Michael Schwaiger has found many Roman coins, 300 or 400 pieces. With his search device, the detectorist is often on the Denklinger Flur in the district of Landsberg am Lech. Now he has discovered something special: he got two Celtic gold coins from a corn field last autumn and at the beginning of this year. One of the two so-called rainbow bowls is of exceptional value for science: a cross is depicted in the center of the coin, framed by bracelets or neck rings. Only three such coins have been found so far, and the location of the Denklinger find is only certain. Michael Schwaiger has now handed over the find to the Archaeological State Collection, which intends to include it in the new permanent exhibition after the renovation in March 2024.
He has already received an “immoral offer” of 6,000 euros for both coins, says Schwaiger. But that’s out of the question for him: “The coins belong in a museum where everyone can see them.” This is not an everyday attitude among detectorists, Schwaiger also tells of black sheep who take their finds to the auction house or sell them on Ebay.
For this reason, too, a new regulation for dealing with such finds has just come into force. So far, coins like the Denklinger pieces have belonged half to finders and half to landowners. In future, the landowner will receive compensation and the finder will receive a finder’s fee. However, the finds must be reported to the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and belong to the Free State, which is also a victim if coins or other finds are embezzled – which means that such acts can be punished more easily.
Detector Michael Schwaiger discovered the coins.
(Photo: Florian Fuchs)
Michael Schwaiger donated the two rainbow bowls to the state collection after the landowner had previously assigned his rights to him. The coins date from the second century BC, i.e. from the beginnings of the Celts’ money economy. The means of payment weigh about two grams, not a great gold value from today’s perspective. By the standards of the time, they must have had high purchasing power, says Bernd Steidl, district homesteader in Landsberg and head of department at the State Archaeological Collection. They were widespread, also as copper or silver coins, especially in southern Germany.
The three specimens found so far with the rare cross shape and rings are abroad and in a private collection in Munich. After the experience of the gold theft in Manching, experts like Steidl advise against exhibiting the two coins that have now been discovered in a display case in Denklingen – they are safer in Munich.
The coins are called rainbow bowls because of their roundness – in contrast to Roman coins, for example, they are not flat, but cast in the shape of a bowl. In the past, says Christian Later from the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, such coins were mainly found after it had rained, when the water washed off the dirt and they glittered in the rain. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.