Man finds £100,000 gold haul while looking for his friends’s wedding ring with a metal detector

A metal detectorist who was asked to look for his friend’s lost wedding ring ended up going home £100,000 richer when his equipment found a pot of gold.

Paul Raynard, 44, and best friend Michael Gwynne, 52, were on a short holiday when they were asked to help look for a wedding ring a farmer had lost working.

The pair began their search but were starting to lose hope when they only dug up a horseshoe and a 50p coin. But after an hour-and-a-half trawling the vast land, they struck gold with what experts say could be the biggest haul ever found in Ireland and worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Paul "broke down in tears" when he and Michael stumbled across their very own pot of gold on October 29. They found a cluster of 84 coins dating back to the 1500s in a field near Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. 

One of the hoard – an ultra-rare Henry VIII coin – is estimated to be worth £5,000 on its own, experts have told Paul. 

He added other coins – such as one dated 1546, when the famed boy king Edward VI reigned – could be worth up to £3,000.

I saw one or two coins at first but had no idea of the size of the hoard to begin with. I went to fetch Michael who was across the field so we could share the moment together. I was shaking, I still can’t believe it now.

Video footage of the moment Paul and Michael dig up the underground treasure shows them pulling one muddy coin after another from beneath the soil.

The coins have been sent to Ulster Museum for official identification and valuation by a team of experts. It will take several months for the 84 coins to be valued in full but Paul said other experts told him the whole hoard could be worth more than £100,000.

 Metro UK reports. Their value will be split equally between Paul and the landowner if they choose to sell the coins on for cash, following the completion of the valuation process.