3/18/2016 Digging pool, found 312 coins

Six years ago, the owner of a plot of land in Kostolné Kračany, Slovakia, dug up a coin hoard while working on a new swimming pool. The ceramic container contained exactly 312 silver coins. Specifically, there were silver thalers, half and quarter dollars and fifteen kreutzers.

The man came across the coins while digging a hole under the pool. The money was in a broken container. According to archaeologists, the coins are extremely well preserved. "We went to the site with a metal detector and managed to track down four more coins. The finder contacted us as soon as he came across the depot," said Peter Grznár from the Regional Heritage Institute.

If all the legal conditions are met, the finder is entitled to a reward of 100 percent of the price set by the expert. "The key is that the finder must leave the find in place and unaltered, if the circumstances allow it, of course," Grznár explained.

According to experts, the treasure contains coins dating between 1630 and 1704. Most of the coins are from the reign of Leopold I of Habsburg, there are also coins from the reigns of Louis IV, Ferdinand II and III, and Ferdinand and Maria Schwarzenberg.

"If one person owned it, he must have been extremely rich. One thaler could buy two to three cows," Grznár said.

The owner hid the treasure at a time when the territory of Austria-Hungary was in turmoil and the uprising of František Rákoczi II. It took place between 15 June 1703 and 11 May 1711. It was an anti-Habsburg uprising in Hungary between 1703 and 1711, provoked and led by the magnate Franz II Rákóczi. In Hungarian and Slovak literature it is often referred to as the last Kuruc uprising.

"Putting the treasure in the ground was one of the best ways to protect one's money. Military expeditions used to involve plundering enemy territory. Who hid the treasure will probably never be known. It may also be evidence of a tragedy, because the owner never had the opportunity to return for the coins," Grznár said.

The approach of the treasure finder should be an example for others, according to Grznár. If people in Slovakia reported the discovery of the treasure and turned it in, they would receive a reward of the full value of the find. An example is the coin find in Bratislava, where the reward was in the tens of thousands of euros.

Sources: www.teraz.sk, www.wikipedia.org, www.noviny.sk