You can stop laughing at those old geezers with their metal detectors
 

Dude's rich!

UK treasure hunter finds 52,000 Roman coins - Yahoo! News

A beatle's song comes to mind here:
YouTube - The Beatles - Taxman (remastered)

Bet the finder ends up with very little...because:

"Somerset Coroner Tony Williams scheduled an inquest Thursday to formally determine whether the find is subject to the Treasure Act, a formal step toward determining a price to be paid by any institution which wishes to acquire the hoard."

Not as rich as he'd be if he found treasure here.

IIRC, the Treasure Act says he gets something like 10% of the proceeds from the sales, while the government gets 90%.

If he were in the U.S., he'd get 100% providing that the treasure was free and clear of any claims.

Okay, just did some research on the Treasure Act. The finder of the treasure gets 100% of the proceeds from the sale, but at a price determined by the Treasure Valuation Committee. From what I gather, then tend to value treasures at about 10% of what they would sell for on the open market. Oh, and the seller must sell to a British museum.

It seems that the Treasure Valuation Committee artificially depresses prices to the museums' benefit.

Socialistic countries tend to believe that all wealth belongs to the government for it to distribute as it sees fit... Sad, eh?

Oh well, the finder can take pride in that he preserved an archeological find...:(

Say what you will about my morals but I would have kept my mouth shut and hoisted out the whole lot on my own.;)

Ditto. Why the hell did he tell anyone? If I won the lottery, I'd have a lawyer collect it for me and I'd remain anonymous. I have zero desire to ever see my name in print.

If I won the lottery I would say I am Rick Lee

So would I, since it's not my real name.