Valuation of Treasure

Any find of treasure that a museum wishes to acquire must be valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee, which consists of independent experts. The Committee will commission a valuation from one or more experts drawn from the antiquities market. You, together with the museum that wishes to acquire the find and any other interested party, will have an opportunity to comment on the valuation and to send in a separate valuation of your own, before the Committee makes its recommendation. If you are dissatisfied you can appeal to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

This is set out in detail in the Code of Practice. To summarise:

• where the finder has permission to be on land, rewards should continue to be paid in full to him. The burden of proof as to whether he has permission will rest with the finder
• If the finder makes an agreement with the occupier/landowner to share a reward, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will normally follow it; if the finder does not remove the whole of a find from the ground but allows archaeologists to excavate the remainder of the find, the original finder will normally be eligible for a reward for the whole find;
• rewards will not normally be payable when the find is made by an archaeologist;
• where the finder has committed an offence in relation to a find, or has trespassed, or has not followed best practice as set out in the Code of Practice, he may expect no reward at all or a reduced reward. Landowners and occupiers will be eligible for rewards in such cases.

The Code of Practice states that you should receive a reward within one year of your having delivered your find, although this may take longer in the case of very large finds or those that present special difficulties. If no museum wants to acquire the find it should be disclaimed within six months or within three months if it is a single object.