Unlucky treasure hunters have dug up a trove of ancient Roman gold

TREASURE hunting pals thought they had struck gold with a Roman coin haul — but they were fakes buried for a hit BBC show. Metal detecting fans Paul Adams and Andy Sampson began dancing around a field when they stumbled on what looked like a handful of ancient coins.
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Paul Adams and Andy Sampson thought they’d hit the jackpot with their coin haul – but they were duds Credit: AndySampson

They thought the trove of 54 pieces could be worth up to £250,000 and they spent the rest of the day dreaming of how they could spend their fortune.

But they went from Nero to zero when an expert told them he feared they were fakes — before it was confirmed they were telly props. A TV production company had mistakenly left the convincing replicas during filming for the BBC series The Detectorists, starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones. In a scene that featured in the first episode of the last series, the replica coins were shown being buried in a Roman clay pot and then brought to the surface by a tractor plowing a field 2,000 years later.

The 54 coins were found with what appeared to be shards from a Roman vase Credit: AndySampson

The coins were mistakenly left behind after filming for a scene in the BBC show The Detectorists Credit: BBC

Detectorists star Mackenzie Crook is said to have found it hilarious after Andy and Paul found the TV fakes Credit: BBC

Unlucky treasure hunters have dug up a trove of ancient Roman gold. The production company thought they had picked up all the coins afterwards but unfortunately for Paul, 58, and Andy, 54, they left a few behind.

Andy said: “I think we are officially the world’s unluckiest metal detectorists. Our story would make a TV series of its own.

“I was paying off my mortgage and buying a sports car in my head. We thought we were looking at the real McCoy.

“Now I look at them and want to cry.”
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Paul, 58, and Andy, 54, were dreaming of how they would spend their fortune Credit: AndySampson
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Unlucky treasure hunters have dug up a trove of ancient Roman gold. Paul Adams with his treasure hunting kit Credit: AndySampson. The duo, who work together delivering oxygen to medical patients, began detecting a year ago. They had been given permission to sweep the field in Suffolk where Andy had previously found a Roman coin. They started searching an area they could see had recently been plowed and Paul’s machine started going off. Andy, from Ipswich, Suffolk, said: “I heard Paul shout out ‘yes!’ . “I looked up to see him dancing around. He came floating towards me screaming ‘Roman gold, Roman gold’.”

Too excited to think straight, the pair went home and planned to inform the landowner and governmental authorities the next day. Before that they showed them to a neighbor who has been a detectorist for 40 years and is a member of the Suffolk Archaeological Survey.

8 The coins were used in a scene from the first episode of the second series of The Detectorists Credit: BBC
​8 The 54 ‘gold’ coins were thought to be worth £250,000 – but are actually only worth around £270 Credit: AndySampson

Andy said: “He couldn’t believe his eyes when I poured them out on the table. But as soon as he picked one up he said ‘these are wrong, they’re not real’.” when told wife Sam, who works in the estate office of the farm where they were found, she remembered The Detectorists had been filming there recently. A call to the production company revealed they had put replica gold coins in the ground while filming a scene. They explained that they had picked them all up thought afterwards but left some behind.
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