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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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“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.”
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