DetectingWales.com

Saturday I had a wedding to attend,the night reception went on to 12am I went the whole day without having an alcoholic drink,because I had booked to go on the Stogursey rally,and wanted a nice clear head.

I have been on holiday for the last two weeks and increasing my hammered count,but have also had a nasty cold which just does not want to go away.

My alarm went off at 6am just had time for a quick cup of tea and a fag,before Jonh (yoda) was banging on my front door  :o

After driving for around hour an half we found the meeting hall and queued up for are breakfast

After breakfast we rushed back to the car,to find are self's in a traffic jam,to get out of the field we were parked in.

The idea was to follow a red minibus to the detecting site,the problem was there was two large buses holding everyone up

Once on site I rushed off to the fields furthest away that I could see looked ploughed,they were rough disked and very wet and muddy,I managed half an hour on them,and came off with 2 foot of mud stuck to my boots.

After a few hours detecting on the pasture in rain showers,I thought is it me or are these fields rubbish ??? all I had was a gold platted horse brooch.

By around 1pm I had had enough so went to look at the finds cabinet,the only decent find that was there was a George 111 crown funny thing was i had seen one posted on this site the day before,so I am not sure if it was found on the day or not.

After watching the raffle and winning nothing,myself John and are other mate Rob decided to go home getting stuck in another traffic jam though Bridgewater for over half an hour  >:(

Did we  enjoy the day,yes we did although at £20 a head it was very expensive
 

I was very excited about this rally for a long time. 150 acres of undetected land in Somerset sounded pretty wonderful to me. Iv got to say though, I ended the day feeling a little disappointed.

It was a great day out as a social event and the company I travelled with was fantastic. It's a shame the detecting let us down. It just seemed the fields where pretty devoid of any finds which was surprising considering the area.

Not one of the eighteen on our bus ( yes it was probably us holding you up relic hunter  :P ) found anything of note at all.

So overall a great social day out, but shame about the detecting .

Jon

Yes that George crown had me scratching my head too ???
I didn't fair too much better and like you tried those far fields they were so quiet no rubbish, no iron and certainly no good targets, they shouted "RECLAIMED WOODLAND" to me and I wouldn't of been surprised that if 100 years ago it was forested quite away along that other side.
I did have a Eddy penny from the ploughed and rolled field as did Briggs1969.
The field that I thought would be good was the smaller one below the manor house and I did get a 14thC pendant which had been enamelled and a couple of mounts. the soil there was full of stones and so had been ploughed at some time in the recent past whereas most of the other pasture fields had no stones in the top soil. The fields running away from this one looked quite ancient with the small enclosure marks and ridge and furrow still quite clear and out of one of these Melonhead had a nice little Eddy? penny
Conductivity was excellent though as I was digging ridiculous depths just for shotty caps :D
The one thing I noticed with all the fields especially as conductivity wasn't a problem was the absence of larger targets, Georgian grots, pre decimal anything and buckles were all suspiciously absent, which is usually a sign of the land having been detected before, especially in a more 8" coil era.
But hey hoe that's the way it goes and the sun did come eventually. Oh and I have to say the hotdogs were worth going for on their own ;D

Never tried the hotdog's,the breakfast made a nice change.  ;D

As to the George 111 crown I remember seeing one on here the night before,and thought wow,I bet not many of them were ever lost,so was a bit surprised to see one at the rally the very next day.

We enjoyed the day out,we never expect to find anything at rally's so when we do its a bonus

Yes same here RH on the George, I'm popping down to see Laura the FLO tomorrow so I'll ask her if it was found at the rally.
What did your horse brooch look like, as I did see one in the shape of the backside of a horse which was a nice little thing. ???

You didn't try the hot dogs?  :o they were the best part  ;D

More of a horse shoe brooch,thought it was gold when i seen it in the hole.

very nice RH and along with the other one I saw might point as you say to a horse show venue and may explain why all the ringpulls in the car park field. Some of the hedges in the fields below the house had cross country jumps in them.

Regarding the george III crown, the one i found was 1819, the one at the rally was 1820, just a coincidence, i was at the rally but did,nt find anything of intrest, it would have freaked me out had i found the other crown as well! Thanks for the comments about the coin it was a special find.

you win some you lose some

I have to agree it was a big let down, the fields were so quiet! I walked from top to bottom of one of he ploughed fields with just two signals that being an iron bar and a spent shotgun cartridge (my Favorite :P)

Fortunatly I did find a few coins, a 1956 shilling in the car field, two one penny's dated 1868 and 1936 and what I think is a George III Half Penny dated 177? 

Robbo won the whisky bottle with his 11th century artifact which I think the FLO said was part of a stirrup????

Stampy

Almost forgot, when we were leaving someone mentioned that two tokens had been found which were different colours to the ones which we were looking for, so perhaps the land wasn't undetected after all??????

I found different colour tokens but assumed that there were mixed colours.  3 sprayed red, one sprayed yellow?  Anyone else get any yellows?

Echo everyone sentiments; lack of decent targets and a real assortment of the targets I did find.  George 3rd halfpence through to an old style moder 10p.  No solver this time tho.

The tokens I found where yellow on one side and red on the other. I did find a two pence with hints of blue on it though. Maybe there was a rally there in the past?

Still a lot of junk came up though, if it had been detected before you would expect the junk to be dug up too?

I heard it was quiet too. Yes, £20 is expensive for a rally, and it does sound like it was detected before.
Surely this should have been advised before parting with hard earned dosh?

As for the George 111, who knows?  things are produced at rallies that haven't been found.......I don't
see the point myself as that person only cheats themself. It's probably the person who has doubts about
their detecting ability and wants to impress others.......... 

Well we'll give them the benefit of the doubt then, I didn't realise so many people has Georgian grots apart from the hammy I only had a 1946 penny and a Billy farthing.
I didn't think it was that junky, the only things I dug that fit into that slot were shotty caps, which stupidly a lot of people disc out.

who could disc shoty caps out,they give off a cracking signal ;D ;D

Hey Geoff, you little bugger, you must have found that Eddy Penny not long after we departed after our chat, good for you! Was it in decent nick? I actually didn't find much at all either on the Rally, for me my find of the day was my Flint Scraper which Laura recorded, which was found on the ploughed field near Geoff's Penny, damn! Most of you wouldn't know but actually right at the very end a large Roman Brooch was found which made Laura's day as it was the only thing that was Roman that was found! That George Crown was stunning! I was disappointed by the end of the day too, I was thinking that area had so much potential, and yet so little turned up. I said it before, the Welsh Rallies are by far the best :)

Not sure why this chap didn't record this at the Stogursey Rally, as I'm sure Laura would have loved to have seen that. http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=33573&cat=102 (http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=33573&cat=102)

Probably because he didn't want the farmer to have it,it stated on the rules the farmer would like to keep some finds made.

Maybe another reason why not much was found  ;D

Very True!

I would like to add my suspicions after readingnthe input from others that when at the tent to hand in my tokens i overheard the receiver stating that one of the tokens handed in must have been in the ground a good couple of years.Now i dont know about anyone else but i found my three tokens on the surface .Thanks for otherwise for a great day and nice to see some faces.Thanks Jerry fot the Deus cover and advise ,nice to meet you..
Regards (Mucker)

Hey Mucker, I think you have a very good point, I found three, all painted red and all found on the surface, I actually overheard others by the tent saying they found other ones but different colours, blue was one, and that they were worn, IE the paint was very faded! So there may have been previous rallies on those fields! Which would explain everything!

Mike (hoarder) who found this is very aware that it is potential Treasure and stated on another forum:

...recorded it with ukdfd and awaiting their verdict...

...also recorded it with our Devon FLO as I found it very late on the day...

...went back to base camp only to find the  Somerset FLO had left the rally.

Um well that may be the case but I know that many things weren't recorded because people were worried that they may have to part with them.
I'm not that suspicious of the tokens as this rally or the Saxton rally as it's been known has been going for years and I expect they have used the same tokens year in year out.

i found three tokens, all on the surface, 2 x two pences, one painted red on one side, the other red one side yellow the other, also had a one pence painted red on one side. on the finds front i had a couple of unrecognisable coins and a 1966 two shilling of elizabeth the second.... :D.....i was on the RARE bus and some of our members found hammered and medieval buckles...out of thirty detectorists on the bus, five found hammered.....lucky them.... ;D....the rest of us found the usual bits and pieces, but still an enjoyable day.......byron.....PS....one of our members found a georgian pipe-tamper which he gave to the lady owner of the farm..

I went along to this rally too! Saved a fiver by pre-booking the tickets.Wish I'd gone to Hereford in hindsight though.I was shown a Lizzie Hammy which did'nt appear in the finds cabinet so some finds were definatley not handed in.That George III crown was a different one as its been said the date on it was 1820 and the one shown here was 1819 so not the same.The one in the cabinet did look surprisingly clean though?? I found a bit of a pot rim in the car park field which the FLO said could be medievel.A heart shaped horse decoration, a shotty,and a bullet casing.Apart from a ringpull and a few bits of lead nothing else.Did hear of two rings being found in the car park field as the cars moved out the way one silver(bulky and modern)and a gold ring.Typical that eh? A nice place and good to be with other detectorists but shame the finds did'nt reflect the area's history.Never mind perhaps the next welsh rally will be kinder..

Well if as Byron says 5 of his members found hammies plus me and Dawson that's at least 7, I'm seeing Laura tomorrow morning before I leave for Ireland so I'll let you all know how many were actually recorded....could be interesting ;)

I expect like many  rallies there were finds not handed in,the bit in the rally instructions about the farmer wanting some finds definitely did not help.

To be honest though,there was not a lot of people detecting in the afternoon,which was a sure sign that not much was being found.

You didn't get the usell whispers of someone has found this and that either, so I don't think a lot was found.

At the end of the day it was a rally a social gathering,and if you find something it's a bonus  ;D

The normal course of events is that if you pay to detect you keep your finds that are not subject to the
Treasure Act, whereupon the land owner would receive half the 'market value'.

The land owner might have difficulty legally in keeping a find if he's received payment for allowing his
land to be detected. I suppose it depends if a contract was drawn up between the organisers and land
owner to this effect.

Was this fact advertised to detectorists prior to them paying?

This isn't a lt of point putting the effort in, after payment, if someone can come along and swipe your
reward !  :'(
 

The fact was not advertised before hand

the information slip given out on the day,stated the farmer would like to keep some of the finds,which you will be paid a fair price for.

Even if people had known before hand i do not think it would have put people of going

They just wouldent show there finds,and for £20 entrance fee i do not blame them

Looks like it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment on a few fronts in the end.Shame really,as it sounded quite promising from the advert :-\

charity rally for 20£ on "undetected land".....priceless  :'(