Uploaded October 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 minutes ago
Lucky people who found gold in random places from ancient gold coins to gold bars hidden in a tank. These discoveries made them rich.
7. Oldest Iron Age gold
In December 2016, friends Mark Hambleton and Joe Kana were metal detecting in a field in Staffordshire and they pulled a piece of gold out of the ground.
They found three gold necklaces and a bracelet, which a British Museum representative has since described as a "unique find of international importance".
The find are thought to date around 400-250 BC and it is 2,500 years old at least. The treasure has since been valued at $430,900 which the pair shared with the landowner Stuart Heath.
6. Builders find coins in a pub
Every time you go to the pub you usually ends with less money in your pocket. But five irish builders found 81 gold coins when working on the foundations of Cooney’s Bar.
The builders started to realize that they had found something special when they wiped away the clay covering the coins. In fact, they found a hoard of 17th-century gold guineas and half guineas under the pub’s floorboards.
You can see the coins ate The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, in Dublin.
The five builders have been offered an undisclosed finder’s reward in their role in locating the gold coins.
5. The Theater gold coins
Archeologists found hundreds of ancient gold coins in the basement of a former theater in northern Italy. The coins were spilling out of a two-handled soapstone jar called an amphora, buried in the dirt.
Maria Grazia Facchinetti, an expert in rare coins said that “Whoever placed the jar in that place buried it in such a way that in case of danger they could go and retrieve it,".
The coins dates back to 474 AD and It has engravings of the emperors Honorius, Valentinian III, Leon I, Antonio and Libio Severo.
According to Luca Rinaldi, the local archaeology superintendent, the coins had “inestimable value”.
4. ... in a Piano
A 100-year-old piano had been donated to Bishop’s Castle Community College in 2016, and while the college’s piano technician Martin Backhouse was working on it he found the coins stored in white corduroy pouches lying underneath the piano's keys.
The hoard dates from 1847 to 1915 and It was valued at $566,000 and both the college and Martin Backhouse shared the profits.
3. Gold bars in a French garden
In the French town of Roanne in the Loire region, a couple came under police investigation after they found 28 gold bars in their back garden between 2009 and 2013.
The bars had an estimated value of $942,168. However, despite legally declaring the finds, the couple underwent a criminal investigation when they sold 23 of the bars, creating transaction levels that alerted an anti-laundering agency.
The house's previous owner took the couple to court over the ownership of the gold bullions, and won. The couple had to return the remaining bars of gold, along with the money from the sale of 15 of them.
2. Tank Collector Finds $2.6 Million Hidden Gold
55-year-old Nick Mead found five gold bars worth $2.6 million hidden within the fuel tank of a Russian T54/69 that he was restoring. Mead who is a tank fanatic got the new tanker model at an estimated $39, 500 to add to his 150 military vehicle collection. When filming the work progress on the tanker restorations in April 2017 along with mechanic Todd Chamberlain, they surprisingly pulled out the gold bars weighing 12 lbs a piece. Mead believed that Iraqi soldiers might have looted the gold bars during the Gulf War.
The two had already stumbled on machine ammunition when they were stripping the tank down, and they thought they would possibly find hidden within it too. They stored the gold in a safe deposit box not quite sure what to do with it, but Mead explained that if he didn't get to keep the gold at least he had his beautiful tank.
1. The Staffordshire Hoard
Terry Herbert found what is considered the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure trove ever discovered in 2009. Herbert had his metal detector when he decided to search through a freshly plowed field near Hammerwich in Staffordshire. The treasure hoard had more than 3,500 items and a majority of them had military relations.
However, the treasure trove also included a significant number of decorative items and several religious artifacts. The belief is that the hoard dates back to the 8th century.
The hoard was purchased jointly by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery for £3.285 million ($ 5,435 million) under the Treasure Act 1996.
Lucky people who found gold in random places from ancient gold coins to gold bars hidden in a tank. These discoveries made them rich.
7. Oldest Iron Age gold
In December 2016, friends Mark Hambleton and Joe Kana were metal detecting in a field in Staffordshire and they pulled a piece of gold out of the ground.
They found three gold necklaces and a bracelet, which a British Museum representative has since described as a "unique find of international importance".
The find are thought to date around 400-250 BC and it is 2,500 years old at least. The treasure has since been valued at $430,900 which the pair shared with the landowner Stuart Heath.
6. Builders find coins in a pub
Every time you go to the pub you usually ends with less money in your pocket. But five irish builders found 81 gold coins when working on the foundations of Cooney’s Bar.
The builders started to realize that they had found something special when they wiped away the clay covering the coins. In fact, they found a hoard of 17th-century gold guineas and half guineas under the pub’s floorboards.
You can see the coins ate The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, in Dublin.
The five builders have been offered an undisclosed finder’s reward in their role in locating the gold coins.
5. The Theater gold coins
Archeologists found hundreds of ancient gold coins in the basement of a former theater in northern Italy. The coins were spilling out of a two-handled soapstone jar called an amphora, buried in the dirt.
Maria Grazia Facchinetti, an expert in rare coins said that “Whoever placed the jar in that place buried it in such a way that in case of danger they could go and retrieve it,".
The coins dates back to 474 AD and It has engravings of the emperors Honorius, Valentinian III, Leon I, Antonio and Libio Severo.
According to Luca Rinaldi, the local archaeology superintendent, the coins had “inestimable value”.
4. ... in a Piano
A 100-year-old piano had been donated to Bishop’s Castle Community College in 2016, and while the college’s piano technician Martin Backhouse was working on it he found the coins stored in white corduroy pouches lying underneath the piano's keys.
The hoard dates from 1847 to 1915 and It was valued at $566,000 and both the college and Martin Backhouse shared the profits.
3. Gold bars in a French garden
In the French town of Roanne in the Loire region, a couple came under police investigation after they found 28 gold bars in their back garden between 2009 and 2013.
The bars had an estimated value of $942,168. However, despite legally declaring the finds, the couple underwent a criminal investigation when they sold 23 of the bars, creating transaction levels that alerted an anti-laundering agency.
The house's previous owner took the couple to court over the ownership of the gold bullions, and won. The couple had to return the remaining bars of gold, along with the money from the sale of 15 of them.
2. Tank Collector Finds $2.6 Million Hidden Gold
55-year-old Nick Mead found five gold bars worth $2.6 million hidden within the fuel tank of a Russian T54/69 that he was restoring. Mead who is a tank fanatic got the new tanker model at an estimated $39, 500 to add to his 150 military vehicle collection. When filming the work progress on the tanker restorations in April 2017 along with mechanic Todd Chamberlain, they surprisingly pulled out the gold bars weighing 12 lbs a piece. Mead believed that Iraqi soldiers might have looted the gold bars during the Gulf War.
The two had already stumbled on machine ammunition when they were stripping the tank down, and they thought they would possibly find hidden within it too. They stored the gold in a safe deposit box not quite sure what to do with it, but Mead explained that if he didn't get to keep the gold at least he had his beautiful tank.
1. The Staffordshire Hoard
Terry Herbert found what is considered the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure trove ever discovered in 2009. Herbert had his metal detector when he decided to search through a freshly plowed field near Hammerwich in Staffordshire. The treasure hoard had more than 3,500 items and a majority of them had military relations.
However, the treasure trove also included a significant number of decorative items and several religious artifacts. The belief is that the hoard dates back to the 8th century.
The hoard was purchased jointly by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery for £3.285 million ($ 5,435 million) under the Treasure Act 1996.
