September 26, 2013 – Iulian Enache, 34-year old Romanian metal detectorist, nearly stumbled over a gigantic coin hoard while looking for historical artefacts in a forest. He had bought the metal detector only recently. The hoard is composed of some 47,000 coins weighing more than 54 kilograms. The coins were issued by Ottoman ruler Sultan Murat II in the fifteenth century and have a market value of roughly half a million euros.
Despite the enormous value of his finding Mr Enache decided to donate the coins to the Romanian National Museum of History in Bucharest whose director Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu stated the hoard to be the largest silver treasury ever found in Romania: ‘It is the biggest treasury recovered by a public institution in Romania, not only in the last 20 years, but in the last 100 years.’
By Romanian law the finder of an archaeological artefact can claim 45 per cent of its value. Mr Enache will receive this sum, probably around 200,000 euros, after a thorough valuation of the coins. However, in recognition of his efforts and his honesty Prime Minister Victor Ponta gave Mr Enache an additional reward of 10,000 euros on September 11.
You can see the hoard in a video on YouTube …
… and on the museum’s Facebook page.
You can read an article on the topic at Romania Insider.