Noonans sell Colkirk Hoard and other rare finds
On 5 December 2023, Noonans held an auction of Ancient Coins and Antiquities. Amongst the detecting finds in the sale is Part 1 of the Colkirk Hoard of Late Roman silver coins, found in 2021.Â
To view any of my selected lots in the auction catalogue click on the lot number. The full catalogue can be found here.
There is a buyer’s premium of 24% (plus VAT) on the hammer price.
Colkirk Hoard
The Colkirk Hoard was found near Colkirk in Norfolk by an anonymous detectorist between 2020 and 2022. It comprised 432 Roman silver coins, mostly siliquae from Constantius II (323-361) to Honorius (393-423). It was recorded at the PAS as NMS-AC7F17
The auctioneer tells the detectorist’s story of the find “Following several hours of searching which produced little more than a medieval cut halfpenny and a few buttons, he decided to call it a day. Starting back to his car he found, by chance, a single silver Siliqua. Spurred on by this success, he concentrated his searching to the immediate vicinity of the initial find; almost at once more coins started coming up.
By the end of that day some 40 siliquae had been recovered, all single finds distributed over an area of some twenty square metres. The next day a similar number was found. Over the next two years, Mr Finder returned time and time again, working around pandemic ‘lockdowns’, to increase the total number of finnds to nearly 300“
In late 2021 an excavation of the find site produced a further 132 coins.
73 coins are being sold in this auction.
Siliqua of Theodosius I
This is considered to be the most numismatically significant item contained with the Colkirk hoard. It is thought that these were used as prestige presentation pieces as part of donative payments to the army in extravagant ceremonies.
