A TREASURE hunter won a top-notch metal detector in a raffle — and used it to unearth a £23,000 hoard of silver coins three months later.
Mickey Richardson dug up 234 coins — believed to have been buried in 1644 during the Civil War — in a muddy field.
The novice handed the coins to a finds liaison officer but got them back as “finders keepers”.
He was “jumping up and down” as he watched online when they were sold at London auctioneers Spink & Son for £18,500.
With fees, the price was £23,000.
Mickey, of Bournemouth, must split the proceeds with the landowner but plans to fund a holiday with wife Rosalynd from his share.
The 63-year-old said: “I only took up the hobby a few months before and had a very basic metal detector, but then entered the raffle and won.
“A couple of months after that I got permission from the owner of land in Ansty where there used to be a small mudhouse village and where the fields were used to grow hops to brew beer in the Napoleonic Wars.
“I had been there a couple of times and found a copper coin but that was it.
“On the weekend I found the hoard I was just about to call it a day when I got a strong signal and found a Charles I shilling.
“Then I swept the area again and got another signal and then another signal and another.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I dug up 74 silver coins on the first day and was shattered afterwards.
“I went back the next morning thinking it would be nice to round it up to 100 but found a total of 234 coins spread over a radius.
“They must have been struck by a plow and scattered across the field and I was the lucky one who found them almost 500 years later.
“It was a day I will never forget. I alerted the Finds Liaison Officer and the rest is history.”
