Hidden Treasure: a gold hoard found in a piano
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- čas přidán 18. 04. 2017
- This is the story of a mystery hoard of gold found inside a piano.
Piano tuner Martin Backhouse came across several tightly wrapped fabric bundles while working on an instrument that had been newly donated to Bishop’s Castle Community College in Shropshire. Carefully opening one he discovered stacks of gold sovereigns - precious coins - dating from the turn of the 20th century. Realising the importance of the find, Martin and the college contacted the local Coroner and Finds Liaison Officer to report it under the Treasure Act, which is administered by staff at the British Museum. They could then begin the hunt for the original owner of the coins…
Find out more about the coin hoard here: blog.britishmuseum.org/a-hoard...
With special thanks to Ludlow Museum and Bishop’s Castle Community College.
If you'd like to find out more about the piano hoard, our Treasure Registrar Ian Richardson has written a blog about the hoard and its discovery: blog.britishmuseum.org/a-hoard-of-note/
There is definitely more detail in the link provided, but I think most people are curious as to the provenance of the piano. The blatant eschewing of this is what makes it so conspicuous.
@@orbitronik So impressive, whoever designed that huge buffet, that nobody could figure out the secret compartment - except by gravity.
It shouldn't be to hard to track the history of the piano. Somebody along that line put those coins in there. They should go to the family.
The govt doesn’t like you getting grannies gold. They take everything. People have to sell their property so the govt can take her stuff
Sure
I would have liked to have heard about the coins themselves, and who possibly put them there rather than just about the legal aspects of the treasure act. That was an odd video.
Just bog standard bullion sovereigns. Still legal tender: capital gains and VAT exempt. The coins have been sold onto the bullion market.
So what kind of coins are they, how old are they, how old was the piano, how many coins were there?
Through me a freakin' bone here.
Throw.
@@metalmicky Nice! Apparently, Mr. Fox doesn’t know how to do simple internet searches.
No useful info just questions raised. My main question is: So the family who donated the piano clearly not knowing what was inside of it are out in the cold? #2) How much is all of this worth? How much did they lose?
That gold is worth a few hundred grand probably
These need to be returned to the people who donated the piano
I would be interested in more details such as the age of the coins
They're late Victorian. You can see the dates on the coins
Shouldn't they be returned to the family who donated the piano?
finds.org.uk/treasure/advice/museum-interest
When a report is completed on an item of potential Treasure, a determination needs to be made as to what will happen to it. If the opinion is that it is Not Treasure, then the Coroner will be informed of this and the find will be returned to the finder or landowner.
If the find is believed to be Treasure, museums have the right to acquire it. In order to determine whether a museum wishes to acquire the find, the FLO will take the completed report and pass it to curators of museums that collect from the area where the find was made. The curators of those museums will decide whether the wish to express an interest in acquiring the find. The British Museum or the National Museum Wales may also wish to acquire the find, particularly if there is no local interest.
It can take a little while as curators make their decision. The museum that acquires the find must fund the reward to the finder and landowner, so often curators need to check with their management to ensure they have the backing to make this acquisition.
@@transvestosaurus878 I agree with this, but I think this is would be considered family heirlooms not like a treasure hoard buried in a paddock.
The govt doesn’t like you inheriting your grannies things. Tax forces you to sell off all her property
@@transvestosaurus878 They are gold bullion coins. Clearly not treasure but a personal store of wealth.
Most of the video is talking about policy and procedure, and not about anything interesting. If the Vogons found gold coins in a piano, this is the video they'd make.
Pete Brown true. But forget the procedural drama porn, those archaic definitions of treasure or hoard... All these blokes are interested in the gold.
Vogons!
How about returning it to the widow or the family of the man that donated the piano?
So the coins were robbed off the family who donated the piano. Disgusting.
i bet the people who donated it are upset lmfao
this sucks because they did not tell you what the coins are, dates, type, and all that.
Did nobody consider returning the coins to the unaware owners that donated the piano. Not one time was it mentioned. Typical government.
Can’t help wondering if anyone would have been so interested if instead of gold, it was lead weights. No one seems to have got back to the original owner of the piano. Greed.
The coins should be given back to the person who donated the piano
Fascinating. I look forward to follow-up pieces. Thank you for sharing.
This was so exciting... imagine that! A really good and interesting series to watch whilst still in lockdown. Thank you from South Africa 🇿🇦 I am a new subscriber
I wish you would have told us more about the coins. Why not?
They are gold sovereigns
That is an amazing find!
You neglected to show the piano tuner's stable full of maseratis, lamborghinis etc
"Someone accidentally gave us some gold & we're keeping it because TrEaSuRe".
Nope. The piano tuner and school split £500,000 after the original owner could not be tracked down. An extensive search was done.
Why not give back the monney to the family of the owner of the coins?
More about the policy and procedure of how the government can claim it hello from Australia
Most questions are fairly addressed in the link supplied above.
Well that was a waste of time! how old are coins? the newest might help date when they were put away, value of the coins??
Queen Victorian Sovereigns , by the looks of them , around £300 .00 each probably more due to age and condition. Serious money!
Absolutely awesome🎈
great story, but it's hard to hear of you aren't using a headphone.
There were 8 pouches of gold coins, only 6 made their way to the museum 🤣
HA! I found a piggy bank in a piano it was full of silver coins. The piano came from a church. I think a kid thought it was a safe place for his stash. He had no clue it would be sold.
Seems to me that finding the original owner would be the right thing to do. I don't see a lot of attention to this fact. I do see a lot of greedy people wringing their hands while contemplating how much it's worth. Sad.
The museum curator and man that discovered weren't greedy enough to say to himself or each other, lets keep this between us. Glad British museum as a whole still is greedy though and hasn't tried to repatriate the treasure that isn't theirs.
All you had to do is a simple internet search to find out what happened! Geez, are people really that ignorant? Of course there was an exhaustive search to find the owners, and 40 claimants who couldn’t prove ownership in addition to that. So, the piano tuner and the school split £500,000, OK? Such negativity!!
I'd love to learn about this and other subjects you've made videos of but the music is always so loud, i can't hear the interviews. A bit frustrating. I had to stop it 30 seconds in.
I hope that you can shake hands with the rightful owner now.
How many coins were found? I don't think that was mentioned
Shouldn’t this be returned to the pianos owner? It’s not a treasure but someone’s life savings.
If I was the piano man I would have put them straight in my bag and not said a bloody word.
I hope that the cloth is being analyzed
Always put your name and address in a package like this.
And what about the person who donated the piano? And were the coins dusted for fingerprints?
My takeaway: there’s an extreme level of bureaucracy in Britain.
A bit strange they cannot find the owners… start with the piano manufacturer, they should have record of the sale and subsequent maintenance ….
Thumbs down for not doing exhaustive search for the rightful owner.
Why would anyone put treasure in a piano? Wouldn’t it affect the resonance and quality of the sound?
They may not of played it.
The couple who donated the piano owned it for 33 years and gave their 4 children lessons on it when they were little. So obviously, they weren’t aware it was there, hidden under the keyboard where it wouldn’t interfere with the action of the keys and hammers.
Just about sums it up...by the time all the claimants have got their share,,,is it worth it. Me and my family know a man that lives on the hamble on his boat. Very very honest man , we have backed him in a venture concerning the gold of pisco, or the treasure of the tuamotus. We will see what becomes of it.
As David Letterman would often use as a joke 'this raises more questions than it answers'.
That’s what Google is for, right? Invest 2 seconds, get your answer. Sheesh.
WTF? No mention of the type or dates of said coins? Why do I think this video was produced by a committee (rhetorical).
Apparently, you are unaware of the information to be found under the “description.” The upside down “v” can be found at the far right corner of the bottom of the photo....click on that and it will open a whole lot of info. If you had known that, you would have found that this video was uploaded by the British Museum in 2017....do the math....so now you can either follow the link in said description, or you can submit to a 2 second Google search to find your answer. You’re welcome, although I have to say I can’t believe this needs to be spelled out for anyone!
Hello, when are they from>?
These dated thru 1915 which could possibly mean that the owner was possibly a victim of circumstances in World War 1. Never to return and never to reclaim his wealth that was stashed. Who is to know. Too bad someone didn't dig more into the source of this piano...it's not like there wouldn't be someone willing to come forward with who had it last, but likely it would end due to WW2 and all the moving around and upset....too many possibilities and not enough information put out in this video like the dates I found on another link to this.
id hate to find tresure it turns into nothing but trouble.
So, did the museum steal it or not? I say yes they stole it.
Music is hugely precious!!!
Unfortunately a lot of waffle about UK treasure law which of no interest to anyone outside the UK and I dare say not many inside it.
so what currency are they? I know british but what is the name given to them other than "gold coins"? Also, how much is each coin worth relative to todays british pound? What era/date are they from? And finally, the way they made it out to be was if the coins are over 300 years old, is the piano that old too? nobody has touched it since then??? or where the coins placed there in recent years, really interesting story, if anyone has the answers to any of my questions i'd love to know. Thanks.
They are gold sovereigns, from the Victorian era, maybe through Edward VII through George V. At the time, 20 shillings or one £ legal tender. When England was on the Gold Standard, they circulated like real money, obviously a pound was a lot back in the day.
Today they mostly trade as a bullion gold coin with a certain premium over spot gold due to being numismatic collectibles. I'm sure there are some key dates that would command a hefty premium. I did not see anything older than the early Victorian era (mid 19th century) nor would there likely be if it was a hoard put together between 1926 and 1946 as they likely think.
Treasure act, state theft made legal.
You should see Civil Forfeiture and Imminent Domain in the 'States...
thats the school i go to we had an assembly about it
Useless Propaganda Film to explain how the government justified stealing the gold from the generous people who donated the piano!
If someone gives you a car and you find a wallet under the seat... you should return the wallet! Their intention was to give you the car NOT the wallet!
I like how instead of carefully unlacing the package he just slices it open with a blade! Gimme!... Gimme!... Gimme!!
Date?
The govt doesn’t want you to have your grannies gold. They want it all for themselves
So who got the cash?
For all the enthusiastic blather, fails to tell us anything about the gold coins beyond the fact that they are gold coins.
For all of your enthusiastic negativity, check the demmed date of the upload in the description, _see that it was in 2017,_ take 2 seconds to do a Google search and find the answer. I’m philosophically opposed to helping where ignorance reigns.
Finders keepers (?)
A very irritating video..talking in length about the legal processes of reporting a find and if it's classified as treasure!!
But what was it? How old are these coins? What is the history behind them?
I hate how museums can legally steal things you find that are valuable.
A Blog is just a swamp with an extra letter!
Not treasure.
It took you 5 minutes to tell us some gold coins were found in a piano. And jack shit else. No ID, no dates, no value, no history on the piano, school, or anything else. How many years will it take you to make any other determinations? Do any of you even remember your own names?
that law is rubbish I'm glad I'm in the USA
although not the best place to be
500,000.00 Quid
This story is all over the place. Not well produced, edited, or presented. You had one job. F-
This video is terrible. Most of the video should have consisted of close ups of the coins, with voices in the background. Almost nothing is said about the date of the coins, their country of origin, their value at the time they were minted, their present value, their weight, their purity, their number, their rarity... And how do they expand our knowledge? I would also like to know some facts about the piano. Did it belong to a member of the upper class, or the middle class? What educated guesses could be made about the piano's original owner? Where in the piano were the coins hidden? Why not use the camera to show us the first glimpse of the coins as the piano tuner saw them? The blog is so superior that it's contents should be included in the video, while the video's content should be deleted. Far too much time is wasted discussing The Treasury Act in both the video and the blog. Nothing about this video would make me subscribe to The British Museum's CZcams channel. I could learn more from watching Time Team.
what an annoying video, heres a couple of things you may like to know! there were just over 900 sovereigns found, 633 full @£333 each £210.789 and 280 half sovereigns at £177, £48,789. they were wrapped in some cardboard which dated from 1926-46. the piano was built in 1906, the coins were dated from 1847 to 1915. the money was shared between the owner of the piano (the college who had had it donated) and the finder (the piano tuner).
yo steve... nice one thanks
well done Steve, your a legend, thanks
What a load of rubbish,,, are these sovereigns over 300 years old.... this find does not fall, under the treasure act at all.