Fabulous Finders Wow The Experts

A five-year-old boy wowed experts with his amazing fossil collection last weekend. Ronan Graves took his box of rocks along to Roots of Norfolk as part of their 'Fabulous Finds Day' last Saturday.

Here's Ronan showing off a couple of fabulous finds from his collection.

The idea behind Fabulous Finds Days is very simple. Museums dust off curators who might usually work behind the scenes. And, an organisation called the Portable Antiquities Scheme* provide their experts too. The PAS are the folk who record archaeological finds in England and Wales.

The public are invited to go along to certain museums with any treasures, mystery things they'd found in the garden or just bits and bobs from the attic, to show to the experts.

Then, the experts try to identify the finds, hoping some of them might turn out to be fabulous. Are you still with me?

There were twelve Fab Finds events last weekend, go to the bottom of the page for info on others coming up.

Ronan had a good chat with the experts, who were thrilled with his finds.

Amongst the goodies Ronan brought in were a 100-million-year old ammonite, a gryphea fossil (which is sometimes called a devil's toenail), a sponge which was a mere 70-million years old and a shrimp burrow.

Ronan was so pleased to find out his fossils were the real thing he said to his Mum - "You see Mum, you thought it was just a bunch of stones!"

If you'd like to find out what fossils like Ronan's look like, take a look at The Natural History Museum's Fossil Folklore web pages.

Newcastle's Fab Finds Day, at the Hancock Museum, also turned up a surprise... a rather toothy surprise in fact. Eddie Reay (below) from Gateshead was first in the queue to see an expert, with what turned out to be a very special fish tooth.

Eddie's find had been lying in a drawer at his home ever since he found it fifteen years ago.

Could he use it to plug the gap do you think?!

Experts reckon the huge tooth is 300 million years old! It probably belonged to a fish called 'rhizodus' and is 3cm long. Eddie has donated the tooth to the Museum.

One of the most gruesome finds of the day turned up at Donington-le-Heath Manor House in Leicestershire.

Sam Hollands (left) brought in a box containing nooses that had been used to hang criminals in the nineteenth century.

One of the ropes was used to hang James Cook, the last man to be hung in Leicester, in 1832.

Each noose had a lock of hair attached to it, hair taken from the dead criminals.

Still in Leicestershire, but less grisly, here's Rebekah Kirkwood showing off her Fab Finds - pieces of Victorian glass.

Those grinning folk behind her are her proud mum and dad, Alison and Joe, with baby brother Christian.

York, or Jorvik as it was known in Viking times, is famous for its fantastic Viking artefacts.

The Yorkshire Museum's Fab Finds Day didn't disappoint... look at this Viking coin which was brought along.

The coin is made from copper alloy and was found by a metal detectorist.

William Watson (right) took this curious object along to the Museum of Lancashire's Fabulous Finds Day.

Any ideas what it is? Apparently it had the experts stumped - they are only human after all.

If you've got the collecting bug or you've found something you can't identify there are going to be more fabulous Finds Days throughout May 2005, which is 'Museums and Galleries Month' in the UK.

As well as the Fab Finds Days there are all sorts of amazing things going on across the country, all month. You can use the search box on our adult site, 24 Hour Museum, to find out what's on when, near where you live.

Mill Green Museum in Hatfield is running a Fab Finds Day on May 8 2005 and Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter is holding theirs on May 28 2005.

* The Portable Antiquities Scheme are the folk who record archaeological finds in England and Wales.

All pictures are copyright 24 Hour Museum.