Treasure hunters sold the Nebra sky disc for 32,000 marks, and the museum director who posed as a buyer had the dealers arrested in a Basel hotel

On 4 July 1999 Henry W. and Mario R., searching with metal detectors on the Mittelberg hill, dug up a bronze disc with gold inlays, two swords, two axes, a chisel and bracelet fragments. Henry W. damaged the disc prying it out with a pickaxe. The next day they sold the hoard to Achim St. for 32,000 Deutschmarks. Saxony-Anhalt's treasure law makes such finds state property, so no museum could buy it. Later in 1999 Achim St. sold it to collector Reinhold Stieber for 236,000 Deutschmarks, a deal brokered by Hildegard Burri-Bayer, owner of the "Historia" restaurant. In 2002 they offered it to the state for 700,000 Deutschmarks. Harald Meller, director of the Halle museum since 2001, agreed a sham purchase with investigators. On 23 February 2002 in the Hilton Hotel in Basel, Stieber produced the disc taped under his shirt. Meller called the police from the hotel toilet, and Stieber and Burri-Bayer were arrested. Achim St. later showed prosecutors the real findspot. In September 2003 all four received suspended sentences. On appeal the defence called a professor who said the disc was a fake; the court held nearly 100 hearings on the findspot, and the appeal was rejected on 26 September 2005. Burri-Bayer went on to write fantasy novels about a magic sky disc. The disc went to Saxony-Anhalt as owner and is in the Halle State Museum of Prehistory.