I wonder sometimes why I'm not finding much lately.  Well, last Sunday might have something to do with it......

Woke up early and the weather was looking promising, so I decided to have an hour or four detecting on the field I've been working recently.
After having breakfast, making a flask of coffee, taking the dog for her morning walk and loading up the car, I was off.
The field is literally 5 minutes away so, at around 8am I arrived and started to unload the car.  Bugger!!  Forgot my shovel!!
Two things you can't do without when metal detecting...1) a detector, 2) a shovel.  OK, 3, a field...but that is probably obvious.
Back home I went and found the shovel hiding behind the tractor in the workshop.  "Was there anything else I'd forgotten?"  I wondered.  No, couldn't think of anything...so off I went again.
Finally got onto the field, opened my detector bag and.....Bugger!!!  No headphones!!!
I wasn't going to go home AGAIN!! so I thought if I turned the speaker volume full blast I could do without the headphones.  My X-Terra's speaker was loud so the Safari should be positively booming.
Umm..........No.
Sadly, the Safari's speaker system wasn't designed for pumping out the sounds to a field full of illegal ravers, or anything standing 2 inches away from it!!
A little despondent, I carried, on straining to hear the faint beeps.
Fighting the Safari's efforts to be heard was the wind blasting past my ears, accompanied by the constant crackle of the coil sweeping through stubble and the intermittent patter of rain from the occasional showers that were building up into something more threatening.

Did I find anything?  It probably wont surprise anyone when I say I didn't.  Well, nothing of note anyway.  But a lesson was learned.  Make sure, before you leave home, that you have everything you need and if you have to go back, make sure your headphones go with you.

My Groat (see previous post), which I thought was a Henry VII, isn't.

I took it to our club meeting last night, along with some other items, and was surprised when a fellow member told me it wasn't a Henry, but an Edward; Edward IV to be exact.  This was confirmed by a coin expert from Gessenhall museum in Norfolk who attends our meetings and judges the finds of the month competitions.

Good news as it makes the coin older then I thought.

There are times when, I have to admit it, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  If I was over 60, they'd call it a 'senior' moment, if I was blonde......well, you get the picture.
The reason for my brain burp?
I was out detecting the other day and hit a good, clear signal.  After digging a small hole I swept Doris, (please remember that Doris is my pet name for my detector not a lady friend whom I think is a broom), and the signal was still there indicating that the item was still in the hole.  I dug out another lump of earth and....the signal was gone!!
I swung Doris back and forth over the hole...but there was still no signal.  How could such a good signal just suddenly disappear??
Disgruntled, I filled in the hole, slung my shovel over my shoulder and carried on.  At the next signal I dug my hole and swept Doris again and, would you believe it, I got two signals!!
I looked behind me half expecting to see a clown jumping up and down laughing hysterically, or an alien mothership with a giant detector sucking up all manner of artefacts.  In my moment of paranoia, I stepped in the hole filling it in again.
Now, there was one signal again.  This was no longer funny.  I walked around the hole glancing at it with trepidation.  Should I just leave it and go to another field, or should I wave Doris over it again?  The latter conjured up an image of there suddenly being 3 signals and me running off into the distance screaming "they're coming for me!!!"
I took the brave option and started to walk away then, not wanting a silly hole and a phantom signal to get the better of me, I braced myself and pointed Doris in the direction of the hole.  Before she could speak her dulcet tones I spied a coin on the ground near where the hole had been.  A George II penny.  Must have come from the hole. 
No.
Doris perked up and told me there was something else there.  To be confused and afraid is not good at the best of times, to be so in the middle of a field surrounded by stubble is nothing short of a nightmare!
The other signal turned out to be a piece of lead and, after putting both items in my finds bag, I carried on searching with one eye on the soil and the other casting nervous glances over my shoulder.

Once back home, I tried to work out what had happened.  The only explanation I could come up with was the item of the first signal somehow got stuck to my shovel, got carried to the next signal where it fell off and into the hole I'd just dug.  Then, it must have got stuck to my boot when I stepped into the hole.
That's what I'd like to think.  There is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that maybe I wasn't alone on that field.  Maybe someone, or something, was playing tricks on me.
If Doris knows, she's not saying.

Finally......at last.......and about time to!! I've dug up a Groat; a Henry VIIth to be exact dated somewhere between 1485 - 1502 (I think).
Went out last Sunday for a couple of hours to a field which hadn't yielded that much on the previous couple of visits.
Didn't realise what it was until I got home and washed a layer of dirt off it. Been hoping to find something like this for a while so was very pleased when this popped out.
On to the next target on the list :-)

I've been guilty at times of digging something up and throwing it away without so much as a cursory glance thinking it is only a piece of junk. We have all done it at one time or another and will probably do it again.
Yesterday, for some reason, I put everything I found in my finds bag, and was glad that I did!
This weekends weather hadn't been what you could call 'metal detecting friendly' but by midday on Sunday, the clouds had parted, the rain ceased to fall and the wind died down to no more than a leaf rustling puff.
After dinner, Doris and I headed off to the fields and in no time were out searching.
After about an hour, I remember getting a fairly good signal and digging up what looked like a round, thin piece of metal which could have been a button or a thin aluminium disc. I removed some of the mud and, not seeing any markings of any kind, (which seemed to confirm that it was a button/disc), placed it in my finds bag and carried on.
When I got home I emptied my bag to look through what I had found, which wasn't much as I'd only been out a couple of hours, and ran a couple of items under the tap to remove the mud I hadn't been able to remove in the field. One of the items was the button/disc which I fully expected the water to reveal nothing but a flat, featureless surface.
To my amazement, as the mud dissolved away, I could see markings around the edge, then what looked like a cross with more markings, words. Could this be a coin I asked myself?
Quickly rubbing off the rest of the mud, I found myself staring at something I recognized. A quick scan through Spink's coin bible confirmed I had got myself a Groat. My first! To give it its full title...... a King Henry VII Groat. I was, to say the least, rather pleased. OK, there's a bit of it missing but who cares? It's mine!!
The moral of this little tale is don't be too quick to discard odd bits of metal as they could turn out to be a great find.

Hooray for the BBC!!!
One of their reporters, Joe Crowley, has been investigating nighthawking. See the article on his blog and have a look at the video of his report. Shows nighthawks for what they are.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/joecrowley/

Thought that might get your attention!  :-)
Now, before you cast me down into the depths of hell and hit me with every curse known to man...and woman, please let me continue.
Nighthawkers deserve every ounce of vitriol, despite and hatred we, the responsible detectorist, can throw at them.  Not only do they knowingly, and without a shred of guilt, trespass and steal, they are dragging the hobby into the gutter and doing all they can to get it banned altogether!!
If you don't know what a nighthawker is, ask any detectorist and they will probably launch into an angry tirade fuming about how those b*!@$%*@s are the scum of the earth, are ruining things for the rest of us etc., etc., etc.  You'll last see them scurrying away, steam billowing from their ears, muttering profanities and striking out at anything that gets in their way!
Basically, a nighthawker will go onto land without first gaining permission, normally undercover of night (hence the name), and dig for treasure which they then sell onto collectors, or on EBay, keeping the profits for themselves.  They generally don't fill in any holes they've dug and destroy sites of archaeological interest.
This has a number of effects :
1. Valuable treasure, and the history associated to it, is lost as it doesn't get to be recorded.
2. We, the responsible detectorist who abides by the rules and search for the right reasons, are being persecuted by a minorities actions.

We are finding far to often that we are being refused permission to detect where we might have been granted it before.  More and more farmers are refusing us because of the damage nighthawkers cause to their land and the way that they are blackening the hobbies good name.  Official bodies like English Heritage here in the UK want the hobby banned.  Archaeologists, or should I say some of them, want it banned.
Measures taken by such bodies have succeeded banning metal detecting in some countries, due in part to nighthawking and jealousy on the part of some archaeologists who don't like the idea that detectorists find more 'treasure' than they do.  All nighthawking does is fan the flames and adds weight to the 'ban metal detectoring' argument.

Here in the UK, at least 90% of finds recorded are found by detectorists.  What many don't realise, or prefer to ignore, is that without metal detectorists, a vast majority of finds would remain in the ground never to be found.  The majority of archaeological digs wouldn't take place if detectorists had not found and recorded an artefact of historical interest.  So why ban us?  You'd think that they would be actively encouraging us to get out and dig more!  But that is the subject of another post.

Back to nighthawkers....some don't get away with it...

WICKFORD: Two arrested in nighthawk investigation.

The men, two of whom are from Wickford, were detained on suspicion of 'nighthawking' or going equipped to steal from an historical site in Rendlesham, Suffolk, on Thursday.
Police were contacted just before midnight with reports of people with metal detectors on private land.
Suffolk County Council's archaeological officer Jude Plouviez said: "This site is in the middle of a very historically interesting area which is particularly rich with Anglo Saxon finds.
"The Deben Valley and its vicinity has produced some astonishing finds including the Sutton Hoo, which is a ship burial and includes lots of precious seventh century artifacts and outstanding art.

"That find was only a couple of miles away from this field.
"When items are removed from an archaeological site without being properly recorded, people are literally ripping the pages from the history books."
Last month English Heritage highlighted massive historical damage caused by nighthawkers pillaging sites before records had been made of finds.
Billericay Archaeological and Historical Society's secretary Doreen Whitaker said: "We've not had a problem with thefts from archaeological sites in this area.
"The society has not been too involved in recent digs.
"Developers and Essex County Council get professionals to carry out digs at newly discovered archaeological sites.
"But in the past we used to get a lot of help from people using metal detectors who would call if they found anything.
"Billericay and the surrounding area is very rich for archaeological artifacts with interesting Roman history.
"The society took part in a fascinating dig at Billericay School when Roman artifacts were found in the 1970s."
Five men, two 39-year-olds from Wickford, two 22-year-olds from the Thurrock area and a 54-year-old man from Barham in Suffolk, have been arrested.

Unfortunately, the punishment for committing such offences does nothing to deter nighthawkers.  We need stiffer penalties but this seems to be low down on the legal systems list of priorities.  In the meantime, we, the responsible detectorist, are the ones getting punished and, wrongly, find ourselves being tarred with the same brush.  For the sake of the hobby, this must change otherwise we will cast out and, quite likely, end up becoming those we hate just to satisfy our desire to unearth the history beneath our feet. 

 

Doris and the Romans......(May 2009)

Ladies and Gentleman, I am proud to announce I have found, with Doris's help, my first Roman coin!!!!!! :-)))

2 in fact! (Although I'm not sure what the second is at the moment).

Last Sunday I was invited out by the Chairman of my local MD club, to which I was recently elected Club Secretary, to dig on one of his fields.

We duly arrived amid sunny, but cloudy, weather at a field which had been half planted with the other half left unploughed. This half wasn't too big, about half the size of a football pitch, and, on first glance, look to be compacted earth with that 'cracked desert' look.

We haven't had much rain lately and the ground was rock hard!

After an eternity sweeping local beaches, Doris was eager to get started and flex her muscles on a 'proper' field. We walked 4 paces and got our first signal, which turned out to be a shotgun cartridge. She turned her nose up at that and gave me a contemptuous glance as I put it into my finds bag. I could tell she was on the hunt for a better, and older, prey as she was quite; not too many beeps and burps apart from the odd ping when a piece of iron tried to pass itself off as gold!

An hour or so later, and a bag filling up with odd shaped bits of metal, a clear, crisp signal shattered the drone of the Threshold hum, and Doris trembled with nervous anticipation. About 8 - 10 inches down I came across a small, 20 - 25mm, disc caked in dried-on mud. I waved it across Doris's coil to confirm I'd found what she had located. Her excited beeps seemed to scream "yes, you idiot, that's it, that's your first Roman!!" Not being fluent in 'Detek-tor' I, of course, wasn't in a position to share her excitement.
Scraping the earth from the disc it revealed some strange markings but was obviously a coin. My fellow digger confirmed it as being Roman.

I'd be lying if i said I was pleased. I know those of you who have found enough Roman metal to fill a skip/dumpster will be yawning and wishing I'd get on with this dribble, but remember back to the time when you dug up your first piece of Roman artifact. I was ecstatic and wanted to bound around the field naked singing Rule Britannia and such stuff!!

Being British, I contained myself and gingerly, as if I were handling the finest cut glass crystal, put the coin into a bag and zipped it up in a pocket in my finds bag.

It wasn't long before I had my second Roman coin safely tucked away in my bag and an even bigger smile on my face. (After cleaning it I've discovered it could be a Constantine II, although I could be completely wrong and it might turn out to be the top of a Victorian Smartie tube!).

A couple of (possible) medieval pieces completed a very successful days work. Doris was awesome and behaved as a good detector should. Now I've experienced what she is capable of in a 'proper' field environment, future searching should be a more satisfying, and rewarding, adventure.


Doris is off like a bat out of hell.......(July 2009)

Good news!! The harvest has started. Bad news, rain stops play!!

The farmer started to harvest one of the fields a week ago then the rain Gods decided to play silly buggers and, due to there being too much moisture in the grain, he hasn't been able to cut any more!! Fortunately, there is a big enough area for Doris to strut her stuff on for a few visits at least.

We went out for a few hours last Sunday and, being the first time on my 'own land', I decided to forget everything I'd learnt on previous outings with Doris and concentrate on actually learning what the safari can do and how it works. I set up a program using conductivity sounds in the All Metal setting with no discrimination I had seen on a video. In this setting, everything Iron should give a high pitched tone whilst most everything else would give a lower tone and be worth digging. Being the doofus I am, I spent the first hour ignoring the low tones and wondering why all the 'good' tones had ID numbers from -10 to -4!!!

Realising my mistake, and exchanging a few words with Doris for not telling me, we carried on and started finding odd bits of scrap metal digging up a 1ft wide, 6 inch high nameplate in the process. Looks like it must have come off a tractor or some sort of farm machinery.

We eventually left 3 hours later with a bag of bits having had a very enjoyable afternoon; Doris was positively glowing!! I had a better understanding of how she worked and realised where i had been going wrong in the past.

With a couple of hours spare, we ventured out again yesterday (Weds) afternoon concentrating on an area away from the edge (where we had been on Sunday). I found it a lot easier knowing to ignore the high tones (which were showing at anything from -10 to -5), and digging everything else. Apart from the obligatory lead, a couple of tin cans and some unidentifiable scraps, we found an English 10p, another coin which looks to be Georgian, a button and a couple of coin shaped pieces which could be anything other than coins! The best find so far has to be this pendant which, although bent, I was very pleased with.

Don't know what period it's from.....any guesses?  (Since found out it is a 12th century Horse pendant!!)

All in all, we've had a good start to the digging season, maybe not in the quality of finds, but the enjoyment factor is definitely top notch!! :-)

Back to the wilds of Norfolk after 2 glorious weeks enjoying the delights Somerset has to offer.  Particularly liked Glastonbury, Tyntesfield and Montacute houses and...........got to do some detecting!!!
Owners of cottage own the surrounding fields (of which there were many), and gave me permission to dig on any one I wanted.  As I only had a few afternoons free, I settled on one that had once held a medieval fair.
After 4 afternoons, the last of which I got caught in a heavy downpour and got soaked!! I came away with a bag full of assorted metallic objects; some buttons, 3 of which I'm certain are from the medieval period, an old buckle, a great looking lump that could be a furniture mount, a couple of harness mounts to name just a few.
The last time I looked some of my fields were being drilled and seeded.  Haven't been to look at them since but might get the chance over the weekend...hope I've some left to dig on.

Off on holiday for a couple of weeks to Somerset. Won't be detecting (unfortunately) but will be sampling one or two glasses of Somersets greatest export....cider.  The proper stuff, not the pretend, carbonated offerings you get in cans!!  Will spend some time indulging in my other hobby, photography.
See you soon!

Doris, in case you are wondering, is my pet name for my detector.  These are some of the adventures we've had so far.........

Doris & I go to Rackheath
Last Sunday was to be a real tester for Doris as the Aviation group returned to familiar territory at the old WW2 US Airfield at Rackheath (Norfolk). I'd previously found some coins (Victorian Crown, George II and III amongst others) with my X-Terra 30, and was hoping Doris would yield similar results.
Off we went and the gentle hum of the Threshold popped on and off intermittently accompanied by the odd squeak and squawk and I remember thinking "I'd have dug about ten holes by now only to find rusty nails and other such rubbish!"
My first real signal came moments later and produces an old button hidden behind a piece of something that could have fallen off a tractor.
The morning progressed with just a couple of 'phantom' digs and a collection of buttons, some unidentified scraps of metal and 6 coins - A tea token from a Norwich tea trader, 2 that had no details on them at all even after cleaning, a Napoleon III Dix Centimes (how did that get into a Norfolk field???), what could be a George the ? which I'm still cleaning, and one with a hole in the middle which had Chinese symbols on it and the words Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I must have dropped this one somewhere as I didn't have when I got home!! :-(

The weather took a turn for the worst early in the afternoon and the dig was abandoned.

Doris & I go to Bacton.......
 
.......and wish we'd stayed at home!!

The day started early, leaving home at 7am and arriving at Bacton around 9am; after stopping for petrol and getting stuck behind the days first 'Sunday driver' for what seemed like an eternity! But the weather was good and stayed like it for the rest of the day.
There were a few there when I arrived, nobody I recognised, so I had a wander round until some people I did know arrived; fellow members of the East Norfolk MDC.
10am, the start-time of the rally, eventually came round and Doris was by now desperate to get going. 5 minutes in and I'd found a Victorian penny dated 1866. Another 15 minutes had turned up a regimental button, Royal artillery I think, and a couple of other buttons.

Then...........

Doris and I changed fields and, up to now, she had been fairly quiet, making noises in the right places and only twice messing with my mind by insisting there was something in the hole I had dug when there clearly wasn't anything there!!
The second, and third, fields had an effect on Doris. She seemed distant, vacant and, above all, quiet........very, very quiet. So quiet, I had to constantly check whether she was turned on and wave my shovel across the coil to see if she'd been struck mute!
For two hours I trudged across the fields without a single signal. In reality, there was not much to be found on any of the 3 fields on offer although some items were found, namely a Saxon coin which won find of the day.
Speaking to a few rallyers, I found I wasn't the only one with mute detectors and noticed some leaving as early as 2.30. Now, I know that not every field hides a hidden treasure and on this occasion, we'd found 3 that were next to devoid of artifacts.........maybe I exaggerate slightly...but not much.
Oh well, better luck next time :-)

I've hired an earthmover, brought 2 ton of dynamite, enlisted the services of a top demolition team and, just in case, have a battalion of tanks on standby.

Why, I hear you ask?

All to enable me to dig to a depth of at least 2 inches without breaking my shovel, pick axe and any other tools I might have at hand!

Due to a long, hot, dry summer, my stubble fields have compacted to form a concrete-like layer of hard earth which is hell to get through. We've had hardly any rain to speak of for 2 or 3 months and the ground is beginning to resemble that of a desert. When you do manage to break through the crust, you come across dry earth to a depth of around 6 to 8 inches in places....which plays havoc on the back!

Friends I've spoken to are having the same problems and they are also finding that the dryness is affecting signals?? To what extent I don't know but everyone is moaning about it.

Personally, I'd like the rain to stay away, or at least fall during the night and just enough to moisten the earth without turning it into mud, but we are in need of some.

Not sure what the farmer will think when he sees me blasting craters in the middle of his fields...best wait until he's gone home for the day!  Then blame it on the rabbits  :-)

Firstly, stop waving it around in the air as you'll never find anything above your head.....unless you're standing next to the fridge, in which case make yourself a cup of tea and continue reading.

Here in the UK, you have to gain permission from the landowner before attempting to detect on any land.  No permission and you could end up on the wrong side of the law and facing a charge of trespassing.  There are exceptions to this rule such as beaches (not privately owned or owned by the Queen), and some parkland (although it is best to seek out the groundsman or ask at the Council offices if their by-laws covering the park state no detecting).

Living next to a public beach, I was lucky to the extent where I could go out and get a feel for how my machine worked and what actually happened when I started swinging it back and forth like an enraged swordsman hacking his way through the Roman empire.  The beach was OK.....BUT!  I wanted land, proper land!  Muddy fields as far as the eye could see just waiting for me to dig them up.  All of my new metal detecting acquaintances had their land and I'm sure some took great delight in 'reminding' me on several occasions that I didn't.  They'd always manage to slip into the conversation, "have you been out recently.....oh no, I forgot, you don't have any land yet, do you!?"

Most farmers, although looking menacing sitting high up in their tractors, are generally a freindly breed and are quite approachable...if you pick your moment.  Don't expect a welcoming smile and warm greeting if you wander across their field and stand in front of the combine harvester causing them to swerve and dump half the crop on the field instead of in the following trailer!  Try and catch them when they are not too busy, obtain their phone number and call them at a respectable hour or send them a well written letter  stating your interest in detecting and any info you might have researched into the area.

There are no hard and fast rules for gaining permission....except one very, very important one.....DO NOT DETECT UNLESS YOU HAVE GAINED PERMISSION FROM THE LANDOWNER!!

Anyone who doesn't falls under the category 'Nighthawker'.  I'll post something about Nighthawkers at a later date.....if I can control my temper! :-)

Once you have your own land the hobby really opens itself up to you...plus, you can hold your own in conversations with other detectorists.  You can reply with "yes, I went out onto MY land at the weekend..." and feel good!

Metal detecting is the art, science, call it what you will, I consider it a hobby, of searching for metal based objects/artifacts lost or left by our predecessors which have become buried in the ground under our feet.
Detectorists, as we are known, search for these items using a device which can scan deep into the ground, sending signals back to the machine whenever it is passed over, 'detects', a metallic object; this can be anything from a rusty nail, a ring pull tab from a can, coins, jewellery, silver, gold, etc, etc.
Metal detectors are everywhere and come in various forms from the handheld devices used by venue staff and security officers who search people entering clubs, sports arenas, theatres and such places, to the walk-through arches situated at airports, courts etc.
The type of detector we use resembles a dinner plate attached to a stick which is 'swept' back and forth as low as possible over the ground. The 'plate' is in fact a coil attached to a control unit that sends out a pulse, much the same as a submarines sonar, which bounces back an audible signal if a metal object falls within the range of the pulse. The control unit then deciphers the returning signal and indicates to us, by way of tone, what type of metal it is.

That's the sciency bit done, what's my take on metal detecting?

I've been detecting for about 18 months after receiving a detector as a surprise present from the LOML, and class it purely as a hobby. I've always had an interest in history in particular what, and who, came before us and had heard of stories of detectorists unearthing interesting items that have been hidden in the ground for, in some cases, thousands of years.

Soon after receiving my detector and playing about on the beach for a while, I joined a local detecting club, of which I am now Vice Chairman (elect)/Secretary, and am amazed at the variety of artifacts that have been found in the fields around our little part of Norfolk. Getting land to detect on was to be a problem; which is the subject of another post.

Now I have gained permission to detect on some local land, I try to get out as much as work and time restraints allow and am beginning to build up a collection of finds other than rusty nails and pull tabs! As I mentioned, to me it is a hobby, a fascinating and sometimes rewarding one, which enables me to get out in the fresh air, wander around a field for a couple of hours immersed in 'my own little world' and maybe find a few things of interest; although I'm happy to find anything as it shows there were 'others' there before me who, unknowingly, may have left a memento for me to find a hundred, two hundred, five hundred or more, years later.