I found gold with a metal detector — can I legally sell it?

Is my find treasure, or is it mine to sell?

Three separate questions decide whether a detecting find can be sold, and they have to be answered in order. People usually jump to the third one, which is the only one that cannot land you in court.

A buyer, including us, cannot answer the first question for you and should not pretend to. What a buyer can do is tell you honestly when an object looks old enough or unusual enough that it needs reporting before anyone talks about price.

What counts as treasure under the Treasure Act 1996?

Treasure is defined by section 1 of the Treasure Act 1996, extended by two designation orders. The core tests are age and company: how old the object is, and whether it was found with others.

That last class is the one that catches people out, because it has nothing to do with precious metal. The Treasure (Designation) (Amendment) Order 2023 introduced a significance test on 30 July 2023: an object that is at least 200 years old and partly metal can be treasure purely because of its rarity, where it was found, or its connection to a person or event. A base-metal object can now qualify where it would not have done before.

What do I have to do, and by when?

Section 8 of the Act puts the duty on the finder, not the landowner and not the club. You must notify the coroner for the district where the object was found before the end of the notice period, which is 14 days beginning with the day after the find, or, if later, the day you first believe or have reason to believe the object is treasure. That second limb matters: if a find sat in a shed for two years and you have only now realised what it is, your 14 days start from the realisation.

• Stop and record. Photograph the object where it lies, note the findspot as precisely as you can, and leave anything else in the hole undisturbed. Context is a large part of what makes a find worth anything to a museum.
• Do not clean it. Cleaning removes the evidence a specialist needs and can destroy value outright.
• Contact your Finds Liaison Officer within 14 days. gov.uk directs finders to their local Finds Liaison Officer through finds.org.uk; the officer handles the notification and gives you a receipt for the object (gov.uk, checked 6 August 2026).
• Let the process run. The officer writes a report, museums are given the chance to express an interest, and the coroner holds an inquest which you may attend and ask questions at.
• If a museum wants it, a reward is set. The Treasure Valuation Committee recommends a reward based on full market value, normally shared between the finder and the landowner. Acting in bad faith, such as trespassing or concealing a find, can reduce or remove the finder’s share.
• If no museum wants it, or it is not treasure, you get it back. gov.uk states that items are returned within 28 days once the objection period has passed. At that point, and only at that point, selling is a normal decision.

Not sure how any of this applies to your own items? Send a photo on WhatsApp and ask. We answer honestly, there is no obligation, and nothing is posted until you decide. Or call 07763 741067, 8am to 9pm, 7 days a week.

What is not treasure?

The large majority of gold that comes out of British soil is not treasure, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than leaving people frightened of their own finds.

• A single gold coin, however old, unless it was found with at least one other qualifying coin or falls into the significance class. One coin on its own is usually not treasure.
• A Victorian or Georgian gold ring. Anything made after about 1726 fails the 300-year test, and Victorian jewellery is not remotely close to it.
• Modern lost jewellery. A wedding band dropped on a beach last summer is nobody’s treasure.
• Unworked natural objects and minerals in their natural deposit, which the Act expressly excludes. A natural gold nugget is not treasure.
• Objects under 200 years old generally, since even the significance class requires a 200-year minimum age.

Not treasure does not automatically mean yours, though. A modern ring belongs to whoever lost it, and the honest step is to take reasonable steps to find them, which usually means handing it in to the police or the landowner and allowing a sensible period. Recent, identifiable, personal items are a different problem from ancient ones, and no reputable buyer wants to be the reason a wedding ring never went home. Our guide to whether you can keep or sell a gold ring you found sets out what reasonable steps look like.

Finds that are not treasure can still be recorded voluntarily with the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It costs nothing, it does not put the object at risk, and a recorded findspot often makes an object easier rather than harder to sell later.

Who owns the find, me or the landowner?

In England and Wales, objects found in or on land generally belong to the landowner rather than to the person holding the detector, unless a written agreement says otherwise. Detecting without permission is trespass, and taking finds away can amount to theft. Searching a scheduled monument without Scheduled Monument Consent is an offence in its own right under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, and permission from the farmer does not cure that.

This is why experienced detectorists sign a finds agreement before the first hole is dug. A 50/50 split between finder and landowner is the common convention rather than a legal rule, and the same split is generally applied to treasure rewards. Get it in writing, dated, and keep a copy. Nothing sours a good find faster than an argument about a handshake from three seasons ago.

What about beaches, rivers and the foreshore?

Most of the UK foreshore, the strip between mean high and mean low water, belongs to the Crown Estate, which operates its own permission arrangements for detecting. Individual councils, harbour authorities and private beach owners add their own rules, and some beaches ban detecting altogether. Check before you search, not after.

There is a second, separate duty at the coast that catches almost everyone by surprise. Material that came from a wreck, whatever its age or value, must be reported to the Receiver of Wreck. gov.uk guidance on wreck and salvage law says finders should report their recoveries by submitting a completed report of wreck and salvage form within 28 days of the recovery (gov.uk, checked 6 August 2026). A gold coin from a wreck can therefore engage both the Treasure Act and the wreck rules at once.

Do the rules differ in Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Substantially, yes, and assuming the English position is the most common mistake we see.

My find is lawfully mine. How do I sell it?

Once a find is outside the treasure regime, either because it never met the tests or because it has been disclaimed and returned to you, it is ordinary property and selling it is an ordinary decision. If the object is being sold for its metal, the postal route is straightforward.

• Send photographs on WhatsApp or by phone on 07763 741067 for an indicative figure. Say up front that it is a detecting find and where it came from; it is not a problem, and it changes the advice we give you.
• Request a free tracked and insured Royal Mail label. Cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used.
• Your items are weighed and XRF-assayed. Corroded and soil-covered finds are tested on a cleaned test point only where that is safe to do, and we say so if testing is not appropriate.
• You receive a written, itemised valuation showing each piece, its confirmed purity, its weight, the rate used and the offer. Nothing is melted or processed before you accept.
• Accept and payment is by Faster Payments within one working hour of acceptance, usually within 30 minutes during working hours. Decline and the items come back free of charge, unmelted.

Expect proportionate identity checks, and expect to be asked where the item came from. Buying precious metal from an unclear source is a risk no responsible buyer takes, so questions about provenance are a sign of a firm doing its job rather than a firm being difficult. A straight answer, plus a Finds Liaison Officer reference or a landowner’s written permission if you have one, settles it quickly. The full process is in how to sell gold safely by post, and the assay itself in how we value gold.

When is a postal metal buyer the wrong route?

Often, for this particular category, and it would be dishonest to write a page about detecting finds without saying so. Metal value is a floor, not a ceiling, and detecting finds are the class of object most likely to be worth several times their melt value to somebody else.

• Anything still inside the treasure process. We cannot buy it, and neither can anyone else, until the coroner and any museum interest are finished.
• Hammered or early milled coins, and gold coins with a date or mintmark of interest. A coin specialist prices those properly; a metal rate cannot. See selling gold coins versus gold jewellery.
• Objects a Finds Liaison Officer has described as archaeologically interesting, even where they are formally not treasure. Interest usually means somebody values the object above its weight.
• Hallmarked Georgian or Victorian pieces in good condition. A readable hallmark can be worth more than the gold around it, and our UK hallmarks guide explains how to read one.
• Anything with unresolved ownership. If the landowner question is unsettled, sort that out first.

Where we think a piece belongs at auction or with a specialist, the written valuation says so rather than folding the difference into a scrap figure. Selling gold versus using an auction house sets out when each route wins. Broken, unmarked, badly corroded or genuinely modern finds are the ones where a metal offer is usually the sensible answer, and that is the bulk of what comes out of a British field.

Common questions

Related guides

Reference pages

• Gold price today, UK rates
• Silver price today, UK rates
• UK gold hallmark guide
• How we value gold