On 16 March 2008, a sixty-year-old car mechanic[1]—who originally wanted to remain anonymous, but was later named as Michael Dark[2]—found his first gold coin after twenty-five years of metal detecting in fields in the Wickham Market area.

[1] A week later, in spite of snowfall since his previous trip to the field, and working in sleet, Dark found a further eight gold staters.

After further searching, he remarked that his metal detector "suddenly went doolally" and that he "knew for sure [he] was standing right on top of a crock of gold.

[1] After washing them in warm water, Dark gave the coins to the landowner, who reported the find to Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service.

[3][4] Analysis of the surrounding area, including intersecting ditches, dated the burial of the hoard at around 15 AD, which was concurrent with the minting of the latest coin found.

"[1] It was also based on the observations of a previous find in Alton, Hampshire in 1996, when Dr Roger Bland and John Orna-Ornstein of the British Museum suggested a gold stater would be worth around £1,000 when minted.

[1] Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service's Jude Plouviez said, "The discovery is important because it highlights probable political, economic and religious importance of an area", and that this particular find gave "a lot of new information about the Iron Age, and particularly East Anglia in the late Iron Age".