Day Seven Part Two

Part of visiting any foreign country is meeting the locals. Mindy had a neat experience this afternoon. She sat down at the edge of the upper field to rest a while. She soon heard a man's voice calling to her from the house near the field. " Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked. She responded and he brought out a cup of tea for her. The two sat there and visited while she enjoyed her tea. Mindy told him she would be back in October and was told to just come knock on the back door anytime and he and his wife would be happy to brew up a pot of tea for her. He was quite interested in what we do and how we work with the museums. He already knew the land owner had given us permission to detect on his land and probably gets a kick out of watching us detecting in all kinds of weather. We do our best to be entertaining as well as good ambassadors for this hobby. Chance encounters like this one just make your day.

This was another great trip. We can't wait for the next one in March, 2011 where we are going to detect for two weeks instead of one. Thank you for reading along during our latest adventure.

Mary and Clarence
The Lucky Dogs

Day Seven

We returned to the farm where we had our night hunt but this time we are across the road in a field that was being rolled two days ago. Don and I stayed in the huge front field while the other three crossed the five foot deep ditch into the back field. Right off the bat, Don dug a beautiful GOLD monogramed cuff link. Late in the afternoon, I had been digging plenty of greenies and buttons and junk, when I went to join Don who was resting his back. I left my gear with him and went off to find an appropriate place to answer nature's call. All the trees were on the other side of that darn 5' ditch, but there was a small corn field that would work fine. I worked my way back into the corn for a bit of privacy and suddenly there was a symphony of dogs howling. It got louder as they got closer. Then I heard horns being blown and more loud noises which seemed to be getting closer. It was a fox hunt and they were headed my way! I had visions of being surrounded by a pack of hounds with horses and riders in hot pursuit and here I am, in the middle of a corn patch, not quite ready to receive guests. I pulled myself together and hustled back to where Don was waiting with my detector. We both wondered if we were about to see a fox hunt up close and personal. Twenty minutes later, it was all over. Clarence and Marilynn had seen the pack of about 30 horses and riders from their viewpoint in the upper field. It was a pretty exciting end to our week of detecting in England. The finds weren't too bad, either. Clarence found a 1817 silver George III coin and I found one of the same. Marilynn found a Medieval lead token, Mindy a 1500's ornate crotal bell complete with dinger. We all had the usual greenies, buttons and "old stuff". It was a good day.

Day Six

Saturday morning already? We drove a little farther today to a field notorious for it's monster size and the fact it is right next to the McDonald's parking lot. At least we had restrooms and hot food for lunch today. As we drove in, Don and Marilynn spotted the Car Boot Faire across the road. This is like a big garage sale but everyone opens up the car trunk (boot), sets up their table and sells right there in the field. They even had someone giving haircuts. We started detecting while they went over to check it out. There is no such thing as a retired antique dealer and they proved it. Mindy went to try out a smaller field, with the antique dealers eventually joining her. Clarence and I gave the big field a try. Just as we headed back in for lunch, Clarence got a signal and dug a hammered silver coin. It wasn't just any hammie. This one was a Saxon penny, Aethelred II from 978AD...."rarer than hen's teeth" as our leader says. It's kind of scrunched by the plow but will straighten out nicely. We are waiting on a confirmed ID from Dr. Martin Allen of the Fitzwilliam Museum but it looks like he has found another rare one. Our club has found six Saxon pennies in eight years and Clarence has two of them! What a Lucky Dog! The rest of us found hammered silver, a 15 Century field weight, military buttons, 15C thimble, huge Georgian harness mount, 33rd Regiment button, junk buttons and greenies. It was definitely Clarence's day. He's still smiling......

Day Five

It rained enough at night to make our day quite the mess. All the freshly plowed and rolled land was sticky with wet, clay mud. This is the stuff that sticks to your boots and the bottom of your coil. I had to stop every few minutes to scrape the inch or two of mud off the bottom of my coil or it got too heavy to swing. I didn't want to wear my arm out with more detecting days still ahead. Clarence and Marilynn both found James 1st hammered silver coins, Mindy a 1709 bale seal and we all had greenies, buttons and junk. Marilynn found her first ever thimble and later discovered a hole in her coin purse where she stashed her good finds. She lost a coin and some musket balls somewhere in that muddy field. Clarence, once again, had the find of the day. I thought he had a 1950's era clip on earring with some decorative stones. I could just picture the lady of the house out plowing the fields in her Sunday best when she lost it. Turns out, it is much older, probably 1800's or earlier, and a decorative brooch with a silver back. It has tiny little pearls and some unidentified stones. This will be one for the museum to ID. On the walk back to the van, Mindy and I stopped to visit with four Alpacas standing near the fence. Sorry Mindy. I really didn't think Alpaca's would spit at you like Llamas. At least we had a good laugh about it.

Day Four - Part Two

After dinner, Mindy, Clarence and I decided to go back and do some night hunting. Lots of the "hard core" guys who come here, stay out until 9 or 10 or later and hunt with headlights. We wanted to experience a little of that, too. Don and Marilynn, being the sensible type, stayed home to relax. The three of us stopped to do some grocery shopping and replenish the beer supply, then returned to the same field we were on earlier in the day. It was different hunting at night, very quiet and peaceful. The floodlights on the buildings turned off at 10pm leaving us in pitch black. I quickly learned how disorienting it can be in the total darkness. I would stop to dig a target and then had no sense of which direction I was walking. If the others were looking down, digging a target, I couldn't see their headlights and didn't know where anyone was. I had a sense of what it must be like to be lost in the woods. No wonder they tell you to stop and "hug a tree" until daylight. The bugs, and there were lots of them, flew into the light which was on my forehead. Bugs were everywhere and all flying at my face. Mindy and Clarence found more greenies and buttons. I lucked out, finding a nice 1809 Russian bale seal and a lead Boy Bishop Token. None of us wanted to leave but we had another long day coming in just a few hours.

Day Four

I am now writing from my notes and I am discovering I should have been more complete in my descriptions of our finds. The field we were in was perfect, newly plowed and rolled and ours were the first footprints. It was on a gentle hill with some lovely big trees at the bottom, away from the road and the buildings. This is an important fact, more for for the girls in the group than they guys, if you know what I mean. It was a good day with Mindy finding an early 1790's bale seal and a decorative mount. Clarence found a toy cannon about 2" long, a small chunk of silver and a watch winder. I had a 1690 silver coin, assorted greenies and buttons. Don came in with two parts of a toy gun found about 25' apart. Marilynn said "Well, look at this!" and produced yet another part of the same gun. The plow had managed to spread parts all around the field. Everyone had a good day and we piled back into the van about 6pm and headed home for dinner and a shower.

Technical Difficulties

Sorry about no posts for many days. The internet service at this house is off more than on. There are two internet junkies with two laptops here and we are going a little bonkers. I will try to get caught up, in order of the days, as soon as I can. Today is our last day hunting and we leave in just a few minutes. Don't give up on me. If I have to finish the daily posts when we get home, they will all be there. I think you will enjoy hearing about this trip.

more later................

Day Three

Sorry for the late entry. I had Wednesday's post half written when the internet service dropped again. I will try to recreate what I wrote yesterday....
This was quite a day. My detector completely lost all it's electronics mid-morning. Mindy drove me back to the house after lunch to pick up our backup detector. Some of this groups finds of the day were pretty impressive. Marilynn found a late Saxon (10th Century) mount with red, blue and gold enameling. Don had a 69th Regiment of Foote military button and a palm guide. Clarence had a rose farthing and an 1848 Victoria schilling. Mary found a partial Saxon strap end and my first ever whole crotal bell complete with it's clanger. Mindy came in at the end of the day with the find to beat all. A huge hunk of GOLD! It is ancient gold, looks a bit like a huge gold band or one that was soon to be make into a ring. It is one long strip and wrapped around in a circle.
Last night, just as we were finishing our roast chicken dinner, some of the guys from the other group came over to visit and see our finds. Mostly, they showed up just to see Mindy's gold. It was nice to sit and visit with them for a while. We are on different fields during the day so rarely run into them.

Day Two

It poured rain last night and the wind was howling. This morning we woke to blue skies and big mud puddles. There was just enough rain to make the mud a bit sticky but not too bad. We detected the Abbey site today. I found what appears to be a gold watch winder with lots of little twirly bits and maybe some little colored stones. After cleaning it up tonight, I'm not so sure it is actually gold. I found one silver coin and alittle hammered coin. Clarence found a token, bale seals, musket balls and some early English coins. Mindy found a silver six pence. Don and Marilynn have an assortment of greenies (copper coins)lead bale seals and some neat looking artifacts.

We are using a local GPS to get around to our proper fields. This one has a British accent and we are having trouble understanding the names of the roads to turn on. At dinner last night in the pub, one of the women sitting behind us remarked to her friends that Americans have such strange accents. I'm out of space so stay tuned for more tomorrow.

September Hunt 2010

Well, we made it back to Essex, England for another round of metal detecting. We lost two members of our group already. Jim and Mary C were not up for trip and have decided to follow along from the comfort of their own home. We will try to do them proud this week. Last night, we stayed in a wonderful B&B near the Heathrow airport. It is a beautiful place, built in the 1600's with all the original open timber framing and low doorways.

We picked up the 8 passenger rental van and had it stuffed full with luggage and detectors. We drove up to the Colcester area of Essex, had lunch with the other group of six guys who got here two days earlier. Then we hit our first field and detected until 5pm. We drove to the vacation house where we are staying this time, unloaded the van, washed off a layer of dirt and grime and headed out to the little town of Mannington for dinner. Fish and chips and beer sure tasted good after a day of traveling and detecting. We hit the grocery store to stock our kitchen and discovered it was harder to find our way home in the dark and the rain without the GPS. Next time, we will know better to have it programmed and ready to use. Tomorrow morning, Mindy is cooking us breakfast and then we are all out the door by 8am. Forecast is for heavy rain tomorrow but we are prepared.

We haven't had time to clean up and look at our finds for today. There were some interesting bits and bobs. I might have a hammered copper or silver, Clarence has a possible trade weight. Tomorrow we should have more time to really get things cleaned up and identified. Right now, a hot shower sounds really good. It's nearly 11pm and it has been a long couple of days. Sorry this entry is not too eventful. I will try to do better tomorrow. Good night for now..................

Home, again

We made it home about midnight last night, short one bag. It was delivered to our door today so all is well. I wanted to share a follow up on the stunning gold mourning ring, dated 1822, that Mindy found on Friday. The woman who was memorialized with the ring, turned out to be a relative of the farmer/landowner. He has been most gracious by letting us hunt his property, and stops by or visits with the guys out detecting almost every day. Mindy presented him with the ring yesterday, stating that it belonged with the family. She said she got almost as much of a thrill by returning it to him as she did when she first pulled it out of the ground. You are a class act, Mindy, and a wonderful ambassador or our hobby!\

Day Seven-Our Last Day

What fun today. With groups coming and going, we all met up at lunch time today, It was the largest group ever assembled here at one time with 18. Many of us have never met though we all feel like friends from the internet Forum we participate in. Mindy just came in from Minn and found a STONKER in her first hour. An incredible gold mourning ring engraved with a woman's name and "1822".

I didn't find any gold or silver today but I dug more lead chunks, all of which were perfect gold sounds. Oh well.....we'll just have to come back and give it another try. Clarence did well again today with a beautiful Roman bronze with clear inprint and a nice hammered silver coin.

It is now 9:30pm and we are tackling the packing problem. How did we get all this stuff in the suitcases the first time? All equipment has to be broken down and wiped off. Foreign dirt makes Customs people nervous. The taxi is coming at 6:30 in the morning to take us to Heathrow. We land in Portland a little after 11pm Sat night. It has been a wonderful trip. We will be back in September. Maybe this time I will find my gold? Thanks for following along with us this Spring. Join us again in September 2010.

Day Six - The Abbey

Today we went back to one of our favorite places from our three years of hunting here. The rain poured down this afternoon and it turned cold quickly about 4pm. One of our foursome had detector problems this aftenoon in the rain. My detector also gave me fits with an apparantly bad coil. Clarence is putting our backup on and we will hope that corrects it. With my equipment problem today I didn't have much to show for my efforts. Clarence, however, found a silver hawking bell that has been reported as treasure. The bells were attached to the hawks before sent off to hunt so the handler could hear where the hawk was. Clarence also found a hammered silver coin.One of our housemates found a beautiful pre-1500 braided gold ring. Outstanding!

Another group of Northwesterners came in this evening. A group of five from Washington, Idaho and Alaska. They seem like a nice group and we will see them tomorrow in the field. Also, Chicago Ron's group will have two new members coming tomorrow and we are anxious to finally meet them. We all know each other from the internet but have never met.

Tomorrow will be our last day. Hard to believe it's been a week already. The taxi will pick us up at 6:30am Saturday for the trip back to Heathrow. Hope for gold tomorrow! It's our last chance for this trip.

Day Five

Today we were at yet another new area for us. This site consisted of twelve huge fields and was the location of some earlier spectacular finds. The detecting gods were not with us today but the sunshine was, followed by light sprinkles. I found only one silver coin today, a Queen Victoria two pence. Clarence did well today with a hammered silver, a milled silver and a gold guilded cufflink. We also found some musketballs, buttons galore, bits of lead, and just plain junk.

At lunch today, we got word that the other team here, Chicago Ron's Barn House Boys, continue to find the good stuff we seem to miss. Today, in the same field we were in on Tuesday, one of the Illinois guys found a hammered gold coin. This one is Queen Elizabeth I and is valued at 4000 British Pounds Sterling. It was found very near to where I was searching. Dang! A hammered gold is at the very top of my wish list!

Tomorrow we have all decided to return to one of last year's favorite locations at an old Abbey. That location has given us many of our favorite finds from the past.

Day Four

Things were pretty tense around here these last 24 hours. Remember the itty bitty hammered silver I found (which turned out to be a James I half penney)? Well, Clarence dropped it and it was lost for a while. He found it on the floor and the marriage was saved. There was danger of a British divorce happening.

This morning, as soon as the fog burned off, it was a beautiful sunny day. Then the fog rolled back in and the wind came up. It was just like a typical winter day on the Oregon coast. All four of us got skunked today. We dug some greenies (copper coins that come out of the ground green), lots of chunks of lead, tons of buttons and a few other misc. goodies. Nothing to write home about (literally). To make things worth...the other house of seven guys from Chicago who are here with us this week, went back to the field we were at yesterday and I had found the itty bitty hammered silver. The other guys managed to find ten more hammered silvers and a silver Saxon sceat. Dang! Why couldn't we find them yesterday? Sometimes that's just the way things go. Tomorrow will be another day.

Day Three

Today was a good day. It only sprinkled once and the sun was shining most of the day. I found two bronze Roman coins and two hammered silver coins. One is the tiniest hammered I have seen. It is not yet identified but appears to be either a Charles I or James I half penney. Clarence found a beautiful decorated silver thimble, a Charles III six pence from 1817, and we both have a selection of "other finds".

Yesterday I told you about the really "rare to find" Saxon gold coin. Well, today that group went back to that same spot and gridded out a search pattern. They found a second Saxon gold! There were seven guys searching a small area so our group of four decided to try a different field today. We may go back and try to find a third one before the week is out. What the heck, I'm still looking to find a hammered gold this trip.

That's it for tonight. We (that means Clarence)is just about finished cleaning up our finds for the day. We have already been into the Advil bottle and just need to go to bed. We are up every morning at 6-ish, breakfast is at 7 and we leave for the field at 8am. More adventures tomorrow!

Day Two The Old Church

This morning we started off at the site of an abandoned church which was built in the 11th Century and abandoned in 1550. It was incredible to walk around and the still standing walls and think of the celebrations of marriages and sadness of burying a loved one from this church. We took lots of pictures and they will appear here or in the photo section of our website as soon as we get home. It really was one of the highlights of this trips just to be there.

But, we really are here for the detecting. This morning was not my best day of finds with some modern coins (1935+). I made up for it this afternoon with a bronze Roman and some doodads. Clarence also found a big bronze Roman, and some buckles and widgets besides. His coolest find was a visual and it was when we were detecting around the church ruins. It is a crock style bottle, possibly used for pharmacetical reasons? No matter the reason, it is probably from the 1800's and is very cool. Did I mention it was intact?

I have to mention the top find of the day and possibly the year. Sorry to say we weren't the ones to find it, but one of the fellows from the other house found an incredibly rare Saxon gold coin from the 600's. He found it just as everyone was leaving the field and headed back to the vans. WOW! The land ownder just happened to be there talking to everyone when it came in. He was amazed. I guess we will just have to find our own tomorrow.

March 20, 2010 Day One

Greetings from the UK. We were picked up in London this morning and taken to Colchester and the home where we are staying. We tossed the luggage in our room, put together detectors and unpacked full rain gear and boots, and ate a quick sandwich. Our host picked us up and we were out in the field by 1pm. We hunted until 6 tonight in one field that was planted in cabbage. Thank heaven for the crops to protect us just a little from all the mud.

At the end of our first half day, all in all, it was a good day which started a little iffy. I had equipment problems, all will be corrected by tomorrow. My pinpointer had no battery and I lost the nut for my arm cuff within the first hour. Clarence took the nut off his and rigged up something for his detector with the spare rubber bands in my rain cost pocket. Next time, I check all machines for batteries before we head to the field.

I know there are a lot of people reading this blog who have no knowledge of detecting and some of the equipment I might write about. I will try to keep this non technical and use plain English. Tomorrow is be another day.

Next England trip....soon!!!!!

Watch this space! We will be back detecting that English dirt in just a few weeks. Check back March 20th for the first update.