On April 22, 1985, a highly unusual and extensive collection of coins was discovered at La Marcanderie, St. Brelade, located on Jersey Island. At the time of its discovery, this hoard comprised more than 11,000 coins. Unlike typical coin hoards found within containers, these coins were hidden beneath large rocks and buried approximately 1 foot 8 inches below the surface. Of the 10,546 coins that were recovered, the Société Jersiaise received the majority. An initial report with illustrations of these coins was authored by Major N. W. L. Rybot and published in the Bulletin of the Jesuit Society in 1937.
The majority of the coins among the 10,546 discovered coins belong to the four categories commonly found in Jersey.
These coins are believed to date back to around 50 B.C., during the period when Julius Caesar's armies were advancing northwest through France, displacing tribal communities and forcing some of them to seek refuge along the coast. Some of these displaced individuals likely made their way to Jersey, where they buried their wealth in a hidden location, where it remained concealed for over two millennia.
The exact count of the coins cannot be determined precisely, but it is estimated that the mass unearthed from this burial site could range between 30,000 and 60,000 coins. If the upper estimate is accurate, this discovery could become the second-largest hoard of Roman coins ever found, closely trailing behind Frome's hoard of 52,000 Roman coins. This massive collection represents the largest assembly of Celtic coins ever discovered on Jersey, an island renowned for its Iron Age coin hoards.
Meticulous excavation and documentation carried out by archaeologists from the Société Jersiaise, Robert Waterhouse and Philip de Jersey, revealed that the coins had been deposited at the base of a roughly dug hole, situated one meter below the current ground surface (although the surface of the Iron Age soil had eroded due to plowing). The hoard formed a solid, drop-shaped mass measuring 143 cm x 80 cm x 20 cm. All identified coins from this hoard are of Armorican origin, hailing from modern-day Brittany and Normandy, specifically from the Coriosolite tribe's territory, which was situated around the Rance valley in the vicinity of modern Saint-Malo and Dinant. These coins seem to have been composed of "billon," an alloy of copper and silver.