Ancient gold cup found worth £500 000

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Grandson of rag and bone man discovers 'Indiana Jones' gold cup may be worth £500,000
By Beth Hale
27th May 2008

As a child, John Webber often played with the strange engraved metal cup that was lying around in his grandfather's scrapyard. Even when he inherited the cup from the old rag-and-bone man, he assumed it was simply another piece of bronze or brass which had escaped the melting pot.

But last year Mr Webber, himself now a 70-year- old grandfather, unpacked it from its box after six decades to discover he had been sitting on a fortune. Experts say the cup is pure gold and dates back to before the birth of Christ. Next month, it will go up for auction with an estimate of between £50,000 and £100,000, although Mr Webber says he will not be surprised if it fetches half a million.

Standing 5 1/2in high, the cup carries the outline of two similar female faces looking in opposite directions, their foreheads decorated with a snake motif. When they first saw it, experts were baffled by the piece, unlike any they had seen before. That was until laboratory analysis of the gold put it in the third or fourth century BC. Now it is thought the intricate design is the work of craftsmen in the days of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which spanned three continents until Alexander the Great defeated the forces of its last ruler in 330BC.

Mr Webber said the cup was acquired in the late 1930s or early 1940s by his grandfather William Sparks in Taunton, Somerset. Before his death in the late 1940s he gave it to his grandson because his own son had already died. Believing it to be brass or bronze, Mr Webber put the cup, along with other gifts, in a box and forgot about it until last year when he moved house. Only then did he unwrap the cup from tissue paper and realise the long-forgotten toy of childhood might in fact be gold.

Mr Webber, who lives near Taunton, said: 'My grandfather was originally a proper rag-and-bone ban from Romany stock and lived in a caravan. He formed a scrap-metal company in the 1930s and made enough to have his own house built.

'I remember when I was a boy playing with all the things he had. As a child I remember the faces on the gold cup used to scare me to death. I'm sure a lot of pieces ended up in the melting pot, but not this. My grandfather must have known it was of some value.'

Mr Webber sent the cup to the British Museum where experts recommended he have it tested at a laboratory. Tests confirmed its age and that it had been crafted from just one piece of gold. Scientist Peter Northover reported: 'The method of manufacture and the composition of the gold are consistent with Achaemenid gold and goldsmithing.'

The vessel is to be auctioned at Duke's auction house in Dorchester on June 5, along with two other items passed down from Mr Webber's grandfather. They are a gold spoon valued at £10,000 which might have come from Roman North Africa, and a 'Hellenistic' gold mount with a figure thought to be Ajax, probably from the second century BC and valued at up to £2,000.

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luvvly jubbly!

[SpursFan1902]

Good for him! It is good to see the "average Joe" get ahead just on luck.

[Skylace]

One mans trash eh?
That is so great for him. He can hopefully enjoy the years he has left in style.

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Man unearths box filled with Depression-era cash
By DINESH RAMDE,
Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 2, 2008

Dan Deming had heard the rumors about the buried treasure on his central Wisconsin farm. At first he made some halfhearted attempts to find it, and then searched in earnest for two or three years after receiving a metal detector for his birthday. "I don't know what I thought, if I thought it was really there or not," he said.

The mystery ended recently while Deming was tearing down a 100-year-old shed on his property. A rusted box tumbled from the rubble and wads of currency dating back to the Depression spilled on the ground. "I couldn't believe it. I started running to the house with it," Deming, 34, said Sunday. "My wife thought I broke my arm because I was just hooting and hollering."

The bills were so deteriorated that it was hard to count the money. But the box also contained scraps of newspaper with dollar amounts written on them, a possible tally of the loot. Deming briefly considered selling the bills to collectors, but the money was in poor condition. Instead, he turned it over to the U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which redeems mutilated currency for face value, he said. "I'm hoping it'll be for $1,700 because that's what the paper said," Deming said. "It's hard to say, though. It's really difficult to tell what was in there."

The legend of the buried treasure dates back more than 40 years. "I heard from my grandfather that a man who lived here during the '30s and '40s was eccentric and might have stashed money," Deming said. When he first saw the bills, he thought they were play money. Then he saw the words "silver certificate" across the top of a $1 bill and realized it was real. He also noticed the bills were dated between 1928 and 1934.

Deming says he'll use whatever money he gets from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to build a replacement shed. He also plans to tear down a rickety old barn on his land, and wondered for a fleeting moment whether there might be more money stashed there. "I'm hoping maybe there's something there — but I doubt it," he said. "I mean, $1,700 during the Depression was probably this guy's life savings."

[SpursFan1902]

Good for him! I hope there is something in his barn too!

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Watch that's back from the seabed... And it's still working, after 67 years
By Jaya Narain
09th June 2008

The last time Teddy Bacon saw his expensive gold watch it was sinking down into the harbour in Gibraltar. That was in 1941, and the watch had slipped off his wrist when Lieutenant Bacon threw a line to shore from his ship, HMS Repulse. After two divers failed to find his lost treasure, the young officer gave up on ever seeing it again.

But 67 years later, it turned up on his doormat - still ticking. The Bulova Automatic, wrapped in a brown paper bag, did not seem at all the worse for wear after decades on the ocean floor. The timepiece had been discovered by workers dredging the harbour in 2007, who scooped it up with other debris in their machine.

Because the deputy harbourmaster in 1941 had made a log with a description of the watch and its approximate location, staff knew who it belonged to. So they posted it back to the address Lieutenant Bacon had left for them on a scrap of paper all those years ago. After being redirected from his many former homes it eventually landed on the doormat of his house in Tarvin, Cheshire.

'To say I was stunned could be considered a major understatement,' said Mr Bacon, a widower and father of four who is almost 90. 'It truly was a miracle that I had been reunited with that watch after a lifetime. Now I wear it every day and it keeps perfect time, even after all those years in the water. It is absolutely excellent and I consider it a long-lost friend.'

Lieutenant Bacon bought the watch in the Azores for 55 dollars on his way to Singapore as part of a fleet sent to counter the Japanese invasion, and was wearing it in Gibraltar. He said: 'I was showing one of the sailors how to throw a line to shore and I remember, as clear as day, seeing the watch sail off my wrist and disappear into the water. I was pretty annoyed about it and two divers attached to the flotilla went down to have a look for it but could not see it. So I went to the deputy harbourmaster and left a full description, location and probable depth of around 40ft and left it at that. Obviously I didn't expect to see it again.'

He continued on to Singapore where he narrowly escaped with his life when Repulse was sunk during an attack by Japanese planes.

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[11antoniacourt]

very enjoyable stories. I love a good ending.