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.