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The Bury St Edmunds Museum is preparing to fight it out for Britain's largest collection of antique copper coins. The treasure was discovered in Suffolk in October when Paul Flack gained permission from a local land owner to do some metal detecting. The coins are the largest legitimate collection of third century coins in Britain, and are very important historically.

The treasure, made up of 621 copper alloy coins with a silver wash, is thought to have been created during the time of the Roman Emperors, Carausius (287-293 AD) and Allectus (293-296 AD).  Carausius reigned in Britain, France and Belgium from 287 to 293 AD when he was killed by his chief minister, Allectus. He then ruled until 296 AD when he was killed in battle.

The collection is made up of 258 coins of Carausius and 347 of Allectus. They are among the first coins to have been minted in Britain, and are thought to have been stamped in London and possibly Southampton or Colchester.

According to John, "The value of the money is about 4 or 5 months wages for a farm labourer. Not an enormous amount but not the sort of sum you would want to loose. After the death of Allectus the coins were probably worth little more than the metal they were made of, in effect, by saving them, the family lost the value of the money."

Currently the coins are at the British Museum in London where they will be cleaned. Experts at the museum will look at the coins and see if any of them are of particular value. After that, the coins will be valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee, which is part of the department of Culture, media and sport. The Bury St Edmunds Museum will then have to raise the amount required to be able to include the coins in their collection.

The money from the coins will then be divided equally between Mr Flack and the owner of the land they were found on.