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Hiya nosmo I hope so if it’s out there you get a good find eventually.
Went on an archaeological dig yesterday and enjoyed that very much.Cleaned enough bones to build at least 3cow skeletons lots of pottery too
 
Morning bungle went out for my first metal detecting outing on Sunday and found nowt
I've tried to get out on every local dig I could, it's been a long time in lockdown and waiting for harvest and I'm not ruling out another lockdown this winter. But the more I go out, the less I find. Bank Holiday Monday however was on land in Northamps supposedly not detected on before - still didn't find much but the enjoyment came back. Sure, some nice stuff was discovered (Bronze Age spear head for example) by other people in other fields, but I was happy pootling about in my own world, not being at Work.
 
What is the background the coins are on?
Credit card sized aluminium scale card (£1.50 + post) to give an idea of how big or small some of these coins can be. A silver penny contained a penny's worth of silver, a halfpenny half as much, a farthing's worth of silver meant a very small and/or a very thin (hammered) coin.

scale card.jpg
 
is it a long cross (half)penny? My Finds Manager antennae are twitching ;)
Yes a long cross where the arms extend to the edge of the flan, which as you know made coin clipping (punishable by death ?) harder to get away with. Short cross coins where the arms only extend to the inner ring are earlier and possibly more desirable, yet almost always clipped to some extent.
 
Hi bungle I feel exactly the same if you find something brilliant.
But just been outside fresh air and good weather you can’t ask for more really
 
Credit card sized aluminium scale card (£1.50 + post) to give an idea of how big or small some of these coins can be. A silver penny contained a penny's worth of silver, a halfpenny half as much, a farthing's worth of silver meant a very small and/or a very thin (hammered) coin.

View attachment 44412
Thank you! :)

I sent two to Escette for her and the Mister. She had never seen one and was bowled over!
Didn't even know what they were until I showed her your photo of one in action.

I got her. :evillaugh:

Can't get much past Escette so thank you for helping me achieve that. :wink2:
 
I love farthings, even toasted one that don't photograph well, like this one I found on a local dig on Saturday. Even toasted ones that force me to do some research and learn stuff. The only Monarch I can find facing right with Britannia also facing right is William IV (1830-37).

Farthing_0533.jpg farthing_0535.jpg
 
I know this is a metal detectoring thread but found an eyes-only 'Sand Dollar' (Sea Urchin family, 3" across, ~20 million years old with some of the carapace surviving) in Oxfordshire today. It was a quiet field so indulge me.

sand Dollar_0556.jpgsand Dollar_0560.jpg
 
The sort Alfred would burn - pictures don't do it justice, it's actually a pleasing addition to my Wunderkabinett. And very tactile.
My dad used to do field walking after the plowing and would quite often come home with things like that and sponges, he used to have a conical shaped fossil set urchin type thing, idk what happened to it, it was about the size of a kiwi fruit.

Similar to this
fossil-echinocorys-sea-urchin-260nw-1646539948.jpg
 
Out on Saturday to give the mem’s impulse-purchased metal detector (a Garrett Euro Ace 250, IIRC) a go on 200 acres of arable land.

After 5 hours, we’d found about three pounds of scrap iron:

079ED76D-D008-47D0-B8DA-761DD4A89D5D.jpeg


-and what l tentatively identified (later confirmed) as a mediaeval reinforcement for the end of a belt or strap:

A0B0D108-084D-45B3-B977-E18681AD8191.jpeg
38355E46-42D0-4BE5-A21F-6948F6ACD673.jpeg


I also found - using Mk.1 Mod. 0 eyeball - a modern 1p coin, which is worth, by my estimate, about ten times everything seen above…

Still, an interesting and informative day out.

maximus otter

PS: Scale in mm.

m.o.
 
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Out on Saturday to give the mem’s impulse-purchased metal detector (a Garrett Euro Ace 250, IIRC) a go on 200 acres of arable land.

After 5 hours, we’d found about three pounds of scrap iron:

View attachment 46479

-and what l tentatively identified (later confirmed) as a mediaeval reinforcement for the end of a belt or strap:

View attachment 46480View attachment 46481

I also found - using Mk.1 Mod. 0 eyeball - a modern 1p coin, which is worth, by my estimate, about ten times everything seen above…

Still, an interesting and informative day out.

maximus otter

PS: Scale in mm.

m.o.
That's a fantastic coincidence 'cos when I first went out with my Garrett EuroAce 350, all I found was scrap iron (+ an actual iron) and nails - lots of nails - not even a strap end. It got better, mainly when I changed detector and put the hours in. Seriously though, don't give up yet.
This up on Saturday: a flaming grenade or flaming bomb cap or shoulder badge from the Royal Artillery or Engineers, Grenadiers, Fusilliers, Marines, WWI or WWII. The design was used by the British, Canadian, French, Italian and even been found at the Alamo battlefield (probably Mexican) - that one recently sold for $4,500. I like mine though.

Flaming_000.jpg Flaming_001.jpg
 
All I ever found was rusty tractor parts and a drinking vessel from the time of Roman emperor Pepsius Maximus.

Metal detectorist finds small gold bible near York​

Published14 hours ago
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The miniature book was found near property once owned by King Richard III
A small gold bible, once perhaps owned by a medieval aristocrat or royal, has been found by a metal detectorist.
NHS nurse Buffy Bailey, from Lancaster, found the book while searching farmland near York with her husband Ian.
The 600-year-old object, which is just 0.5in (1.5cm) long, could be worth more than £100,000, Mrs Bailey said.
An expert described it as an "exceptionally unique" artefact which would have originally been owned by someone "incredibly wealthy".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-59181714
 
Somewhere in Oxfordshire this morning: copper glinting off the permafrost. A surprising Republique Francaise Un centime L'an 6 (I think) ie a Republican coin 1797. Looks better than the photos - not a saxon sceat (one was found today) but I'm happy with that.

RF1C_0674.jpg

RF1C_0679.jpg RF1C_0678.jpg
 
91% of items discovered last year were found by metal detectorists.

A medieval pendant discovered in Lincolnshire has become the one millionth archaeological discovery found by a member of the public.

The copper-alloy harness pendant, unearthed in Binbrook, is believed to date back to between 1350 and 1400 AD.

A Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) report said nearly 50,000 items were found in 2020.

Michael Lewis, head of the PAS, said each find was "part of the great jigsaw puzzle of our past".

The PAS annual report, published on Tuesday, states the Lincolnshire pendant measures 2.4cm in length and weighs 2.4g.

It said of the items discovered lat year, 91% were found by metal detectorists with 1,077 deemed to be treasure.

Other finds include a gold cross pendant with a runic inscription found in Berwick-upon-Tweed and Roman coins found in three pots in Wickwar, Gloucestershire.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-59607288
 
A father of two who'd renewed his detectorist hobby at his kids' insistence found "the most valuable single coin find in British history." The coin has now been sold at auction.
‘I owe it to the kids’: coin found by detectorist dad sold for £648,000

A metal detectorist who gave up his hobby when he started a family, only to return to it when his children were old enough to nag him into taking them out detecting with him, has been rewarded with one of the most extraordinary finds – a fine example of England’s oldest gold coin, which has sold for a record-breaking £648,000 at auction.

Michael Leigh-Mallory, 52, found the Henry III gold penny buried 10cm deep on farmland in the Devon village of Hemyock shortly after taking up his old hobby again. Not realising what it was, he posted a picture of the coin on social media, where it was spotted by the auctioneers Spink in London.

He will split the proceeds of the find with the landowner and plans to use his windfall to help fund the future education of his children ...

The penny found by Leigh-Mallory was struck in about 1257 by the king’s goldsmith, William of Gloucester, with precious metal imported from north Africa.

The coin features a portrait of the bearded and crowned Henry III on his throne, and about 52,000 of them were minted.

It became apparent they were financially unviable because the value of the coin was less than its weight in gold and almost all were melted down. Leigh-Mallory’s is only the eighth known example. ...

Gregory Edmund, a senior numismatist at Spink, said: “Not only does this stand as the most valuable single coin find in British history, but also the most valuable medieval English coin ever sold at auction.”

It achieved a hammer price of £540,000, with extra fees taking the final figure to £648,000. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/24/devon-detectorist-13th-century-gold-coin-sold
 
A father of two who'd renewed his detectorist hobby at his kids' insistence found "the most valuable single coin find in British history." The coin has now been sold at auction.

FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/24/devon-detectorist-13th-century-gold-coin-sold


22104_220_4.jpg



22104_220_5.jpg


Henry III (1216-1272), Gold Penny of 20-Pence, authorised 16 August 1257, London, Willem FitzOtto of Gloucester (The King's Goldsmith), h | ENRIC ' REX III, King seated on ornate throne, holding orb and sceptre, rev. WIL | LEM | ON L | VND, voided long cross with lobed terminals, five-leafed petals and trio of pellets in angles, 2.951g [45.54grns], 4h, no m.m. (Evans [NumChron, 1900], Pl. XI, no. 1 = BM E.2135 same obverse die; Lawrence, [BNJ IX, 1912], pp. 145-79; Fitzwilliam Museum, CM 47.2007 same reverse die; North 1000; Spink 1375), slightly crimped with two deft scratches in left obverse field, and resultant friction and light sporadic 'stubble rash', otherwise on a remarkably broad and full weight flan, handsomely uniform and beautifully struck-up, the peripheral details finer even than the sole previous specimen housed in the British Museum since 1810, extremely fine and delightfully 'fresh' thus, of the highest rarity and of international significance as a brand new die pairing, one of only four in private hands; a monument in the Medieval series and the most significant contribution to English Numismatics since the discovery of the Double-Leopard, sold at Spink in 2006

Provenance
Found near Hemyock (Devon), Sunday 26 September 2021

https://spink.com/lot/22104000220

:p

maximus otter
 
Someone showed me this find, does anyone know what it is?

View attachment 51202
I love a challenge like this, and I reckon (with the help of Google) that this is an 1857 Algerian token commemorating a French victory. I did a Google picture search for 'old arabic coins', which took me to a collectors' forum, and from there to the link below.

I think the left-hand picture below is identical if you turn it 90 degrees.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/exonumia33424.html
 
I love a challenge like this, and I reckon (with the help of Google) that this is an 1857 Algerian token commemorating a French victory. I did a Google picture search for 'old arabic coins', which took me to a collectors' forum, and from there to the link below.

I think the left-hand picture below is identical if you turn it 90 degrees.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/exonumia33424.html
Wow, thank you! :curt:

You're a genius. I have sent that page on to my little treasure-hunter. :cool:
 
Some good news.

A metal detectorist who discovered a soldier's World War One identity disc in a field is to return it to his family after he tracked them down.

Simon Hobson, 54, found William Thomas' disc near Henley, Suffolk, in December. His research revealed the Welsh private served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and died "of his wounds" aged 22 in 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign.

Mr Hobson said tracing the man's family, who live in Cardiff, was "better than discovering a gold coin".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-60264862
 
A god find.

A medieval pendant discovered in a muddy field by a metal detectorist could reach £8,000 at auction.

Jason Willis, 38, from Norwich, found the 11th or 12th Century gold cross while detecting with friends at Sutton St Edmund, Lincolnshire, in April 2019.

"I knew it was something special by the shining yellow colour," he said.

A gold coin found at Reepham, Norfolk, and an Anglo-Saxon shilling discovered at Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire, will be included in the same sale.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-60622316
 
A god find.

A medieval pendant discovered in a muddy field by a metal detectorist could reach £8,000 at auction.

Jason Willis, 38, from Norwich, found the 11th or 12th Century gold cross while detecting with friends at Sutton St Edmund, Lincolnshire, in April 2019.

"I knew it was something special by the shining yellow colour," he said.

A gold coin found at Reepham, Norfolk, and an Anglo-Saxon shilling discovered at Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire, will be included in the same sale.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-60622316
What a beautiful find! It looks as if it might have held a relic at some point from the folded section in the middle.
 
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