David Pickup passed along this Daily Mail article with more on the Herefordshire hoard. -Editor

"At a court hearing this week two men were order to pay £600,000.00 each within three months or face an additional five years in gaol. They had been sentenced to ten years and eight and a half years each in 2019 for theft of a hoard of coins and artefacts from the Viking period. The further penalty was ordered because the judge said the pair were still hiding 270 coins worth about £10,000 each."

"Most detectorists and collectors are highly respectable and honest. Standards of probity are very high. If these two had been honest and reported the find they and the landowner would have been rewarded by the government for the find.

"In other news the BBC is broadcasting a Christmas special of the hit comedy series The Detectorists. If you have not seen it, the gentle comedy is very funny, marvellously acted and the English countryside is beautifully filmed. In one scene Lance played by Toby Jones discusses why they detect and talks about how metal detecting is the closest one can get to time travel. As so it is but coin collecting is as well. We are literally in touch with the past through the designs, rulers and everyday life of the individual. Coins tell so many stories. At this time of year I think of the people who handled my small collection of prutahs and leptons dating from Bible times and wondered who touched them, what they bought and their lives. Happy holidays everyone."