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.

As there is no 'field' action at the moment, I've been creating a web-site for my local metal detecting club.  Details will be posted when it's ready to meet its public :-)

Fields to the left, right, in front and behind me.......and none of them diggable!!!!!

Yes, it's that time of the year when detecting as we know it comes to an abrupt halt. 

Those of you with pasture fields to dig on will wonder what all the fuss is about, but for the rest of us who have ploughed or stubble fields, it is the time when our farmers start seeding their crops and we have to find alternative places to detect upon.

I'm fairly lucky as I live on the coast and have miles and miles of beach to go on.  The drawback is, most of it is in deserted areas where not many people congregate!


Oh well, it'll soon be August!!  :-(

It's taken a while, but last Sunday Doris, (my Safari), finally struck Saxon in the shape of a cruciform brooch!
When I dug it out it looked like just another lump of unidentifiable metal we all find scattered over our fields, but after clearing away the surface mud I thought to myself..."crocodile."  "Crocodile?"
OK, it looked old, but Crocodile??  Maybe it was a toy of some kind or an ornament.  Puzzled, but quite pleased with the find, I carried on.
Back at home that evening I convinced myself it was a crocodile and maybe post medieval.

There was only one way to find out what it was.  I posted a picture on the Finds ID forum at www.detectorist.co.uk and within minutes I had a reply saying it wasn't a crocodile (silly me), but in fact a horse and, better still, was part of a Cruciform Brooch dating from the Saxon period!!  (That's somewhere between 410 and 800AD).

The weather here has been awful and very 'anti detecting'.  I went out last just after New Year when the first batch of snow had disappeared but the temperatures were still in the minus figures. 
The ground which, before Christmas had been soft and easy to dig, had become more like concrete and it was nigh on impossible to break the surface let alone dig a hole!!  A mechanical digger not being one of my possessions, I had to make do with chipping away with my shovel until I'd got through the frozen top layer, which was up to 3 inches thick in places.  Needless to say, I didn't find much to speak of.
Eventually giving up. I drove round to the farmers yard to tell him I had a different car and not to come charging across the field, shotgun at the ready if he spotted it. 
During the conversation he asked if I'd found much and suggested I try the field he'd just finished harvesting sugar beet from.  Being 100 or so acres, it should keep me busy for a while.  I left him pleased that I'd taken the time to go to his yard as I now had a new field and one that wasn't stubble!!
Which brings me back to the weather.  I had planned to go out the following weekend but friday night saw a huge amount of snow dumped on the area which meant the fields would be covered in a layer of around 5 inches.
Fingers and toes crossed, I might get out this weekend.  I'm getting withdrawal symptoms and need to get some digging done real soon!!

After finding the odd fragment, I've at last found my first complete Crotal bell.  And quite a nice one too!

Went out for what I hoped would be a few hours detecting on Tuesday but ended up as being only an hour and a half as I was called back to work.  :-(

I'd got from one end of the field to near the far end digging up just a few pieces of lead and a button, when I hit upon a nice, clear loud signal.  I dug a small hole and there, about three inches down, I spied the edge of what was obviously a Crotal bell.  My first thought was it had to be another fragment but I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled out a complete, virtually undamaged specimen.

Another target to tick off the list.

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.