DetectingWales.com

Time to own up guys! What to date has been some of your biggest detecting mistakes? I want to add the caveat that nearly all of these happened in my first years detecting and I have learnt from them!

I also want to add there a few beauties that members have made - but I'll let them elaborate. Ahem, Roman Ray and your name story!

In no particular order:

One of my first sites was in the shadow of a Iron Age Hill Fort. I kept finding pieces of small lead that I was sure I could see animals in and led to much hilarity at a SCAN meeting and from my wife. No matter how hard I insisted I could see things - I was rightfully laughed at. It was just waste lead, but did prove activity on the site.

Another time I hedged a foot pattern - zigzag design that I then saw in The Searcher was an usual and collectible version. I thought it was just "any old iron".

Driving to the Vale of Glamorgan and realising I had forgotten my spade, oh and my headphones and to make matters worse even my detector!

Trying to unfold a hammered coin that had been folded into a perfect square - only to learn at  a later date that this was deliberate and may have been related to a blessing, curse or ailment. Yep - I snapped into into three bits - real shame as it was a lovely find!

Cleaning a Republican  denari on my kitchen table having had one too many shandies and dropping it on the floor resulting in a lovely chip coming out of the side of it. No one told me that 2000 year old silver was so brittle!

Come on. Own up - theres got to be a few crackers out there.

A hanging my head in shame Neil

At a recent talk to a local community group, there were 3 club members in attendance. The computer had been switched on, the display screen erected, the projector adjusted and all was ready to go, except there was no electric signal coming through to the projector.

The extension lead plugs were checked, the wall socket switch was on, still no power.

Finally, having watched proceedings for a few minutes, a wise old boy came along and whispered, let me sort it out for you!!!!

We then watched in amazement as he switched off the wall switch, removed the plug and took it over to the other side of the room and inserted it into the socket there, switched on and lo and behold, power!

He then sauntered back over, with a huge grin on his face .... "that socket over there don't work!!"

or...............

A good friend tells me of the time that he dashed out of the house one morning, grabbing his detector on the way. He goes to work  and at the end of the shift, dashes off to a local field where a local dig was going on. He changes into his detecting kit, assembles his machine and then goes to switch it on......... thats the first problem!

The control box was missing. It was in Ireland undergoing repairs!!!!

Oh dear, did his detecting friends laugh!!! However, one took pity and lent him the Deus for the afternoon. 1 fibula, 3 roman coins and several bits of Bronze were pulled out of the ground. Then the rain came!

Next time ...check that the detector has its control box!

Hi Alan.....I attended a few of the famous Thornham rallies...
And i found a fantastic Denarius and excitedly shouted out to all and sundry
i gotta silver denarius...the multitude swarmed all over the area and at least 20 more were found in a twenty yard square area....by all around me.
If only i had kept my big gob shut lol ::)

After a good days detecting, I returned to the car and put my detector etc in the boot. When I got home I looked for my almost new, stainless steel, lightweight spade. I realised I had left it leaning against the side of the car. It was a 14 mile drive back to the site only to find someone had stopped in the lay-by and was off with it. £22 it cost and the best little spade I ever had.

Out last week on a nice evening with only a t-shirt on. Only to be attacked by the biggest horde of Scottish midges. No cover for my arms (I am allergic to midge bites), no repellent spray etc. Took about 10 days for the bites to stop itching... :(

As few quckies.........

Leaving my spade behind behind after a session which was gone by the time I returned. It had my name/address
on but was never returned.

Leaving my spade in the garage and having to travel home for it.

Having to travel a few miles to a shop to buy batteries after the one's in my machine were flat and so were the
spare set. (pre Deus days  :'( )

Finding a Jaws harp and chucking it thinking it was junk....

Failing to note the date and finds place of many of my silver coins.

Jumping over a fence into a slurry pit of mud and slowly sinking. It was a sweat getting out. It could have been me that invented the saying "Look before you leap!"  ;D

These are funny - keep them coming guys!

Must be loads of stories out there.

The worst are definately throwing things away! Apart from Bob in the slurry! :)

Neil

Dare I say,   STARTING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.!!! ??? ;D ;D

Val

hey val optomistic anticipation can sometimes be a big tectin mistake ;D ;D,,,,,but the only mistake i made so far {fingers crossed} s the time i was in a hurry to get out and put on my steel toe cap boots to go tectin needless to say after 20 mins of chasing ghost signals it dawned on me what was going on :-\ ;D

It could have been worse. If I'd have had a heavy Monsterlab in my hands I would have been gone!



Talking about getting stuck........

A couple of years ago I had an estate car and parked in the gateway of a field. After detecting I tried
to drive away to find I was stuck! The RAC had to come and tow me out.  :'(

Then you were lucky Bob. I got stuck in the mud, in the winter, and had to go beach combing for bits of wood and flat stones to get myself out.
 Forgot my phone and not a soul in site. Is that sods law or what. It took nearly an hour to get out and that was BEFORE I started detecting. Then to round off the afternoon I found zilch. ???

Val

I remember TaffLaff and I drove for hours over the bridge to try and find a site for a DW rally in the early days. I sat in the car for a good 30 minutes while Rob was sorting it out with the farmer after saying "He'd only be a minute!"

Anyway after 30 minutes I braved the rabid farm dogs to discover Taff sat in the middle of a family, holding court with all the family and anyone else who was willing to listen! They were totally bemused by this Treorchy Boy who wouldn't stop talking and stared mesmerised by him!  I prised him away from them and we headed into the fields driving slowly through a herd of cows, which he was confident would leave his car alone.

We went off for a couple of hours and found the land to be barren - returned to his car to find the wing mirror torn off, various dents where it looked like they had mounted it and the whole car covered in cow spit and slobber! It was like a scene from Ghostbusters where he gets "slimmed"! Anyway we wrote that one off!

That was also the same day where Rob uttered the immortal words to me :
"Look at the rabbit" and a deer promptly stood up where he was pointing and legged it into the distance.

I still chuckle abbout that!


Neil

None I'm perfect lol


OK OK well similar to Neil it involved disposing of a foot pattern but not once but twice....yes a pair, it took me about a year to realise what I'd done.

Back in the early 80's I had a phone call via a card I used to put in shop windows to find a pair of earrings for a woman, yes a pair, she had lost them in a field and she knew roughly the exact spot which she explained to me over the phone and I took her details and told her I'd have a look as soon as I could. Well that "look" came about 4 days later and she was dead right as within 20 minutes I had found both of them.
I now phoned her number but it was answered by her husband who gave me their address and asked if I could bring them around at 7.30 in the evening the following day (weirdly precise). So happily like a lamb to the slaughter I took the earrings back to their rightful and would be oh so happy owner.... she would be... wouldn't she?
NO, I had just walked into the middle of world war 3, the rings had been lost during a bout of, shall we say "physical exercise" only problem was her husband was in work at the time.....I still cringe :-\

I travelled all the way to a rally 40 odd miles away only to realise I had left my detector at home, feeling this was a good excuse to upgrade to the new all singing model, I bought one only to win the very same model in a raffle at the end of the second day.

Found a lump of (suspected) celtic gold, Thought it was lead and to this day I can't actually remember where I found it.
And lots and lots of early (70's) cleaning sins.

Neil Taff's obviously got a rabbit fixation, at the last 2 dayer he ID'd a dead Badger as a rabbit ::)

after finding two Roman Brooches in the same hole , along with a bit of twisted wire... :-\ which promptly went in the hedge somewhere .turned out later to be a roman bracelet...never been able to find it again tho........ ??? never throw anything away now till it's been looked at ,  at home...

Not my story but worth repeating anyway. Guys biggest mistake was being lippy to his detecting buddies. After tea break they went detecting their seperate ways. Trouble was, Mr Lippy was getting continous noise from his detector. He tried resetting, switching off, changing disc, ground balancing etc. Finally after being unable to detect any further, gave up and went home.

Cleaning his detector when he got home, he found a 2p taped to the bottom of the search coil.... ;D

Back when I joined DW some 3 years ago, I took a trip to Southerndown to do a spot of beach detecting. I drove on fumes all the way down because I really could not be bothered to stop for Diesel anyway got down to a rather cold but sunny Southerndown beach to find I'd left my cash card in the house and had no money to get fuel to get home. So I thought I'd leave it in the lap of lady luck and hopefully I'd get some coin to get enough fuel for the return journey.  And I did! £7 and some loose change later I returned to the car bloody freezing and it was going dark.

Once at the car I opened the boot with the remote took off my coat chucked it in the boot loaded the tector, spade and bag and shut the boot............... OOPS

Now the good thing with the Galaxy was you could open the boot by remote whilst the rest of the car stayed locked. On this occasion, this was not a good feature to have as my keys were very handily clipped to my jacket and my jacket very unhandily in my boot. Now I dont know if you've been to Southerndown beach in the Winter but theres nothing there and this occassion was not going to be an exception to this rule.

I could not get in my car and my phone was in my coat pocket along with the keys for the car. It was at this point in time that I looked on the top of the beach , eyeing up the rather nice sun bleached large pebbles strewn around, with the intent of smashing a front quarter light window on the car. After much umming and erring that is what I decided to do...smash!  Just as a car turned up in the carpark, a couple obviously there to enjoy the now pitch black view of the sea  ::).

I felt obliged to explain to them that it was my car and not to think I was  breaking into it. After they managed to stop themselves laughing at my predicament the guy kindly offered to help. Not a lot he could do by now as I'd already put through a window, anyway I put my arm through the front quarter light to open the car from the inside....nothing. Now theres a valuable lesson to be learnt here for any  Ford Galaxy users amongst us. If you lock the car with the remote, you cannot open the doors with the handle from the inside  >:(.

 Awww come on I only just got them to stop laughing!!!! .

By now it was really really cold and I was now in a T Shirt. The guy asked me into his car to use their phone. I felt like a real lemon, or actually more like a Gooseberry. I had to use their Phone to get hold of my wife to get hold of her father and ask him to drive down from Treorchy (An hour away) to bring the spare keys for the car.

The couple by this time had to leave and so after making sure I was ok with staying there on my own left. Oh boy was it ever cold. By the time my father in law got there (Hour and a half) I was blue, I could not feel my hands, my feet, my face or my tongue,  and I felt sick.

I will not repeat what my father in law called me but both names can be found on a carefully labelled Hermaphrodite!

i was detecting on the estuary llansteffan side early one morning along the edge of the marsh. there was this green object lying on the surface. i thought it was from a boat or somthing, but put it in my pocket and carried on detecting. after about an hour of this heavy object in my pocket, bangind against my leg. i got fedup and threw it into the marsh. some years later i saw a similar object in a detecting magazine, turned out to be a bronze age axe head i also think it was decorated as it had lots of little swirls on it. i told my story to mark l and he tells me there are only about a dozen of them that have been found in wales. i have retuned to the area on several accasions but nothing. im certain its still there as it went into the marsh a fairway. that has to be my worst i think. proves the point dont throw anything away till your certain what it is :( :(  mickycoin ;D ;D

Thats the worse hedge fodder story so far Mick by a long way!

Its still there somewhere!

Some really good stories and lessons here guys,

Neil

yes sick as a parrot when i found out what is was but i havent ginven up looking for it yet, would make my day to find it again and post it on here for all to see  mickycoin ;D ;D

                                   OK THEN NEIL IF I MUST...WHY THEY CALL ME ROMAN ( RAY ) !!

 after only being into metal detecting for about 3 weeks.. woke up bright and early one morning to hit the hills of gilfach goch mountain.i only been detecting about an hour when my trusty c-scope detecter had a lovely signal..i dug the hole with much exitment as im well into this new hobby of mine.
i turned over the clodge to find a lovely green patina coin stairing at me.this was my first coin.as i wiped the coin i could see what looked to me like a spear on it..it must be a roman coin with much exitment i packed up my detecting gear and headed for my parents house which was about half hour walk across and down the mountain.it was there i phoned the museum to tell them i think ive found a roman coin whilst metal detecting on gilfach mountain.
please bring it down the fella said from the museum we are very interested to see it..as theres no evidence of the roman on gilfach mountain..lol.
straight on the blower to the wife.come and pick me up im in my fathers and ive found a roman coin on the mountain. the museum wants to see it today.she comes straight over for me which takes her about 20 mins.straight back home to take a shower and change cloths.after all i have to clean and tidy if im going to the museum.still full of exitment i heads for the train station in porth it will another 45 mins to get to cardiff on the train.i arrived at the museum.and went in to the museum to have a chat with the gentleman on the phone.there carefully wrapped up in a ring box was this great discovery which ive just un-earthed on top of my local mountain.dying to find out as the gentleman walked towards me.i carefully un-wrapped the coin to sh1ow him.he looked very exited to see this great coin.he studied the coin for about half a minute because this coin had seen better days.he then replyed its not a roman im affraid.its a george v penny..1947.big blow i must say.im absolutely exausted.all in all it took 4 hrs to get there.a day ill never forget.but wish i could.after telling the story on detectingwales i was nicknamed roman( ray )

 :D  Ray give you 10/10 on that one superb mate .Nap

My belly is aching from laughing, Ray.  Brilliant. Just brilliant!  ;D

Rays story is really funny - I never tire of him telling me it.

Another one that springs to mind is I was attending a SCAN meeting and the organiser {who will remain nameless} spent 10 minutes telling us where to go and warning us about the electric fences that surrounded the farm. He repeatedly mentioned them about 3 times and then promptly went to put his wellies on and started hoping about getting his feet in. Bounced around for a bit and then lent against something to get his footing - you guessed it he leaned on the electric fence and literally jumped 6 foot into the air!

A very amusing moment for everyone - Thankfully he was okay if not a little singed!

Keep them coming guys

Neil

Telling the Mrs the cost of a decent detector. Not getting home til after dark. Bringing the field home on me boots. My missus could give you plenty but my one is similar to your little tale Neil. Had a bad afternoon last Winter near home  and by the time I got back to the car it was dark. Loaded the car and decided before I left I had to do a frontal neccassry. 30 seconds later I realised as I clawed myself of the floor ahhhh there was an electric fence there. I see the funny side of it now but boy did it hurt.  :D :D :D

I also had the supreme misfortune to cross paths with an electric fence whilst out detecting a year ago, I tried to climb through it, and all I can say is ouch  :o, was in shock for a good while and my right shoulder and calf ached for weeks after.  Something to be avoided at all costs  :P

anyone ever dug someones ashes up ? ::)

My old detecting partner dug up an Iron Age burial pot with the ashes still intact.
Went to Treasure Trove and he got a £1K.


I remember attending a house once where the occupants dug some bones in the garden. Home Office
 pathologist was called out and announced they were not human.....but a dogs!  ;D


I also got called out by a couple who found a "fetus" on their front garden lawn. On close examination it
was one of those rubber alien kids toys. I got to admit, it did look real !!  ;D

I had nearly finished handing over silver coins and other artefacts in Brecon museum to be sent down to Mark Lodwick.

When i turned to the curator (Nigel Blakemore) and showed him one more item. I said if you look at it in the light it has a curious pattern, it was about 1" long and approx 3/16ths diameter.
Nigel took it to the window and looked at it and then announced " its a TWIG ! "

I said youre joking ! He brought it over to me laughing and showed it me, it indeed was a TWIG !

What got me, was the nagging thought, what had i left in the hole ??? ;D ;D ;D

Having had a pleasant day's detecting ,I loaded my gear in the boot and drove off the field. When I got home there was good news and bad news. I had left my detector on the grass by the car, but my friend Dave had found it and phoned home.
Unfortunately I had reversed over it and it cost me £100+ for a new T2 coil !

in my very early days i found what turned out to be a fibula brooch quite a large one as i remember . looks just like an old door knocker was the consensus of opinion of us 3 total novices and off it went to the bushes were im sure it still lies , problem is theres a lot of bushes up that way  :-[ :-[ so when i started buying the searcher and spotted another fibula well the air was a bit blue to say the least .

on another occasion had what i thought was an iron / dodgy signal , i said to my mate check this its iron , im not diggin that i said he said well im gonna dig it anyway , as  i walked on a fewyards out went a yeeeeha and up came 3/4 of a henry hammered groat , dear god no i thought not me it cant be but ........... yes it was .

years later the same mate told this same story at my wedding and duly presented me with it cut into a champagne cork for luck  :D :D :D thanks for that mate

dont tell me you drunk it and got hammered right..lol..great story mike..my biggest mistake was to take nobby out with me..lol
ray.

my biggest mistake was going :o....... ;D :D :D

I was handing my old Cscope TR400 over to my brother and was going over his garden to show him how to work it. I got a long, iron sounding signal. "Don't bother digging it" I told him "it's rubbish". He dug anyway and pulled out a Second World War bayonet! So much for my "expert" advice!  :P

Mine was walking for about an hour to where I was going to detect, getting a good signal then realising I had forgot my spade  :'( haha

Out tonight and after switching on the T2, got an array of weird signals.Keep going on the line but it was still the same. Sod it, have to go home and get the trusty Explorer. Thankfully was only a few minutes from home. Set up and set off. Explorer was giving lots of weird signals too!

Wasn't near any power lines but moving about twenty feet away, the detector stabilised. Think that there must be an underground cable of some sorts which was setting the detectors off. ???

i have rushed off to the beach a couple of times and forgot my coil or batteries.thats really anoiying lol