Man Discovers Coins Worth $128K While Hunting For Friend’s Lost Wedding Ring

A stash of centuries-old gold coins was found by a metal detectorist while he was hunting for a friend’s lost wedding ring.

Paul Raynard, burst into tears after discovering the 84 coins worth more than $1,28,552 with some of them dating back to King Henry VIII’s reign in the early 1500s. The 44-year-old ran to his fellow detectorist Michael Gwynne, exclaiming, “This is the moment we dreamed of!”

“It was an amazing feeling- like checking your lottery numbers and realizing you have the jackpot,” The Sun quoted Paul as saying.

“I was shaking. I still can’t believe it,” added the father of two.

The detectorists were on a holiday with a farmer friend in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, when he asked them to help find him his wedding ring which he had lost somewhere in the fields. They, however, did not find the ring.

At present, the coins are being valued by the Ulster Museum and the experts have claimed that the entire hoard could be worth more than $1,28,552.

In a similar incident in April this year, the 14th-century hoard of more than 550 rare gold and silver coins was found in Buckinghamshire. The discovery of the coins worth $195,000 was made by four detectorists taking part in a local metal detector rally. The stash included 12 rare full gold coins from the time of the Black Death and is known to be one of the biggest hoards from the U.K. in the last decade, reported DailyMail. The silver coins are from the reign of Edward I and II (1272-1327) and are a rare mix of Lincoln, Birmingham, Ireland, and Scotland. The hoard was then nicknamed as the ‘Hambleden Hoard.’