Sunday, April 7th

Who knew there could be TWO Lucky Dog Days in a row???  Clarence found another gold today before noon.  We are back on the field where all the Roman coins were found a couple of days ago. This gold is actually a Saxon gold ingot 3.21g 8.43mm diameter. He also found four hammered silver coins, a brooch with a red stone, a brooch with an amethyst looking stone and six more bronze Roman coins. What can I say...he is really on a roll.

Bruce did pretty well, too.  He found two Roman bronzes and an 1865 One Pence coin.   CA Dan found a hammered silver coin and a cuff link. Mindy found a cute little Roman offering pot. One of our newbies, Peter, on his first full detecting day ever, found the one we all dream of...a hammered gold Half Noble. This is THE coin I have been wanting to find since my first trip to England.  I spent the afternoon hoping it has had a friend out there for the last six hundred years but no luck. I did manage to find two more Roman bronzes and about a kazillion four hole buttons (modern). After the past couple of days, I guess I can't complain.  Maybe tomorrow will be my golden day?

Update:  My fibular brooch has been confirmed as Roman 1st Century.  Clarence's broken Celtic gold from yesterday is actually a broken part of a Celtic Full Stater, not a Quarter Stater as first thought. The broken part is 1.68 g and 13.74mm diameter. Not too shabby.  We still have five days to find more.

Saturday, April 6th

Today was a Lucky Dog Day!!! First of all, the sun came out and the wind was light.  It was really cold this morning, the skylight in our bathroom was totally frozen over. By 1pm, we were out in the field with five layers of clothes on.  By 3pm, my jacket and fleece vest were unzipped to cool down and I was considering leaving a couple of layers in the middle of the field to pick up later. Clarence, Bruce and I stayed out until 7:30 tonight. To top it off, there was a gorgeous sunset tonight.

We were in a field that had just been rolled and planted and no mud. We spent the entire time on one field and had lots of targets to dig.  Besides the usual greenies, buttons, bits of lead and about a hundred shotgun shell primers, we three made some outstanding find.  Clarence started it off with a broken Celtic gold coin. We are guessing about 1/3 to 1/2 of the coin remained.  The rest is probably still out there in the field.  Then he found two hammered silver coins.  Bruce found his first ever milled silver coin.  This one is a William III that has been folded into a love token. I finished up the afternoon with my first ever fibular brooch.  Normally, we think of these as Roman but this one is huge and knobby and might turn out to be Saxon.

Update to previous finds:  I found out today that the red enamaled brooch I found was not Roman from Celtic from the 1st Century.  It is the first ever Celtic brooch found by anyone in our club here in Colchester.  I also found out today that the mystery coin weight I found was actually a trade weight from Henry VIII era

Friday, April 5

Today was a great day. The wind was still blowing but it was warmer today. We hit several different fields today including one that turned out to be one we didn't have permission to be on.  The land owner drove down for a bit of a chat but all was good by the time he left. We have permission to detect from the man who farms the land but evidently not from the owner of the land.

There were some really nice finds made today. Bruce found an interesting Medieval bucket mount. Mindy has a really special bronze belt slide with a gold gilt decoration, a complete belt buckle and a Tudor open fretwork button. Clarence has a nice lead token, greenies and some assorted bits and bobs. Mary had a great day with a Knights Templar badge, a Roman enameled brooch, and a coin weight.

Today was the last day here for Alaska George and CA George as they both head home tomorrow. Mindy will take them back to London early tomorrow morning and then she picks up a couple from Australia who will be joining us for the week. They will be back around noon and then we will go out again and detect in the afternoon.  With only a week left, and so many fields we want to detect yet, we are having to make a list and pick the ones we have to get to.  It has been so wet and cold here that the fields that have been planted are not germinating and the rough plow fields are too wet to work in. A couple of weeks ago they had three tractors stuck in one field, each trying to pull the other one out. 

That's our report for the day.  We hope to have more stories and fnds to share tomorrrow.

Thursday, April 4

Enough already with the snow.  Isn't this April?  Today sure did look like winter. Only three of our seven hunters opted to head out this morning.  Clarence and I, CA Dan and AK George opted to stay in this morning.  We sat at the table drinking hot coffee, telling tall tales and watched the snow blowing sideways.  We had planned to walk down to the neighborhood pub for lunch but it was too miserable outside to even do that. After lunch, Mindy, Bruce and CA George showed up.  They had hit a hot spot and were finding lots of Roman bronze coins and wanted to give us a chance to share in the fun.  We all piled on layers of clothes and went back out for the afternoon.  We found a total of 32 or 33 Roman coins for the day's count. The landowner had actually called the person who runs these tours to tell them he had just rolled that field since he knew we wanted to get on it.  That was really nice of him to do that and shows what a good relationship we have with the landowners here. Tomorrow is CA George and AK George's last day so they get to pick where we go. We may be split up in two or three different farms but they are close to each other.

Update:  The Mystery Item I had found yesterday turned out to be part of a Medieval decorated nut cracker. There are photos of our finds at www.colchestertreasurehunting.co.uk Click on Finds and March II page.  The newer postings are at the bottom of the page.

Update #2:  We looked at a Wind Chill chart and found out that yesterday we were out all day in wind and cold that was a Wind Chill Factor of 24 degrees.  No wonder we were all worn out. It's a good thing there are really large hot water tanks here as all three apartments had hot showers running for quite some time. 

Tomorrow is Team Lucky Dog picture day.  We have matching shirts for our group and have been trying to get a group picture all week.  For some odd reason, no one wanted to spend much time outside in thier stylish short sleeve shirts long enough to get a photo.  With the two George's leaving tomorrow, we have opted to do an indoor picture after dinner.  It won't be as scenic but we won't all be blue from the cold. 

The adventure continues tomorrow............

Wednesday, April 3

This is Spring?  Are we sure of that? Our high today was 38F with 20-25 knot winds .  It was brutally cold out all day. Some of us found a lower corner of a field that was somewhat shielded from the wind. It was almost tolerable. Except for a few tough souls, namely CA George, AK George and Bruce, we found shelter in the van with the heater running for a good chunk of the afternoon. Joe and Jeanette, our new friends from Malta, stayed out in the cold and made some interesting finds. The rest of the group headed back to the house early to clean our finds and get ready for dinner.

After dinner, Joe and Jeanette came over to show us pictures of their life in Malta before they head home tomorrow.  It is a beautiful island in the Mediterranean but all metal detecting is illegal there.  The wonderful part of these detecting trips to England is making new friends from all over the world.

I was lucky to have found a couple of special finds today. I found my first toy cannon, about two inches long.  I also have a mystery item.  It is bronze and appears to have a face on either side of it.  We don't know yet what it is but guesses so far are part of a pair of scissors or the trigger of a rifle.  At any rate, it is very old.  I will keep you posted on what the decision is. 

Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be worse than today.  Is that even possible?  If so, Clarence, Mindy and I will probably take the day off and stay home.  I only brought three long sleeved t-shirts (it IS Spring, you know) so doing a bit of laundry tomorrow might be a good idea.

Good night!

Tuesday April 2nd

Today was not a really great day for me. It was warmer but the winds were blowing 20-25 knots which made i t really cold. This afternoon, we went to some new land that our club just put under contract.  About 20 years ago, as the story goes, a local detectorist found a gold Roman coin at this farm.  The only problem, all these fields were in rough plow.  I'm talking ankle busting rough ground with 12-14" differences in elevation as you try to walk through it.  It was exhausting and we weren't finding enough good targets to make it worth the effort. That said, a few good finds were made.

CA George found a possible silver spoon.  Mindy found a complete buckle with a lovely design on it. Bruce found three Greenies and a really unique candlestick that looks like it had been run over by a mack truck.  AK George found a nice silver hammered coin.  Clarence found a hammered silver James 1st penny (very pretty) and some greenies. I found junk..antique junk...modern junk....just plain junk.  CA Dan did even better than me since he found a handy stack of hay bales and took a nap instead of tackling the rough plow field. Tomorrow is another day. 

Tomorrow we have asked for a nice flat field that is easy to walk on.  That is, if any of us can even walk at all tomorrow morning.  I can already smell the scent of Deep Heat muscle rub wafting through the air. I will admit, the Baileys I am enjoying as I write this seems to be helping, too.  At least, I don't care as much about all the aches and pains right now. 

Good Night!

Today is April Fool's Day and Mother Nature was laughing at us all day long. It started out cold and windy and didn't get much better.  I had on long underwear, a long sleeve t-shirt, long sleeved fleece, a heavy fleece vest and topped with a windproof, waterproof jacket. Also, long underwear pants with jeans, topped with wind proof rain pants.  My hood was up over my head and hat and headphones kept my ears warm. Also, wool socks, heavy rain boots, and gloves.  Yes, I still got cold at times. 

This morning we went to a field that had been one of our favorites last year.  What a difference a year can make.  There were very few targets at all and those were buttons, pieces of wire and bits of lead scrap.  In the afternoon, we went to a proven Celtic gold coin field.  It was still in rough plow and hard to walk on and detect on...but we did anyway.  We all wanted to hunt that field since we had a good chance of finding  gold coins.  The young couple who have been joining us from Malta for a few days did manage to find a beautiful little Celtic gold.  They were so excited that for just a few minutes they were warm again. We have been feeling sorry for them as they buy more clothes to layer but they are out there every day in the cold and wind.  It was a beauty little gold coin and I'm not even ashamed to admit that I wish it were mine.  There is always tomorrow...............