Paul Hardcastle found the high status objects c.600- 700AD while digging a fence post in his York garden.
He disagrees with a £2800 valuation given by the Treasure Valuation Committee as he says he has received bids of £48,000 for the collection when it was offered for sale on an antiquities website. He withdrew the items, which were later declared treasure and thus owned by the Crown.
Entitled to a financial reward, Hardcastle’s discovery was valued by a PAS panel at £2800. The committee includes auction specialists and members of both the British Numismatic Trade Association and Antiquities Dealers Association.
Treasure registrar Ian Richardson said: “If a finder is not happy they can submit evidence to support their argument and they can hire their own independent valuer.”
He said this case was still in the process of being considered and reviewed.
“We get accused of lowering valuations to allow museums to buy items, but this is simply not true. It is in our interests to represent a fair value and to pay a reward to encourage others to bring finds to us,” added Richardson.
The jewellery, including glass beads with trailed decorations, cabochon garnets and gold fragments with filigree decoration from a disc brooch, is thought to be from the grave of a high-status Anglo-Saxon woman.
York Museums Trust is interested in buying the items and has four months, once the valuation has been agreed and the museum has been invoiced, to seek the funding needed.
