After the recent disappointment that one of our favourite sites has now all but vanished in terms of finds, we re-visited a site that has also seen quite a lot of detecting action.
To recap; two local detectorists (landowners relatives) live next to the field and has also been searched by three other detectorists too.
All five used the standard metal-detecting method which is quite surprising seeing that this field is 80-acres in size!

We arrived in glorious sunshine and having only having 8 hours 1 minute of light available, we were quick off the mark.
The field had been ploughed and drilled with winter wheat.
The first find was a Roman coin, no surprise really as this has been a very busy Roman site producing finds for the five other detectorists and now for us too. It will however sadly diminish as the finite number of finds there will eventually become exhausted, well, all the finds above ten inches that is!
At the moment, we see that this field still warrants the travel expenditure... for now anyway.

We were lucky to recover 23 Roman coins, two complete Roman fibulae with pins, the frame of an annular brooch, at least five fibulae fragments (one with beautiful red and blue enamel), a nail cleaner, a cracking Late Iron Age toggle fastener, a Roman pin, Roman artefacts (to be ID'd), a Roman lead spindle whorl type weight and of course, pottery. One piece of pottery was from a Medieval jug handle dating C12th to C14th.
One of the larger pieces of Roman pottery looks to be from the rim of a large amphora, this was accompanied by two shiny pieces of Samian Ware.
There was also a William III medallion or crude forgery.
An item that did emerge was a fretwork styled mount that has a typeface not seen before......
Five sherds of flint were recovered with two being knapped and still very sharp!
 
We will be making a second visit soon to finish off this field before moving on to a deep -ploughed field that has just had the potatoes removed.
​This may be quite interesting as it has produced lots of Medieval items including a sceat as well as a few Roman articles too.

Equipment used on this survey was:
3 x Déus V4.1
2 x 9" HF Coils
1 x 13" Coil
Programs: GMP 18khz, GMP 15khz, GMP 25khz and the "Hot" program.

​All finds were within 5 inches of the field surface with one of the largest, the Roman headstud fibula, actually on the surface!

​HD images can be seen here.
A 3D image of both intact brooches can be seen here.

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.

​

Rather than waste a day not detecting, we decided to have a couple of hours at a local cricket pitch as a compromise. This was due to one of the team having a heavy session the night before. 
The pitch itself is placed over a field of ridge and furrow so, before starting, we joked about the "ubiquitous" hammered.

Even before switching on, we found a £2 coin on the surface!
There had been a bonfire there two nights previously so our "job" was to clean up any sparklers lying on the surface. 
The groundsman was pleased that we could provide such a service for free.
He didn't know how long the field had been a cricket pitch so perhaps we could pin it down to a rough period?

We used the 9" HF coils for a change governed by the usual standard GMP which has proved itself time and time again.
Sure enough, decimal and pre-decimal coinage started to emerge with 46% of the coinage being the latter, so almost a 50/50 split.
125 coins in total were recovered with some coming from depths of 10 inches.

Some lovely examples of silver coinage were recovered, one being a nice hammered sixpence of Elizabeth I dated 1585 (8 inches deep), the rest were made up of Victorian, George V and George VI. A superb florin of George VI date 1946 came up in the same condition as when it was dropped. The George V shilling and sixpence as well as the George VI sixpence were also in great condition.

​As for the "cut-half", would you believe we found the other half too!

Here's a breakdown of what we found:

Pre-decimal
1 x Elizabeth I Sixpence 1585
1 x George VI Florin 1946
1 x Victorian Shilling 1853
1 x George V Shilling 1936
2 x George V Sixpences 1921 & 1930
1 x George VI Sixpence 1941
1 x Victorian Three-pence (worn)
1 x George V Three-pence 1919
13 x Thrupenny bits
13 x Pennies (Victorian to George VI) 
23 x Half-pennies (Victorian to George V)
58 Total

Decimal
1 x Two-pound 
17 x One-pound
1 x 50p
4 x 20p
2 x 10p
18 x 2p
16 x 1p
8 x Half pennies
67 Total

​There's probably another quarter of the field to do so we may return one afternoon to finish it off.

To view the images of the day please click here.