Two young people found the treasure on a walk in a place engraved by wild boars. A gold coin shimmered in the leaves, and there were some silver coins around it. When they picked up a small flat stone, they saw the whole treasure and called the museum. Milan Metlička from the museum, who was collecting the find, refused to be found by metal detectors with a detector. If the treasure hunter found the treasure, he would not be entitled to the finder. Only a random finder is entitled to one tenth of the price.
Now it will depend on the region whether it will find the finders from the historical value or from the price of the metal, which according to Metlička is about 400 thousand crowns. Experts cleaned the find for two months, and the museum will issue coins in the future.
Did the owner or robber hide the coins?
According to experts, it is impossible to say whether 92 gold coins weighing 325.88 grams and more than 300 silver coins in the forest in a shallow hiding place were hastily hidden from sudden danger by a representative of the monastery or a robber who seized it. At the time of hiding, period records mention local disputes over the monastery estate, sometimes accompanied by violent actions.
The pure gold coins were in very good condition with clearly visible embossing. Thanks to their constant purity, size and weight, florins and ducats were universal and universally recognized currency in Europe. “It can be said that it was such a medieval euro,” Metlička explained.
About a millimeter thick gold plate is about 16 to 17 millimeters in diameter and weighs 3.5 grams. Because these coins did not enter normal circulation, they are well preserved. On the contrary, silver, almost three centimeters, groschen of the Luxemburgs were in circulation and the embossing on them is often wiped off. According to Metlička, the value of silver groschen among hundreds of crowns to one thousand crowns varies among collectors, the value of gold ducats reaches tens of thousands of crowns.
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The treasure included, for example, the Hungarian gold ducats, the ducats of Charles IV, the ducats with the imperial crown of Charles IV, the gold ducats of Albrecht of Austria, Ruprecht I of Palatinate and the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Among the silver coins were several groschen of Wenceslas II. and John of Luxembourg and 339 silver groschen of Charles IV. Gold coins are mostly from the 40s to 50s of the 14th century, silver is the oldest groschen of Wenceslas II. from shortly after 1300.
Findings of depots with coins are not unique in the region. At the end of 2016, a pedestrian found a jug with 521 silver coins in a forest in the Rokycany region, probably hidden during the Hussite wars. According to the then Frýd’s statement, it was one of the largest coin finds in western Bohemia in the last 30 years. One of the largest finds was the discovery of 3,756 coins from the 14th to the 17th century during an archaeological survey of the square in Kašperské Hory in 2009.
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