Woman Walking Through A Field Spots A Shiny Object Before Realizing What It Really Is

See, seven years prior, Mary had picked up metal detecting. The hobby is a surprisingly popular one, giving adults a chance to be real life treasure hunters. Mary took her passion pursuit to the extreme.

Almost every Sunday for nearly a decade, Mary Hannaby ventured out into nature near her house and spent six hours searching for treasure. After seven years, she had only one major discovery.

Despite her dedication to the activity, the most interesting thing that Mrs. Hannaby turned up was an old pair of dentures. Not exactly the most glamorous find! So, imagine her delight when, in 2009, her metal detector finally started beeping.

As Mary and her 33-year-old son, Michael, were passing through the tall crops, engaging in idle conversation, the detector’s beeping stopped them in their tracks. The mother and son looked at each other… and then at the ground.

The pair didn’t see anything unusual at first glance, and so they got down on their hands and knees and eagerly began to dig. They were expecting something relatively mundane — old coins or a rusted piece of metal. They were wrong. Very wrong.

Mary and Michael brushed away the soil with their hands. When they didn’t spot anything at first, they feared the detector was malfunctioning, and there was nothing there at all. But then, four inches below the topsoil, they spotted it.

The object was small, approximately 1 inch by 1 inch — only slightly bigger than your average stamp. But when they wiped away the dirt and took a closer look, they knew they’d gotten their hands on something extremely special.

The minuscule object shone in the sunlight, and the two treasure hunters could make out religious iconography on its face. It appeared to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What this “stamp” was exactly, Mary could only guess. But it felt valuable.

So, Mary reported the find to the government. This wasn’t actually optional, as a U.K. law passed in 1996 — the Treasure Act — made it obligatory for treasure hunters to register all finds that could potentially be over 300-years-old and highly valuable.

Experts who looked at the mystifying object determined that it was an astounding 500 years old and had been underground since the 1500s. Mary and Michael couldn’t believe what they were hearing…but they had yet to find out just how rare the small piece was.

Curious for more answers, they took the artifact to historians, who said it was likely a fragment belonging to a larger pendant. Even more intriguing than that, the experts estimated that it was one of only three like it in the entire world. And the sell price?

The fortuitous find was worth at least 250,000 British pounds, or over 300,000 USD. This was fantastic news for Mary, who was having trouble finding the funds to pay off her mortgage. However, she wouldn’t get all that money — or even most of it.

The metal-detecting Brit was nice enough to offer to split the profits from the pendant with the man who owned the land on which she found it. His response to this friendly gesture caught both Mary and her son totally off guard.

It turns out that the proprietor was a pretty good guy himself! He turned down the offer of half the profits, instead taking only thirty percent. His reasoning was that he’d never have even known about the valuable treasure had it not been for Mary’s efforts. But there’s more to the story…

When an object as special as this one is found, museums get the first chance to buy it; the person responsible for unearthing it is paid market value for the object. Sadly, the British Museum didn’t have sufficient funds to purchase the pendant at the time. Others would, however.

Caroline Miner, the sculpture specialist at Sotheby’s responsible for auctioning the piece, said she was “awestruck” upon first seeing it. And as for Mary’s son, Michael? He had some choice commentary to give as well.

“It popped up all of a sudden. You can literally miss things by inches. We couldn’t believe it. We always dreamed of finding treasure.” he’s said. He was just glad the situation didn’t turn into a total nightmare. In Britain, historic finds have actually torn families and friends apart.