The Finding of a Gold Bronze Age Bracelet

Two brothers, Wayne and Jason Coleman, unearthed a Bronze Age gold bracelet on 3rd April 1997. The two brothers went detecting as normal on a wet and dismal morning. The rain got worse as the two arrived at their sites. They tried three fields which produced nothing as they got wetter and wetter by the minute.

At about 2pm they decided to go to a field they had searched before which had produced nothing. Wayne wasn't too keen, the field had a small Roman site and in the past they had found a few low grade items but nothing else.

By 4pm the weather got worse and they decided to head towards a more sheltered spot. On the way Jason got a deep signal on his Minelab Sovereign and called Wayne over who had recently bought a White's Spectrum. It also showed good.

At about ten inches an object of a brassy yellow colour appeared. They carefully cleaned around the object and lifted it out. They had a faint suspicion of what it was. Was it Celtic, was it Roman or Saxon or modern imported Indian, Viking, etc. After searching for at least another half an hour they decided to head for home.

During the weekend they discovered it dated from the bronze Age, and took it on Monday morning to Kevin Leahy of Scunthorpe Museum. He confirmed their suspicions and told them the procedure for reporting such a find to the coroner.

The treasure trove inquest was held on 6th June 1997 where the verdict of treasure trove was announced. It was stated that the item was probably an unfinished item from a goldsmith's stock, dated 1200 BC and that in the opinion of the jury was intended to be retrieved. It has now gone to the British Museum.

A fantastic find, handled in an extremely responsible manner by Jason and Wayne Coleman.