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Treasurer hunters battle over share of 500,000 pounds hoard

Two treasure hunters face a legal battle over how they are going to split a reward of up to £500,000 for finding a rare hoard of more than 800 Celtic gold coins.

Metal detecting enthusiast Michael Darke, 60, realised he might be on the trail of a major treasure find when he found 10 Iron age coins buried in a meadow.

He called his friend Keith Lewis, 54, for advice and invited him the following weekend to help him search the land at Dallinghoo near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Suffolk County Council archaeologists later unearthed another 42 coins from the field – making it the largest haul of Iron Age coins found in Britain since 1849.

On Friday a coroner recorded a verdict that the hoard was treasure, allowing the finders to receive the full value of the coins on their sale to a museum.

But more than 16 months since the historic find, Mr Darke, a lorry driver, and Mr Lewis, a postman, have so far not agreed how any reward money should be split.

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)