DetectingWales Rally 40 - The Raining Hammered Coins Rally

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Our Penmark rally a couple of weeks ago set new records for the number of hammered coins found at one of our rallies. Surprisingly enough it looks as though today’s rally at Gileston has smashed those records.

The weather was forecast to be showery in the morning and improving after lunch.
We certainly had our share of showers during the day but it didn’t seem to dampen our members’ enthusiasm or enjoyment of the event.

We had originally planned to parking in the stubble field but it proved to be a bit too damp underfoot to do this. I proved this myself by a managing to get my van stuck at the entrance of field and for the second rally in a row having to be pushed out of trouble by a number of obliging members.

After some discussion with the farmer the managed to park everyone on some hardstanding around the farm so that solved the problem.

After the usual meeting to explain where members could detect, everyone scattered to begin their search. It didn’t take long for the first finds to start coming up. I was chatting to Rob when he suddenly had a phone call from Beachboy to tell him that he’d found three hammered coins and a gold Vicky half sovereign. All in the first twenty minutes.

Although we’d been to this farm before for the two-day rally, we had quite a few new fields this time, together with some of the ones we’d done before which had been disced. The area had strong Roman and medieval history and there was a Tudor manor house nearby so we were expecting a few decent fines. In the event we got much more than we bargained for.

A couple of the fields had been rough plowed so were a little hard to detect on but a few of our more plucky members had a go including Duggypuggy who pretty quickly came up with a nice hammered. Duggypuggy’s progeny Richard (16:DD), who was detecting on an unplowed part of the field soon joined in with the hammered of his own.

Pretty soon Beachboy’s total had expanded to 4 hammered coins as well as his lovely Vicky Gold half sovereign. Meanwhile news had spread of his finds and an intensive search was begun on a particular field by an assortment of members who started coming up with hammered coins of their own. A lot of the hammered that came up on that particular field were from Tudor and Stuart times so fitted in nicely with the Tudor manor house that was right next door.

Roman Ray and Nobby chimed in with several hammered of their own, Nobby initially claiming two and Ray having three. They also came up with some nice Roman coins.

Ancient Pat had a hammered and a very nice silver clasp which at first he thought was a book last but is currently leaning toward it being a clog clasp.

Newby Woody aka brzozzi claimed a hammered for himself as did bymatt666 (byron) and Jenks had two including a very nice Scottish hammered. Ademinelab and Heather waited until the afternoon to get their hammered and it was later in the day that Digger came up with a superb hammered groat in really nice condition again in the Manor house field.

Toward the end of the afternoon I even managed to hammered myself - or rather three quarters of one which turned out to be a Charles I penny.

Throughout the day there were rumours of a second gold coin having been found in one of the lower fields - a guinea to be exact. But I never actually got to see this second gold coin so it probably was nothing more than just a rumour. That is unless someone actually posts a picture of it here.

The showers continued throughout the day and our more hardy members continued to search whilst the more wimpy of us sheltered for a few minutes till the rain stopped. I don’t think the damp conditions really spoiled the rally for most people. I certainly enjoyed the day I think quite a few others did. It’s nice, when you know you’re on very productive land and the next signal could quite easily be hammered or some other very nice find.

I’d just like to thank Rob for once again coming up with some really good land for us to detect on. He certainly has the knack of finding some good farms.

Unfortunately, as well as unearthing a lot of great finds, a couple of items were lost by members on the day. Mikethefob lost a blue digital camera which belongs to his wife so he’d really like it back if anyone came across it during the course of the day. One of the lads from Bristol also lost his Garrett pinpointer (probably left at the side of a hole). If anyone found that please let us know.

Here’s a few pics. If you have any other pics of finds from today please upload them here.

Geoff

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[Neil]

Great report Geoff and cracking pictures - gutted I couldn't make it.

Mark - your ring has a very similar type in Medieval Artefacts by Nigel Mills - have a look around page 50ish. Not the same but very similar in style.

Well done all the finders and how nice it is to see another Welsh found crotal bell and a whopper at that

Well done one and all

Neil

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