Considering how thrilled I was just to find this story, I can only imagine the delirious, all-consuming excitement felt by Dave Crisp, a British hospital chef, when his metal detector uncovered this pot of 52,000 Roman coins.


Crisp was lolling with his detector in a field in southwestern England when he made the discovery, eventually unearthing some 50,000 silver and bronze coins dating from 253 to 293 AD. Over 700 of them bear the face of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, a Roman general who ruled Britain and was the first to make coins in the region.

Crisp, a self-described "metal detectorist," explained that he would have to share the coins' estimated $1 million value with the farmer who owns the land on which they were buried. Still, I imagine that the prospect of a $500,000 payday will be enough to inspire a whole new generation of detectorists. [CNN]