Time Team and Ainsbrook Hoard

[garybrun]

http://www.finds.org.uk/wordpress/wp-con...letter.pdf

quote:
Chambers of Geoffrey Vos QC
3 Stone Buildings
Lincoln’s Inn
London WC2A 3XL

Time Team special: Codename Ainsbrook, 14 January
I would like to correct an unfortunate inaccuracy in the Time Team special on the Ainsbrook hoard screened on 14 January. The programme featured two detector users, Mark Ainsley and Geoff Bambrook, who found a Viking Treasure hoard in Yorkshire which they correctly reported as potential Treasure. The hoard was declared Treasure by the coroner and it was offered to museums to acquire. As the British Museum wished to acquire the hoard, it came before the Treasure Valuation Committee so that my Committee could recommend a valuation to the Secretary of State. The remit of the Treasure Valuation Committee is to value finds at their full market value, as between a willing buyer and willing seller and, if museums wish to acquire Treasure finds, they have to raise this sum. If museums are unable to raise the money then the find is returned. Only about half of all finds reported as Treasure are actually acquired by museums.
The Committee commissioned two valuations from members of a panel of valuers who work for the Committee: these are all the leading experts in the fields of antiquities and coins. The finders had an opportunity to comment on the provisional values before the Committee considered the find and then they had an opportunity to appeal against the Committee's valuation. The Committee reached its valuation of the objects that were reported after taking advice from the leading experts in the market and after having considered the finders' comments very carefully and we believed that a value of £5,000 was right, taking into account all the considerations involved, such as the condition of the objects and their market value.
Tony Robinson implied in the programme that the Committee values finds below their true market value because museums cannot afford to pay the full price. I wish to repudiate this impression unequivocally, and to place it on record that any suggestion that a recommended reward should be scaled to the acquiring museum's particular resources would be decisively rejected. However, your readers do not need to take my word for it: it is stated very clearly in the Treasure Act Code of Practice, which is subject to Parliamentary approval and which the Committee is bound to follow that the Committee's terms of reference are `to recommend to the Secretary of State valuations for the items brought before it which correspond as closely as possible, taking account of all relevant factors, to what may be paid for the object(s) in a sale on the open market between a willing seller and a willing buyer' (Treasure Act 1996. Code of Practice (Revised), p. 41, paragraph 65).
I am very surprised that Time Team, during whose programmes finds of Treasure have been made on several occasions, should have made such an elementary mistake about the Treasure Act and I have contacted the producers to place the true position on record.
Yours sincerely
Professor Norman Palmer
Chairman, Treasure Valuation Committee

Website for responsible Metal Detecting
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