Last November Trevor Penny was out "magnet fishing" near his home in Enslow in the U.K. when he pulled up the very rare treasure.
Magnet fishing is exactly what it sounds like, which is dragging a magnet through the water in the hopes of finding something cool and valuable. It's like the metal detectoring craze, but with water.
Usually, all that magnet fishers end up "catching" is a lot of old junk, but on this particular day, Penny found a little more than junk.
His magnet caught hold of a large, fully intact sword. After he found it, he posted several pictures to a Thame Magnet Fishing group on Facebook, saying he suspected the sword to be at least 250 years old.
That suspicion turned out to be a very conservative estimate.
Penny then turned the sword over to the Oxfordshire County Council in the hopes of finding out more about it.
I subsequently took it to them in Standlake, and it was provisionally dated. It's currently still in Witney. It really did feel quite amazing - it's the oldest thing found in this county magnet fishing.
The officer said it was archeologically rare to find whole swords and treasure of historical importance still intact. It was a proud moment to find it.
Since then, the sword has been authenticated as a Viking sword dating between the years 850 and 975 AD.
The treasure hunter went on to tell the Oxford Mail,
There was a little dispute with the landowner and the rivers trust who don't permit magnet fishing. The latter sent a legal document saying they wouldn't take action on the condition the sword was passed to a museum, which I had done.
The sword will be kept by the Oxford Museum Services where it will hopefully soon be placed on display.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
