With a damp start to the journey fingers were crossed that it may be kinder weather when we got to the permission known as JHF1.
Indeed it was OK and stayed that way for the entire day.

The plan was to look at the denarii hoard field as it had been disked to a depth of six inches. Although the field surface was not as smooth as it would be drilled, it was still "do-able".
We started at the edge of the field near to the hoard area and searched using our proven linear technique.
Sure enough, non-ferrous targets were located that were ignored on the previous search when seeded. We can only put this down to the targets being classed as "green waste" at the time.
Rob and I decided to dig all signals this time around as we guessed that the "green waste" wasn't nowhere near as bad in this field as in others nearby.
Apart from the "green waste" signals the recoveries included; two Roman fibula, four Roman As coins that could be part of a hoard, Roman pottery including Samian Ware and an Iron Age toggle fastener (dumbbell type).

Absolutely no finds came up from the hoard area showing the success of the previous survey sessions. 

We decided to have a look at the field where several Medieval items were recovered.
On the way there we stopped to chat with one of the farmhands as he was about to plough one of the nearby fields. He was on the 'phone and at the end of his conversation he jumped out to greet us. He said he was having trouble with the computerised ploughing system. As we stood there the plough section was moving slightly without any king of instruction!
We left him to it and ended up at the Medieval field.

This was also disked so resembled the hoard field, condition wise.
Again not much was recovered as we'd already surveyed this field when seeded. Lots of small fragments of lead were located and only a couple of pieces of Medieval pottery had been dislodged by the disking activity.
We knew that there may be some Medieval coinage that may be in reach of the coils. 
Oddly enough the first coin was a denarius!! Thankfully a cut half was also recovered later in the search accomplishing the finding of the obligatory "hammy". Two lead pot-mends, a lead bell, strapends and a musket ball were also found.

With the sun getting lower we decided to go for tea at our favourite chippy on the way home. We look forward to when both these fields are ploughed to a depth of ten inches in a week or two's time.
We could see the tractor ploughing one of the fields so the earlier problem with the computer glitch must have been solved.

The technical bit was that one Déus was using the 13" x 11" coil and the other had the standard 9" coil. The modes were; standard GMP one in "Tracking" the other set to the standard 90 setting.

​High definition images of the days recoveries can be seen here.

Rob and I (with the other halves) set off for the much anticipated rally of the year..... the XP Gold Rally 2016, The Glastonbury of detecting!
We were hampered by the incredibly slow traffic on the motorway due to an accident we arrived at the XP Rally registration tent at 4:30pm.
After checking in and getting our wrist bands we had a look at the stalls that were setting up there. The first tent had the XP stand showing the new 9" elliptical and 9" round coils that have much higher frequencies than the current XP coils.
Also on show was the new XP hand-held pointer, what a great piece of kit this is! Without going into too much detail (as that info is already on the net) it looks to be the one to beat.

The next day we had breakfast and spotted two more "wrist bands" in the restaurant. This couple asked if we were looking forward to the rally etc.
Low and behold it was only the same guys that had invited us up to the gold panning championships in Scotland after seeing the huge gold nugget that we'd found early last year. These guys were serious about detecting and diving for our heritage and experts in that field.
​
The Saturday session started off at 9:30am with detectorists heading off in all directions. This is unusual territory for the PAST as I for one haven't attended a rally for over 4 years. 
Rob and I stuck to what we know and followed the line of the crop for as long as we could. This was in contrast to most participants as they wandered all over the place often crossing our path and sometimes even choosing our line ahead of us. This wasn't a problem as we just moved sideways and carried on regardless.

What did amaze us was the speed that some covered the ground, almost running! The other thing was the swing that some had... the coil was at least 15 inches above the ground at both ends of the swing and about 5 inches from the surface at the lowest point.
Both these attributes WILL reduce recovery rates to a bare minimum.
Even the girls commented on their actions and they have no interest in detecting whatsoever!!!


Feedback from the rally was that the expected amount of finds was far less than anticipated. The above comment in the previous paragraph may have some influence on this.
After a couple of hours it was decided to retreat to the hub for something to eat and drink.
We arrived at "site central" at 13:00hrs and decided to have a pizza from the wood-fired pizza van. I must say, it was easily the best pizza I'd had in a field! We had to endure two pints of alcohol while we waited as the pizza's were so popular but it was well worth it! 

The side stalls were now fully active so we sauntered around looking at the Medieval stall, the ancient leather fabrication bit and the Celtic forge they had on the go. We were also hoping to bump into fellow forum members and we met up with Andy (Wesser), Ollie (potter01), Ferret and Liamnolan.
We also met the wife and son of a fellow detectorist that I'd not seen for about 4 or 5 years. We had such a laugh as he should have been there but was on business in China. She sent a selfie of us all just to let him know we were ok and having a great time.

The second day saw new fields for the Sunday dig so we started off near to the village there. Quite a few detectorists were in the same field with some nice finds coming up. We met up with an Australian guy who was over here for a 10 weeks' detecting holiday.
The wives decided to leave after a hour or so and head for the refreshments tent about a mile-and-a-half away (as the crow flies) and took one of the two-way radios so as to keep in contact.
​
Lunchtime loomed so we decided to head back to base for the same refreshments. A French couple asked if we were going back to base for something to eat using a series of gestures, French and pointing... we said yes and waved for them to follow us to our vehicle. We all laughed when it was realised that it was them offering US a lift and not the other way around.
En-route we saw a lone detectorist walking along the road towards base with at least about another mile to go. We stopped and offered him a lift of which he was very grateful. He jumped in and I said "5 Euros" which made us all laugh. He was from Austria and he asked were we came from, I said England (with a definite delivery), he laughed out loud at my pithy wit to which I then said Manchester (this was far easier than trying to explain that we where from Preston). We parked up and shook hands with our Austrian guest and parted ways.

The girls were holding fort at the bar so we joined them in sampling the Cotswold lager at 5%. We decided to share a couple of the superb pizzas from the pizza van and do a bit of people watching whilst digesting.
We had the gold stater that we'd found a couple of weeks ago so thought that we'd show Alain Loubet (XP's MD) as we'd already shown the XP team pictures of the coin the day before to which they said that they'd love to see it in the flesh (or I think that's what they said in french). Before long all the team were handling our precious item with all sorts of comment and good humour. 
XP's software engineer tried the stater with the new coils at 55khz and the coils were picking it up at least 12 inches in the air tests. This may have been the first time that a UK gold stater had challenged the new coils.

We'd printed out 10 packs of info about The PAST and passed them on to Alain Loubet, Nigel Ingram (MD at Regtons), ECMD's main representative, The FLO's in attendance at the rally and other individual detectorists.
This may hopefully open doors that were firmly closed in favour of detecting being accepted as a powerful tool that will aid each country involved in many ways.

After lunch we decided to call on a landowner that was nearby and check out the crop conditions there.
We were met by the landowners wife who enthusiastically invited us all in for a cuppa! We did a bit of catching up as we hadn't seen them for quite a while. Amongst other things we chatted about the holidays we'd enjoyed over the last few months which included her favourite... Italy.
During our research we'd spotted a farm that has a substantial Roman settlement there and I asked if she knew them. Of course she did as this family are well known and connected in the county.
Her son appeared and he was keen to show us his recent finds at the farm.
We decided to have a quick hour on a field that we'd never detected but this only produced modern lead.

Anyway, time to head back and freshen up for dinner.
We ended up at the Indian restaurant in Burford which was very nice indeed. We'd already spoke to a few detectorists that had already eaten there and they said it was brilliant.

So, all in all not a bad weekend (except for the finds in our case). We got to meet Alain Loubet from XP and his team, Nigel Ingram from Regtons, the main guy from ECMD and some lovely detectorists too.
The girls loved the scenery in the Cotswold's and are more than willing to join Rob and I on another venture into the unknown. 
The raffle prizes were great including 10 full Déus machines. One excited Déus (Day-us) winner had one under his arm and exclaimed on the 'phone that he'd just won a "Juice"?
Some great aerial footage can be seen here.

Overall this was a superbly executed and well organised rally and although the finds were less than expectations, it was an event that was a pleasure to attend. 300 French, 30 from Germany and many more from Italy, Belgium, Austria, USA, Portugal to name a few.
​
Hopefully next week will see the continuation of our quest to recover more of Britain's history with the possibility of two current permissions coming back on-stream at the same time! 





 

Deer, buzzards, a red kite and a couple of frisky stoats were the wildlife highlights of the day. As it will turn out, probably the main highlights of the day!

The day started with a recce on the Roman denarii hoard site (JHF1) we discovered last December. This was to be an experiment to support our theory that a field has to be covered efficiently resulting in virtually no other items being recovered until the next ploughing session.
This was a wheat stubble field that was now more compacted than it was earlier this year. The field was covered almost 100% bar one edge on the last visit, we had to abandon the survey due to the wet weather that blighted the end of last year. The actual hoard site was covered intensively four times at alter intervals with no further finds.

On this visit we only recovered two items, a copper alloy vessica seal and a hammered penny of Edward I. This was in the the small area not covered properly (<100%) in the previous survey due to the wet conditions.

Our suspicions had been quantified.
This was the FIFTH time that we'd detected an area and encountered the "detection saturation point" resulting in minimal or no finds.
This proves conclusively that if an area is covered 100% there is little likelihood of anything further being found until the next ploughing event.

Our first encounter of "detection saturation" was at a new permission that the farmer had warned us that we'd find very little because it had been detected for 20 years. Of course, bravado kicked in and we decided that we'd find the stuff everyone else had missed. Wrong! We only recovered 2 tiny grots after 18 man hours!

The second instance was at one of our best Roman sites (TS1) where we'd recovered hundreds of Roman coins and several brooches.
We surveyed the site when freshly drilled and had great results. We returned at harvest that year and found nothing in the stubble!

The third instance was at another great Roman site that has produced several coins, brooches and a gold stater.
We visited the site when re-ploughed this Spring..... again nothing!

The fourth instance were the visits to (JHF1) the Roman denarii hoard field.
As mentioned, only two items were recovered from the area we didn't cover 100% because of the severely wet conditions.
We'd GPS'd the hoard spot and Rob drove the support vehicle over the area several times to flatten the stubble. This made it a lot easier to detect ensuring the coils were next to the field surface.
So there we were, on the hoard spot for the fifth time with the stubble flattened over a large area within the site. Nothing!

We had a chat with the landowner to report on our "experiment" and he was assured with the fact that once we'd surveyed, little else would be detectable. This assured him that "nighthawkers" would soon get fed up going on his land and finding nothing after our efforts.

We encountered the fifth instance when drove over to a permission (ETF) that has produced a prolific amount of fantastic Medieval finds and coinage.
We'd already surveyed there this time last year and found..... nothing! And that was three of us using the search techniques that have proved so successful over the last three years.
Once again we didn't recover anything and I said to Rob that it can't have been ploughed for the last two years! Seconds after that Rob found the coil cover I lost last year (in perfect condition) proving that it hadn't been ploughed at all.

A short time later the landowner appeared and we remarked on the lack of finds and that it can't have been ploughed for a while. He smiled and said it hadn't been ploughed since 2013!!! He did add that he was ploughing it in two weeks time.
Watch this space as it should show the difference between a field that has been ploughed and one that hasn't been ploughed for a couple of years.

So, there you go, if you cover a field 100% (the detection saturation point) you'll not find much until it is re-ploughed.
As you may have read a while ago we wrote an article on the virtues of covering a field 100% versus a random search resulting in less than 100% coverage. If you cover a field randomly you will recover finds on every visit..... until they run out.
Yes, there are only a FINITE amount of finds in a field, if there are 10 hammered in that field and you have found 10 hammered you will NOT find anymore.
It may take twenty years to recover those ten hammered coins due to differing plough depths and all the other factors that can influence your recovery rate. If you randomly search that field it may take a lifetime to recover those 10 hammered coins!

We accept that some of our "best" permissions WILL become virtually sterile after a few years using our search techniques. As a permission becomes sterile we'll hopefully replace it with a new one that may equal what the "best" sites produced previously.
​
We will be revisiting the denarii hoard site (JHF1) when it's ploughed in two weeks' time, again we'll report back on the difference between our last visit (searched three times intensively with no finds) and the next one.
So that's two sites in the next two to three weeks that we'll report back on to see what difference a ploughing session makes.

Meanwhile, we hope to see some of you guys at the XP Rally this coming weekend. It will be great to exchange views and experiences.
​

Well, the 2016/2017 season has certainly got off to a half decent start with our third survey producing a complete mixture of finds and era's!
On the way to today's site I said to Rob that it's odd how we'd never recovered any staters here, gold or silver, as there is plenty of Celtic evidence there.

We arrived at permission MC and decided to carry on from exactly where we'd left off last Monday. The OSR had just started to germinate with little green shoots popping up everywhere.
Now, considering that this permission has revealed 34 Celtic/Roman brooches or fragments thereof, 10 Celtic toggles, 7 Denarii and 25 hammered it was NINETY minutes before the first find was recovered! This was a Roman coin unearthed by Rob who was to find another five whereas I couldn't find any! 
​As usual, I moaned to Rob that he was on the lines with all the coins and with that I found a tiny Celtic dumb-bell type fastener. This the smallest we'd ever seen, it's certainly weird that it was only last week that we recovered a lead Celtic toggle fastener of which again is the first we'd ever seen!
My moaning continued (about my lack of Roman coin finds) just as a lovely specimen of a Roman finger ring appeared and was amazed that it wasn't damaged at all. This was right after I'd asked Rob which line did he want to take as one went down the tractor tracks and the other a clear run of the field. I got the tractor tracks option!

This was about to change as Rob followed the tractor tracks around the headland and recovered a superb Celtic dragonesque brooch with its pin and beautiful enamelling.
The tit-for-tat continued as the next find for me was the head of a Colchester type brooch followed by a chain made with cast bronze links.

One of the next artefacts was a La Téne brooch missing its pin, I radioed this to Rob who was about 100ft ahead of me and he gave me the thumbs up (or I think that's what he was gesturing).
Funnily enough, a voice came over the radio and it wasn't Rob... it was some chap about 9 miles away. He asked who we were and we said we're doing a survey on a farm, he replied that he was ploughing.... before we could ask him about the farm we lost radio contact. Now that would have been one of our strangest permission requests!

Anyway, ten feet further on and my jaw hit the floor with a find of a lifetime.... a superb example of a what appears to be a Iceni "Norfolk Wolf" gold stater!!! Only four inches deep with a strange good/scratchy signal it came out of the ground in stunning detail and condition.
It was my first coin of the day (and yes... it wasn't Roman!) 
I said to Rob you better come over and look at this as I threw my spade and gloves to the ground. At first he wondered what he was looking for thinking it was a stonking brooch or something similar, completely missing the stater shining like a sun amongst the soil. When he did see it dropped to his knees and picked it up........ we both looked at each in amazement and shook hands (our version of the "hammy" dance).
This was my second gold coin, the other being a gold quarter noble of Edward III. 

Standing around admiring the stater wasn't going to recover any more history so we carried on regardless.
I couldn't believe it...... I found another coin..... and again it wasn't Roman.... it was a blinking Edward Ist penny. Am I EVER going to get a Roman coin today I thought.
Rob then decided it was his turn and produced a cracking Neolithic flint arrow head!

We decided to have a quick look at a field nearby whilst it was in OSR stubble and had been "pressed".
​My first signal was a lead Roman gaming counter and then an annular brooch that had suffered plough damage but still retained its pin.

We decided to call it a day and head off to the farm to show the landowner what we'd found.
His son was the first person we saw as he was just off out to try out a new air rifle he had bought his son. As we were chatting he asked if we'd found anything in the field his uncle had searched adding that his dream would be to find a gold coin. I said funny you should say that...... I showed him the stater we'd found. He took a picture of it on his phone and text it to his uncle adding "that will go down well!!!" with a wry smile.
Off he went and we then saw the landowner who took one look at the stater then put it down to pick up another item and ask what that was? A coiled up Medieval strapend I replied.

The field next to the first one we surveyed has potatoes growing there. These are coming off soon and it is this field that may have the best finds to come....

High Def images of the days recoveries can be seen here.