Spudz's Detecting World Musings, rants, raves, moans and all manner of goings on from the world of metal detecting......and my part in it.

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 :-)