Boy Finds £2.5M Gold Locket With Metal Detector

Instead of bottle caps and ridicule from his peers, 3-year-old James Hyatt found a locket worth millions with his metal detector. James and his dad found the gold locket last May in Essex. Since then the 500-year-old treasure has been appraised at around £2.5million. From the article: "James’s father Jason, 34, said: ‘My son is one of the luckiest people ever. If we go to the doctors he’ll put his hand down the side of the sofa and pull out a tenner.’"

Re:That's gonna be an interesting world view

[Scrameustache]

In my experience, there's no such thing as "luck."

In my dirtbiking-without-a-helmet experience: I've been DAMN lucky. Now I'm more prudent.

Re:Lucky

[Zedrick]

Weird kid? When I was in school, EVERYBODY wanted a metal detector. Nobody owned one though (partly because they were very expensive back then, partly because of legal reasons), but I imagine that if somebody did, he would have been considered the coolest kid in school.

I finally got my first metal detector about 5 years ago, and at least here (Sweden) it's not considered nerdy - when I go metal detecting on the beach I get lots of nice curious girls coming up to ask questions and try it. Seriously.

Re:Treasure Act of 1996

[Monkeedude1212]

Well if you're looking along the coast like they probably were in England, you have a chance of finding something of value. You may not find something 500 years old, but perhaps 300 or so from when the first settlers came across.

Canada got kind of lucky in that there are actual Viking remnants along our Eastern Coast. I think that's impressive. It also suggests something odd that they never made the return trip, otherwise you think the Western world might have known about the Americas if the Scandinavians already knew about it. (So Christopher Columbus might have known something was there). To put it in a historical perspective - L'Anse Aux Meadows (which is the only entirely confirmed Norse Settlement in Canada) - is expected to have been settled around 1003 AD. That's 63 years before the battle of Hastings - which is considered by many to be the most influential battle in the history of England. To think - one of the reasons the Anglo-Saxons lost the Battle of Hastings was because just weeks prior they were fighting the Vikings at the Battle of Fulford. Were they aware of the New World at that point? Would they have bothered trying to Conquer England if they had known they could have settled this entire continent? Seems like one of those focal hinging points in history to me.

I think I got a bit off track there - anyways, there should be plenty of shipwrecks along the coast to find things. You might be able to find some stuff from the WW2 era - I hear a bit of sea battles actually took place along the US Coast.

Re:No dice.

[spun]

The find belongs to the Crown.

I believe that the division of the hoard between the crown, the finder, and the land owner depends on whether the find was grave goods or a stash, whether the land owner gave permission to search, and a host of other things. As I understand it, UK law is still a confusing patchwork of barely compatible local, regional, and national laws of various historic origins.