DetectingWales.com

This object was found in somebodys  rubbish  box. Looks like lead because of its weight. Guess  what it is it.

hmm  looks like a stylus to me ??

Hey come on Al, it's 10cm long, that would be one hell of a stylus ;)
My guess is a ingot.

cant see shape but if lead and oval could a be palm guard :)

No its about 4in length and 1/2 iinch at its thickest and we sure its a Viking silver bullion ingot of 10th/11th century..
Its been testedd  for its been tested  for silver content usually (debased).Comparible with ingotsin the Manx MUSEUM.

May I say how good it is to see you posting again Rob and what a nice find. It does make you wonder what else has been thrown not knowing what the object is.  ???

iam Daft boy most the information is on pic ::)

Rob, Since you told me about this, i throw very little away  :o
What made you think it was valuable, was it just the weight?
Salty

It certainly does Paul, not sure if I've posted this tale on DW.com before and if I have then I apologise, but here we are.

As the old saying goes “All that glitters is not gold” which as we know is very true but the reverse is also true, and I thought I better let you know.......
Back in 1984 I found 18 grams of what was probably Celtic gold, Why probably? Well it didn't look like gold, not at first at least. And where did I find it? To this day I still don't know. It was either Portskewett in the mud or Llanmadoc beach on the Gower.
Back in those days as I still do, I take most of the rubbish and dross I find home to either consign it to the bin or one of my scrap buckets at a later date. On one particular occasion I hadn't emptied out the ammo pouch I used for my “ruff stuff” for some time and so decided to lighten the load and sort it out.
Going through the usual lead, cartridge caps and ring pulls one piece of “lead” caught my eye as it looked for all the world like a big cat, tiger, panther etc. and so I put it to one side purely for this reason. A month or two had past when my then girlfriend asked if “I was going to do any thing with this grotty piece of old metal” (you know the speech) because my putting to one side was in fact the kitchen windowsill and she was fed up moving it.
And so for the second time my attention was drawn to it. It wasn't the usual greyish white colour of old lead, this piece was more black with tiny bits of sand almost stuck in to it, playing it through my fingers I decided to try and bend it.....nothing, no give at all, so I decided to just srubbishe the surface to see if I could tell what it was made of, as its weight told me it was lead and gold is inert and doesn't change “we all know that” don't we!!!!
Well you guessed it the colour that shone back at me was that dull yellow of 24 carrot gold.
Not long after this I made an appointment with the curator of the Newport museum in South Wales to see if he could shed some light on what it could be.
Suitably unimpressed with my find, which I suppose must happen when you are dealing every day with ancient treasures, he told me it was probably dross from a travelling gold smith.
Dross!!!!??? this was 18 grams of pure gold, what did he mean dross?
He then went on to explain that in the bronze age and even the early iron age, gold while always being priceless was at the same time worthless, there was no monetary system and even the early gold stater's were probably collected until they had enough to make an item of jewellery out of them. And so a little bit escaping along with the impurities would not of been looked on in the same light as it would be by you or I.
I contacted the coroner and to cut a long story short he decided it would not be worth taking it any further as it could not be dated and had not been worked.
I later had it made into two Celtic pendants, one for each of my daughters which they still wear to this day.

What a great story Geoff and a lesson to us all I guess. I have done similar but less impressive. Had been detecting one day and like yourself I have my dross buckets and had emptied the days collection on the table and been called in for tea and that is where it stayed for about three weeks. Then had a friend round one evening who is a archaeologist who asked what I was doing with a Bronze Age Gouge on the table. Hey what Gouge, I thought It was a broken piece of baler or hay turner. If by chance he had not spotted it I had it cleaned and checked and authenticated it I would have dropped it in the dross bucket and been none the wiser. Been out with Hedgehog who used to be a member of DW and he has put me right on a few things that I thought rubbish as well. I think experience is A huge part of detecting Geoff and myself as a comparative newcomer will always look up and learn from my respected detecting elders.

Great stories guys and lessons to us all! I am going through my dross buckets this weekend after that! You never know! ::)

Neil

I think there are probably quite a few who have made these mistakes, luckily yours and mine had a happy ending, But I do have  one tale, no, confession to tell.
Once again back in the 80's I had permission to Detect a field that was in the middle of a village here in Somerset which was due for development, this was the same field that produced over 60 hammered coins in the course of the next year.
But on this particular day I got a fantastic signal and digging down retrieved a rusty old metal hoop, slightly oval measuring roughly 8" x12" with a bar running across the centre. It looked to my novice eye as if it had something to do with a  large gin trap, after a few days I decided in my ignorance that it was probably just a rusty end to some old container and threw it in the dustbin (first cringe). well the weeks went by and guess what I found another one exactly the same, this one I cosigned to the hedge (cringe 2).
Months turned into years, the site had now been developed and I was looking through a copy of one of the detecting mags, when there in glowing colour were my bits of old container, a whole 3 page feature on them. But they were not part of an old container they were medieval  foot pattens.
There.... I have admitted my guilt and shame.. maybe now the nightmares will end, but I doubt it ;)

Thats funny Geoff  - I hedged one a few years ago on Scan Club land in The Vale. I read an article a few weeks ago and there was exactly the same designed one with zig-zgs instead of straight pieces under the foot. Described as a "Rare example". To say I was gutted was an understatement! Lesson learnt for me!

Neil

Good stories guys, you have now taught me to bring all finds home and go through them carefully, just in case.
Ace  ;)

Yeah Neil your the man.... Now I feel better. ;D

wow...cool story there fella.... hey Ace mate remind me to see if i can find that silver dinner plate i frisbied into the hedge last week !  ::)

As long as you don't tell everyone Doc , i dug up that frying pan  ;D ;D ;D

 i will post up pieces of cut ingots (hack silver) found on Isle of MAN by detectorists.They usually  cut  at angle by Viking
knife and theres no decoration  on these ingots. The full ingot in picture is heavy and could be mistaken for lead.They
are debased silver (only 20per cent silver in some cases)bit of cheating going on llol

I know that mickey coin threw an axe head away cos it was to heavy in his finds bag and has never found it since and he knows where he chucked it.

Well done Rob, I certainly would not of guessed that