The team visited an old favourite that has produced some fantastic finds that include staters, Viking sword pommels, potins, Saxon coinage, Roman coinage, superb brooches and more.......
Unfortunately, this looks to have come to an end.
All the fields we surveyed had been freshly ploughed and have always produced finds..... until now.
We didn't even pick up fragments of lead, in fact there were no non-ferrous targets located.
We had already suspected back in 2015 that our best sites will cease to amaze us with the finds they have given up.
The results of today's survey was a first for us as we didn't even recover anything worthwhile for the usual photo montage we always present.
We are now certain that the sites we have covered using our tried and well tested formula will bottom out, after all, there are only so many items in any particular piece of ground. This proves beyond doubt that this is the case as we have now seen a dramatic drop in finds rates on the sites we have covered since 2013.
This has also been encountered on a farm that had been detected by other detectorists for over 20 years, the landowner even warned us that that we're wasting our time. I thought this was a polite hint at "don't bother coming" but landowners don't drop hints!
This was repeated at one of our latest permissions very recently, the head ploughman there said that a group had done the field several times, even to the point of camping out on the field. The odd thing was that they claimed not to have found anything after travelling over 80 miles for each trip to the field. Anyway..... telling porkies to a landowner is another subject.
So, this is the first time since 2013 that we didn't recover anything for a report.
We are now in the process of replacing our "top" sites for new permissions.
We know that there are die-hard detectorists that still believe that a field "keeps on givin'...." I'm afraid that once a field is covered 100% after three or four ploughs... the fields are virtually dead.
Fair enough, one cut-quarter may emerge after two or three years but, as we've said many times, it isn't cost-effective to travel several hours to recover a cut-quarter.
If you live next-door to the field, then it would pay to spend a few hours looking for that cut-quarter.
Unfortunately, this looks to have come to an end.
All the fields we surveyed had been freshly ploughed and have always produced finds..... until now.
We didn't even pick up fragments of lead, in fact there were no non-ferrous targets located.
We had already suspected back in 2015 that our best sites will cease to amaze us with the finds they have given up.
The results of today's survey was a first for us as we didn't even recover anything worthwhile for the usual photo montage we always present.
We are now certain that the sites we have covered using our tried and well tested formula will bottom out, after all, there are only so many items in any particular piece of ground. This proves beyond doubt that this is the case as we have now seen a dramatic drop in finds rates on the sites we have covered since 2013.
This has also been encountered on a farm that had been detected by other detectorists for over 20 years, the landowner even warned us that that we're wasting our time. I thought this was a polite hint at "don't bother coming" but landowners don't drop hints!
This was repeated at one of our latest permissions very recently, the head ploughman there said that a group had done the field several times, even to the point of camping out on the field. The odd thing was that they claimed not to have found anything after travelling over 80 miles for each trip to the field. Anyway..... telling porkies to a landowner is another subject.
So, this is the first time since 2013 that we didn't recover anything for a report.
We are now in the process of replacing our "top" sites for new permissions.
We know that there are die-hard detectorists that still believe that a field "keeps on givin'...." I'm afraid that once a field is covered 100% after three or four ploughs... the fields are virtually dead.
Fair enough, one cut-quarter may emerge after two or three years but, as we've said many times, it isn't cost-effective to travel several hours to recover a cut-quarter.
If you live next-door to the field, then it would pay to spend a few hours looking for that cut-quarter.
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