page_title: Staffordshire Hoard
section_title: Valuation and sale
hierarchical_section_title: Staffordshire Hoard / Discovery and excavation / Valuation and sale
caption_attribution_description: Terry Herbert (finder) and Caroline Lyons (Treasure Team)
context_page_description: The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. It consists of over 3,500 items, amounting to a total of 5.1 kg of gold, 1.4 kg of silver and some 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewellery.
  The hoard was most likely deposited in the 7th century, and contains artefacts probably manufactured during the 6th and 7th centuries. It was discovered in 2009 in a field near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England. The location was in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia at the time of the hoard's deposition.
  The hoard is of "radical" importance in Anglo-Saxon archaeology. The artefacts are nearly all martial in character and contain no objects specific to female uses. The average quality of the workmanship is extremely high and especially remarkable in view of the large number of individual objects, such as swords and a helmet, from which many of the fragments in the hoard came.
  The hoard was purchased jointly by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery for £3.285 million under the Treasure Act 1996.
context_section_description: On 25 November 2009, the hoard was valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee at £3.285 million, which, under the provisions of the 1996 Treasure Act, is the sum that must be paid as a reward to the finder and landowner, to be shared equally, by any museum that wishes to acquire the hoard.
  After the hoard was valued, it was announced that the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery intended to acquire the entire hoard jointly, and a public appeal was launched to raise the £3.285 million needed to purchase the hoard. The Art Fund co-ordinated the appeal.  If the sum had not been raised by 17 April 2010, the Hoard might have been sold on the open market and the unique collection permanently broken up.  On 23 March 2010 it was announced that the sum had been raised three weeks before the deadline, after a grant of £1.285 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was added to the money already collected from individuals, councils, and other groups and associations. Although the purchase price has been achieved, the Art Fund appeal is still continuing, in order to raise a further £1.7 million to help fund the conservation, study and display of the hoard.
  Terry Herbert, the finder of the hoard, and Fred Johnson, the farmer on whose land the hoard was found, each received a half share of the £3.285 million raised by the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery.  The two men were later reported to have "fallen out" over the division of the money.
caption: Terry Herbert examining items from the Staffordshire Hoard at the British Museum in October 2009. The items have been laid out for valuation by the Treasure Valuation Committee.
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