A Hednesford man could have stumbled across the next Staffordshire Hoard after finding hundreds of rare Roman coins with his metal detector near Stoke-on-Trent.
Dad-of-three Scott Heeley found 211 silver Roman coins and 69 fragments dating back to the first and second centuries on farmland.
“It’s so exciting – my feet have not touched the floor since,” said the 50-year-old.
“I found an old penny and told my mate Jack ‘this penny will be bring me luck’ and I put it in my pocket.
“Moments later my metal detector started beeping and I found three silver coins in a hole.
“The detector carried on bleeping so I dug deeper and pulled out loads of silver coins from the hole.”
Scott found the coins in a field during a trip with Castle Bromwich-based metal detectorist club Timeline Detection.
They have yet to be valued but Tom Brindle, find liaison officer at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, said it was an important discovery.
“It’s particularly interesting because the coins are quite early – first and second century,” he said.
“It’s certainly important in fleshing out the landscape in terms of where Roman settlements were.”
The find mirrors the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard, which was turned up by another metal detector enthusiast in a field near Burntwood in July 2009.
The Anglo-Saxon treasure was later saved for the Midlands when the £3.3 million purchase price was met by the National Heritage Memorial Fund and a campaign involving Stoke and Birmingham museum services.
Scott, who lives at Hednesford, near Cannock, said the haul was found on February 19 and logged with the Coroner’s office in Stoke, so a Treasure Trove hearing could be completed.
The coins are being cleaned at the British Museum in London and will be passed to an independent treasure valuation committee.
Any cash arising from a sale will be split between Scott and the farmer who owns the land where the coins were found.
