiy coins or old bronze artifacts in crappy condition quite cheaply. Like he sez, those pay for the petrol, and the occassional great find makes it worthwhile.
Mind you the one coin they showed seems to be a fairly rare silver piece, and of course that will be worth more.
Sounds like you whored for that one.
In Britain. As others have commented, Jersey is not part of Britain. It’s part of the Duchy of Normandy. British law does not automatically apply in Jersey, which has its own legal system.
[sidebar] a joke that only works in certain dialects. 
[/sidebar]
Haven’t read through the whole thread, nor do I have a cited link, but there was a series of shows on History concerning the finding of a Saxon hoard found by one of those guys with a metal detector in some farmers field, and it kind of showed the process. Basically, the whole thing was turned over the the authorities, who then evaluated it and set a price on the hoard which was split (IIRC, 50/50) between the farmer and the metal detector guy (based on a prior agreement between the two that they would split the value of anything found). My recollection was both got something like 1.5 million pounds, which is quite a tidy sum. Just based on the show this seems to be the standard procedure for treasure found that is considered part of the cultural heritage (from memory, anything before the 18th century would fall into this realm).
The show was pretty cool…it was really neat they way they reconstructed the pieces and dug (so to speak :p) into the mystery of what the hoard actually was and why it might have been where it was.
-XT
I think that’s the same case referred to in Chimera’s link - but again, not necessarily applicable to coins found on Jersey.
“Like the old treasure trove law in mainland Britain, replaced in 1997 with the much more straightforward Treasure Act, Jersey’s treasure regulations are based on medieval law, and depend on establishing not just that the hoard contains precious metal but how and why it came to be placed in the ground.”
And if the finders just dug them up instead of letting a proper archaeologist do it they should get a hefty fine in my opinion. The real value of things like these is not in the material it was made of or how much an antiques dealer would pay you but in context: Where was it found? What other things were there? etc.
Reading **Chimera’s **article from the Guardian it apears these are pre-Roman celtic coins which I assume are a lot rarer than Roman bronze coins.
Err not quite, the Channel Islands owe thir alleigance directly to the Queen, they are British Crown Dependencies and are not subject to the whims of Parliament although they may choose to adopt, with some localization, their legislation.
This from the Guardian about the legal status of the horde’s ownership:
The land owners have said they would like the hoard to be displayed in the island’s main museum – but who precisely owns the coins, or is entitled to the reward for finding them, is likely to take months to determine.
Like the old treasure trove law in mainland Britain, replaced in 1997 with the much more straightforward Treasure Act, Jersey’s treasure regulations are based on medieval law, and depend on establishing not just that the hoard contains precious metal but how and why it came to be placed in the ground.
It has been suggested that the whole hoard could be worth £10m, but that is impossible to determine until the coins are identified and valued.
Either way it will be lawyered to death! Not that Jersey is exactly short of the readies,
GDP of $57,000 in 2005? ref:Economy of Jersey - Wikipedia
Anyway nice polite, safe and clean place to visit.
Peter
Well, if he feels he’s being short-changed, he can always try dropping to his knees and crying out the clameur de haro.
Section 3.1.8 of this 2009 report by the Oxford Archaeological Unit gives a good summary of Jersey law on the subject. Essentially, it’s much the same as the pre-1997 English law. So this will almost certainly be a very straightforward case of treasure trove to be claimed by the Crown, with the coins ending up in the local museum. It’s not as if they don’t have lots of experience of dealing with such hoards.
Meanwhile, in other, unrelated news, Jersey threatens to declare independence…
Yeah, the Governments are fricken Thieves!
Finders keepers, as far as I’m concerned. Or at least, pay the finders equal to what they would get on the open market.
It pisses me off when somebody spends hundreds or thousands of dollars, finally finds a great treasure, and the damn government steps in and claims it’s theirs! This is out-and-out stealing in my considered opinion.
::Vent Over::
Have you been paying attention? The government does pay the finders.