He bought a fake and passed it off as an archaeological find to enrich himself. Now he's been convicted

Jason Price was due to discover a beautiful 1st-4th century Roman horse brooch in a field near Leasingham in 2019. After being taken by archaeologists it was valued by the coroner, and Price later collected about £140,000 from the museum. In fact, it was a fake, which he even repeated four times.

The brooch was first submitted to the Portable Antiquities Scheme(PAS), a scheme in England and Wales that collects and expertly assesses public finds. The object was initially thought to be a Roman artefact dating to the 1st-4th centuries AD and featured in specialist documentation as a significant contribution to the knowledge of small metal objects from Roman Britain.

"At first I thought it was a piece of rubbish, but when I picked it up, my jaw dropped," Jason Price described to reporters in 2019 when the brooch was revealed as an incredible find with few parallels. The artefact then became known as the 'Leasingham horse motif brooch'. It was displayed at the Museum of Collections in Lincoln, where thousands of visitors came to admire it. It was even featured on a Channel 4 television programme called Great British History Hunters.

The first doubts began in February 2023 when Price "found" more Roman objects. This did not sit well with Dr Lisa Brundle, the finds liaison officer, who had the brooch tested at Historic England's laboratories. The results were surprising - the brooch is a very good modern copy. Its surface has been treated to mimic its considerable age and long-term storage in the soil.

It was suspected that some of the other 188 objects submitted by Price had been deliberately 'seeded' - that is, inserted into the soil to deceive archaeologists and alter the historical context of the site. In addition, police seized another forged brooch during a search of the house.

After overwhelming evidence, the defendant admitted to purchasing the brooch on eBay and then passing it off as his own find when he was supposed to have discovered it during a charity event called Detecting for Veterans. The investigation also revealed that the man had similarly submitted other items to PAS that also did not come from the declared locations - a horse figurine, another brooch and a depot of Roman coins.

In his judgment on 8 January, the judge found that his actions had not only led to misleading the professional community but also undermined confidence in the finds recording system, which is based on the cooperation of archaeologists and amateur searchers. "He also misled thousands of visitors who were understandably fascinated after the discovery of the Leasingham horse brooch," said Will Mason, head of culture at Lincolnshire County Council.

The court eventually took into account admissions to all four cases of fraud, apologies to the detectorist community and to the archaeologists. And the fact that the defendant was a war veteran who had served his country for years. He therefore imposed a relatively light sentence - imprisonment for one year with two years suspended, 150 hours of community service and a fine with court costs totalling CZK 119,000. Of course, he also had to pay back the aforementioned remuneration of 140,000 crowns.

Sources: bbc.com, lincolnshire.gov.uk

Jason Price

Leasingham horse brooch

Leasingham horse brooch in the museum

The Leasingham horse brooch was thought to be one of the few similar in quality and workmanship. But it is a fake

a very successful forgery that fooled even the experts - before the analysis