From Barren to Bountiful: How Persistence Paid Off in Metal Detecting

Unexpected Metal Detecting Success: A Treasure Hunter’s Tale

It was a Tuesday and I had a day off work, so why not I thought, let’s go metal detecting. It was a very hot July day and I had a few jobs to finish around the house first so I just took it easy and thought that I would head out mid afternoon because maybe it would have cooled off a bit by then. I wasn’t actually very hopeful of finding anything because it had been a strange July with a lot of rain but quickly turning very hot and humid and the grass was loving it! It was growing at an amazing rate and being July any fields that weren’t left to pasture were in crop. The ones that were just grass for silage were pretty much knee deep, but I knew of one field that I had been on the previous week that might just be still detectable so decided to head there.

Best Metal Detecting Locations: Finding Hidden Gems in Local Fields

It was on one of three adjoining farms that I had permission to detect on, they are only 10 minutes drive from home and I always take the same route along the same back lanes before arriving at the first of ‘my’ fields. It is strange how you almost feel ownership of your permissions, as if you are a combination of custodian, warden and gamekeeper. My landowners just let me come and go as I please and I just love being out there walking ‘my’ land. As I drive along this back lane I eventually come to the first of my fields and I always gaze out across the patchwork of fields that are all ‘mine’. Some green and lush, some golden or brown with wheat, barley and maize.

As I drove past the first fields, one on the left the other on the right I did a ‘double-take’. I was expecting knee high grass because neither of these were the fields that I had come to detect, that one was a good 5 minute’s drive away yet. However they had just been cut, maybe earlier that morning and the grass had all been collected up for silage. It was the shortest I had ever seen the grass on these fields. I quickly re-evaluated the situation. Here were three fields that I had all detected on before. One had been amazing so far, a Medieval horse harness pendant, a Roman fibula, several silver hammered coins and plenty of other interesting finds. One had been less so, all I ever found on it was fairly modern stuff, but I do have a theory about that, and just think of it as the ‘barren field’. The third one interested me greatly but so far I hadn’t found that much on it. Some very worn Georgian coins and a couple of nice spindle whorls, but there was something atmospheric about this field you could almost feel and hear centuries of activity, people coming and going, living and maybe even dying right hear on this field, and if not dying then definitely being buried here. At the far end there was once a bronze age burial mound, but now long since ploughed out.

Metal Detecting Strategy: Choosing the Right Field for Optimal Finds

I decided to change my plan and to get onto one of these fields right now, but which one? The fibula field is probably one of my two favourite fields to detect on, but I have been back on to it so many times that I’m sure that there isn’t much, if anything left….. well not at a detectable depth anyway. The ‘barren field’ seemed to be just that…barren. So it was going to be the burial mound field. The landowner wasn’t bothered where I detected on it, he had just told me to go where I wanted, it was his land and he decided who went on to it. I had always decided to be a bit more circumspect. Although the barrow had been flattened, I knew roughly where it had been and just left that part of the field alone. You just can’t detect on something like that, it is a protected site and there wouldn’t be much to find anyway.

I used my tracking app (TektoTrak) to see where I had been before and pinpointed an area of the field that I hadn’t covered before. The field was on a slight slope, with the site of the burial mound high up at the top. My target area was lower down the slope where the land seemed to flatten out slightly into a plateau. I parked up and collected my detecting gear from the boot of my car, I strapped my digging tool and pinpointer to my belt and walked into the field. I walked about 10 metres before stopping to set up my detector. Regular readers will know that I use an XP ORX metal detector, I have my preferred settings, which if anyone is interested are as follows. I choose the ‘Coin Deep’ programme from the menu. I set the sensitivity at 98 and the frequency to 25. Some people don’t like Coin Deep, but for me it is my go to programme unless the field is too noisy, then I might fall back to ‘Coin Fast’.

Metal Detecting Techniques: Navigating and Sweeping a Field Effectively

Now I was set up I headed out across the field to my chosen area, detecting as I went. My first signal was pretty soon after, a high bright tone and a number in the 80’s on the display. ‘Moo Tube’ I said out aloud to nobody in particular, but it just might just have been something more interesting, you just never know, but I was right it was a ‘moo tube’. Then I remembered that this field had lots of these medical ointment tubes that we call ‘moo tubes’. Ah well I thought, lets press on. The next signal was a scrappy button, then another ‘moo tube’ but now I had reached my target area. I had decided to just sweep side to side walking across the width of the area. I was using a telegraph pole on the field boundary as my starting point then detecting across until I was in line with a brown bush in the hedge then turning back to go back to be in line with the telegraph pole again, each time moving a sweep width further up the field.

The next signal wasn’t too sharp or too high and the numbers on the display were in the right area. I did the usual detector swing from side to side, from different angles to pinpoint the items exact location, them with point in grass fixed in my head I swung my spade around and positioned it a the correct spot and laid my detector down on the grass (I drag my spade behind me in my left hand and detect with my right hand).

Excavation Methods for Metal Detecting: Safely Retrieving Artifacts

I did my usual digging process to create a plug of soil that I could flip over out of the soil, I then checked the upturned clod with the detector…nothing. I checked the hole and yes it was still in there. I laid my spade to one side and knelt down taking my pinpointer out of its holster as I did so. The pinpointer quickly found its target somewhere below the surface of the soil in the hole. I then used my hand digging tool to carefully break the ground keeping the blade a good distance from the find itself and then picked up handfuls of the broken soil, testing each one with the pinpointer. The pinpointer reacted to the second handful, so I knew that whatever it was, was now in my left hand. I teased the soil apart letting loose soil fall from my hand testing every so often with the pinpoiter that the target was still there.

As the soil in my hand reduced in volume I eventually felt something hard. I grasped this small piece of soil between my finger and thumb and let the rest fall to the ground. Gently compressing and rubbing the soil revealed a small thin disc. As I carefully revealed the surface a smile came to my face as I realised that I was holding a thin silver coin with the monarch’s head looking straight at me, I turned it over and sure enough there was a long cross with three pellets in each quarter. It was worn, but very evenly so, all of the detail could be seen. This wasn’t wear from being underground this was wear from countless hands, thousands of fingers, lots of purses and pockets. This was a King Edward 1st medieval silver hammered penny that had probably been in circulation for a couple of hundreds years at least, before being lost in this field. I carefully placed this precious find into my coin pod and cleared up the find spot, brushing any loose soil back into the hole then replacing the clod and firming it in place by standing on it and giving it a few firms stamps.

And Then Things Got Even Better: Had The Romans Been Roaming Around This Area?

I then continued to detect along the line I was taking I probably hadn’t gone more than 3 or 4 metres when I found another diggable signal. I went through exactly the same process. Pinpoint with detector, dig a clod out, use the handheld pinpointer, locate the find then gently reveal whatever it was.

This next find was possibly even more amazing than the last, because I had never found one before. Staring off to the right, in my hand was a very Roman looking head. This was without doubt a chunky Roman coin that was just sitting there in my hand. I could hardly believe it, Roman coins were rarely found in my part of the country, but there it was, my second decent find of the day. It too went safely into the coin pod.

My plan went out the window now because I looked at these tow find spots, so close together and immediately decided to very slowly grid out this section of the field working in two directions covering maybe a 30 metre square with these two find spots at the centre of the square. I found buttons and unrecognisable Georgian copper coins and moo tubes and small random pieces of lead but no more Roman or hammered medieval coins, but I still went home happy that night.

Oh hang on, no, I have forgotten something, not long after finding the Roman coin one of the signals revealed a small copper alloy buckle like item. That too went into my coin pod for further investigation.

Researching Metal Detecting Finds: Tools and Resources for Historical Context

I sat at my desk that evening looking at these two coins. Further research online revealed the Roman coin to be a Hadrian Ass, or one sixteenth of a denarius dating from the early part of the 2nd Century and it had been manufactured in Rome almost 1900 years ago.

The small buckle then took my attention, it was very well made but clearly very old but what was it? Again online research led to the answer, it was a medieval strap slide buckle dating to somewhere between 1200 and 1400. This field had been very kind to me today.

I knew that I had to get back onto that field at the very next opportunity, which would be 3 days later. So sure enough 3 days later I was back there. I headed for the same general area and decided to take up where I had left off using the telegraph pole in the boundary hedge and the brown bush in the same hedge as my start and finish points. I was slowly moving up the field getting signals but nothing of great interest until one find revealed a small curved piece of metal with a very distinctive pattern on it, maybe a fragment of a large buckle? It went into my coin pod for a closer look later.

The next signal was similar to many others I had, so I followed my usual process to extract it. There sitting in my hand was another Roman coin, a very similar coin to the other one but clearly a different emperor. I found nothing more of particular interest and continued to detect for another hour or so before deciding that it was probably time tp think about heading home. I decided to spend the last half hour or so investigating a different part of the field. This last half hour revealed a chunky lead disc with a hole through it, probably not a spindle whorl, more likely a loom weight and then a damaged rough spindle whorl then I headed home.

Once home I was able to identify the curved piece as not from a buckle but part of the handle to a child’s Petronell a small toy gun that could actually be fired, that dated from the mid 1600’s

Metal Detecting Success: Timing, Patience, and Perfect Field Conditions

So that field was being kind to me, bearing in mind I have detected on it quite a few times before and other than a couple of nice spindle whorls have only found buttons, unrecognisable coins and scraps of lead, plus of course about 500 ‘moo tubes’!

The reason for my success this time? The conditions were perfect, the grass had been cut and a bit of overnight rain had brought the field to life. So don’t give up on your land, you never know, on the right day , under the right conditions, something amazing just might appear.