The Searcher - September 2026

What’s new in this issue?

Adam Staples exclusively reports on an incredibly rare medieval leopard coin unearthed in Essex. This sublime gold hammered coin will be auctioned in the coming months, so worth savouring all the more! 

Our second exclusive is a tenth hoard for the Ninth Region MDC of three Roman ingots inscribed Vespasian!. Co-finders Shane Moxhay & Royston Gold describe how events unfolded. Todd Stevens exclusively shares his discovery of the treasures from the shipwrecked Phoenix, a 43 gun East India ship built in 1670. With 400 gold and silver coins, along with 79 items of pure gold jewellery it’s a superb find, and one he’s hoping will end up on display in his local museum.

Other highlights are the Breckland Hoard revisited by Adrian Marsden, who looks in detail at the make-up of the hoard. Our technical article by Neil Ham and Scott Sibbald is at the beach where they put the new Minelab Vanquish 360, 460 & 560, The Nokta Legend 2 and XP’s Icon X to the test. And David Villanueva concludes his series on Site Profiling in Part 3: Interpreting a multi-period landscape.