dooly Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 Hi all . as you all know i like to have a scratch about with a metal detector now and again hear in the UK .. well my fellow board member (colly) form Kent asked me to purchase his first detector for him and we chose a garrett 1500 which is the model a couple up from my trusty Garrett 1250 euro. I had never used the 1500 before but at only £350 from ebay I thought it would be worth the risk. So we had the detector sent to me so i could check it was working ok and to give it i test run and set the Custom program up for him. so enough waffle hear you go !!! (thumbs u the detector arrived and i was well impressed with its condition, It was as new and clean as a whistle .. and if it had been used for 10 hours i would have been surprised For the field test i picked one of my well hammered sites where i have spent hundreds of hours digging out all the signals .. just to see if I could find anything with a different detector which i had missed with my trusty 1250 THE SITE CHOSEN FOR THE TEST A large clay field with lots of corn stubble to see how it would react After setting the custom program and sensitivity to the correct levels i headed off down the field and Not a signal or interference) was heard ! ( which was good ) Then down the bottom there was the classic two way belltone "Boing" of a good item the reading on the detector was a 7.5 (usually an old UK penny) and the imaging pinpoint went to a size C which seemed to big for a Penny especially with the depth showing about 2" ?? The detector proved to be spot on when i dug the item up as it was a copper alloy 3" nail/rivet A short time later i hit my next signal also came in at 2" and showed up on the imager as a size A .. it was spot on as it was a lightweight copper alloy button dating from about 1900 about the size of a IHC For the next 20mins or so it all went quiet with only a small 4.9g bit of scrap lead coming up only just under the surface .. THEN! a very strong high number (9) two-way signal at a more respectable 5" the imager went to a size B .. that's more like it i said to myself ! the 1500 was spot on with the depth but not the size as the item was 43mm long and 18mm wide when it surfaced .. BUT it was quite deep .. so i will let it off .. The item turned out to be a 3.5g silver FORGET ME NOT broach which i presumed was a World war I broach which service men gave to there sweethearts before they went to war but on cleaning it a found that it had the silver marks for Birmingham (anchor) 1893/94 (t) so it shows how wrong yo can be !! After a few more bits of rubbish lead I got an almighty loud signal at 4" And found one of my best finds of the day which is a Very large bullet at 27mm high and 16mm across the base, and at 32.2g it is a bit of a beast .. i do not know what it was to be fired from but my guess would be a plane gun or something similar .. in interesting note is that when i cleaned the base out the was a 10mm cavity in it and the number 57 backwards embossed in the lead ?? After this it was time to head off home so a headed back up the field to the car and on the top of the rise i got a strange signal which was only reading a 4 on the detector at 4" and a size A.. so off i went digging then i lost the signal and had to use the pinpoint to find it again (it was in a large clump of mud) .. this turned out to be the best find of the day !!!!! I am not exactly sure what it is but my hart did skip a beat when it came up It is a small item with small bits of ? glass intaglio decoration on the top surface . any suggestions welcome After a quick wipe on my pants the reverse Well that's that .. the intaglio item is heading off to the finds liaison officer at Newcastle university and i will tell you what they come up with and as for the detector well i do like it and it seems to find stuff so would i recommend it i think it is a resounding YES ! hoped you liked the tail .. and sorry i did not find any coins for you but Colly came up to Northumberland last week and i took him out for a days detecting and I will be posting the full story soon .. and yes we did find some coins so keep an eye out for my post all the best dooy :devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frank Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 Thanks for sharing, great pix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 great story! i'm jealous of your fun day out! I'm still intimidated by private property laws to go detecting.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 I detect myself, I have an older home that was built in the 1930's. I have found coins, the earliest is a 1917 cent. Because I collect 17th century English tokens, I have often wondered what it would be like to find a coin that had been there since it was dropped some 350 or so years ago. I have coins that have been found in the Thames, up in Yorkshire, out in Wilts, down in Kent etc. I find your mention of the soil conditions most fascinating because that has a lot to do with the preservation of bronze and to some extent silver coinage when it turns up. One of my pieces was found in Wilts last year by an amateur detectorist: One of the fascinating aspects of buying coins/tokens from Britain is that if they are more than a normal find the finders usually report them to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the finds are recorded, where, when, by whom etc. So several of my 17th century tokens can be pinned down to a particular find location which can be fascinating, I have one 17th century Dublin token that was found in Shropshire of all places - rather unusual because Shropshire was then and still is rural. I wonder how the Irish token made it to the NW of England in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marianne Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 Thanks for the report -- full of information and a good deal of suspense. Could that tiny intaglio item be a locket? The opening mechanisms can be ingenious, and difficult to detect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldeCollector Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 Great work Dooly, thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mo! Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 If i were to invest in a detector, what kind should i get (a link would be nice), and also where should i look for nifty thins like those? (I live in Sarasota, FL) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syzygy Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 Terrific write up - very enjoyable to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dooly Posted March 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 Hi all thanks for the great comments.. Well i managed to nick of from work early today .. and BOY was it worth it .. I went to one of the fields i have found a few good items but it is massive .. about 700 acres !! so i don't go there to often .. god i was glad i did though as my 4th signal was this little beauty .. It is a 2nd Century AD Roman broach called a MOULDED TRUMPET type .. and as far as i know it is unusual to find them this far north !! so it will be going to the Finds liaison officer tomorrow to be recorded and professionally identified Just shown the light in the hand for the first time in hundreds of years Nice side view .. no pin though Close up of the head showing Celtic influences the reverse still showing some silvering Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dooly Posted March 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 Photos when i got it home before giving it a light wash How it looks now .. boy am I happy sorry its not a coin again but i just had to show some one :devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hussulo Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 Great write up dooly and congrats on your finds the Roman broach is great but my favourite is the intaglio item. I plan on buying a detector soon and hopefully joining a local club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 nice find with the broach! Do you guys have to give up your finds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dooly Posted March 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 nice find with the broach! Do you guys have to give up your finds? No unless its treasure or hoard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldeCollector Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 No unless its treasure or hoard That's why I had to send four of my coins to the British Museum... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 That's why I had to send four of my coins to the British Museum... Which coins were those, Clive? To avoid hijacking dooly's thread I continue the conversation in this thread: http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=23161 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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