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.