DetectingWales.com

following a very early start and an ilicate meeting with a dodgy geezer in a dark layby  8) 8) off we went to the fabled weekend wanderers big dig  :-\ :-\

9am the hooter sounded and myself, nobby and leighton set off along with another 1000 eager detectorists a grot soon appeared along with the nice pin part and a few bits and bobs , oh did i mention the 41 buttons as well  :o :o :o

spoke to  afew people and the theme seemed to be buttons and bullets all over , there were hammered and roman found along with talk of a noble and several celtic  :D :D :D

off to the digs and a nice hot shower and a very good meal in front of a lovely log fire ( b#'@*&ks to the camping ) and off too a nice warm bed after a bevvy or 2 .

sunday morning and yet more buttons then thankfully it poured with rain so we headed home , never to return   >:( >:(

we did have a laugh and all in all a fun weekend with good company , im just a bit worried that the cctv on the layby dont recognise me and track me down  :o :o :o

What a waste of time and money never again stick with dw lol  :'(

£50 an i would have found more in my back yard!! i must have dug 20-30 butttons!! what a joke never again will i go to a ww rally every body i spoke to had just found buttons!!

Shaun will be on in a minute telling you how many buttons he found!! >:(

The talk of the noble that was found Saturday i would take with a pinch of salt,as the bloke who found it also found one on Friday  ???

Only decent find that i seen was a quarter gold stater

I found around 100 buttons over 3 days

I gave up today as soon as the rain came

Expensive weekend and very dissapointing,the only good thing about it was my B&B and having a cooked breakfast

I put the following report up on another known forum but I am pasting it here for those interested.
Will I attend another WW event ? well my report suggests I will but.... -  
on this occasion field conditions were the poorest I have experienced and finds were few considering the number there.
The area had history - King Alfred, The Ridgeway, ancient sites nearby - but this is never a guarantee the finds will be thick on the ground. Unfortunately for those attending and for the organisers it just 'didnt happen' and no good people moaning after the event. Many of us go on 'club digs' and virgin land not knowing what will be found - rallies should be seen as no different. However many go for social reasons and, as the Irish say - 'for the craic' - and many will take away fond memories of making new acquaintances and many will return for this reason alone. I thought the WW team were organisationally brilliant and ever friendly !
And my er... report..(I should add that I only attended on the Saturday).
I have no idea what was found Sunday o.k. ... so hopefully for those braving the rain...more came up today....

Just a short report and a few pics via link below
Could only attend today so a very early start saw me arriving bang on 8. Excellent signposting and postcode spot on for satnav.
As I entered the camp I was greeted by several peeps in medieval gear. Nice touch WW.
The guy with the axe in his head also looked like he'd been on the beer the night before ::g
The ladies gave me a information sheet and a couple of tags to wear (one for detector and one for the wrist) and I was in and parked up within minutes. Very efficient organising all round WW ! Its what we have come to expect from you over the years ! ::g
A quick gander around the marquees/traders/cawfee wagon to renew acquaintances and before I knew it ... 9 am was looming.
I jumped on one of the waiting taxis (converted cattle waggon?) and off a load of us went to a drop off point. Wasnt sure where we were heading in truth but I figured it had to beat a long walk.
As it turned out we were dropped off next to 'field 9'. Many lined up waiting for the hooter but a few of us decided to yomp it over to field 8 in the distance. Hell these fields were big and field 8 was the furthest away !
As we arrived the hooter went and detecting began in earnest.
I started off well with a "His halfpenny' token and a couple of nice buckles - I should have stayed there because, apart from a reasonable Roman bronze in the middle of field 9, it was downhill after that :(
However news of finds started to filter through and I was 'told' that a Henry VIII groat had turned up on the only field I failed to go on (field 7) and a few other hammies had also surfaced.
Also a gold 'knight' (?) from a ring (?) turned up - but I never saw this
The fields were in various states of stubble or just scuffed up - but I found it very demanding and perhaps, unfairly, I was expecting one or some of the fields to have been rolled/pressed. Maybe the late removal of crops due to the wet summer was a big factor or maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I shouldnt have done that 10 mile sponsored charity walk the day before !
Either way I was cream crackered by 3 pm and so I sloped back to the marquee area to see what had turned up on the FLO tables. Pics of these on link below - but always difficult to take a good pic of items under glass (my excuse and I'm sticking with it :D )
In my eyes the best find appeared to be a cracking little Vale of Pewsey quarter stater (ticket no 46). I take my hat off to whoever found this because this really is a very small target. ! Excellent detecting sir/madam ! I'm sure many other good finds will have trickled in later so I am sure we would all love to hear of them here.
Apologies for quality of some pics but I hope they convey the atmosphere - see if you can spot yourself !
I loved every minute of it ! Great weather, stunning scenery and great company as always.
And.. I hope those staying on are not interruped by a dodgy weather forecast tomorrow ! All being well the morning will stay dry
Heres to next year and doing a 3 dayer ! ::g

And the pics...
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zb6oo00unrxkqld/R17vTVYuMx/Weekend%20Wanderers%202012%20Letcombe%20Bassett%20pics (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zb6oo00unrxkqld/R17vTVYuMx/Weekend%20Wanderers%202012%20Letcombe%20Bassett%20pics)
(this replaces link that did not work earlier...)
Cheers !
John
 

I did the Weekend Wanderers for the 3 days and survived the -2 temperature on Friday night, although my ears fell off during the night with frost bite, but I wear headphones most the time so no one will notice. I Met a few old friends in the bar during the evening and I must say the  band was excellent on  Saturday night, although on Friday night the legs were better.
We had the usual morons, who thought it was great laugh to push all the loos over on their sides, late Saturday night, Oh well these rallies like to trawl the dregs of society, one wonders why they can’t find any land to detect.
I now pride myself in having one of the largest collection of fly buttons in the country and if  Levi’s would like to contact me, I’m sure we could come to some arrangement. The bullets weren’t bad either,  so I estimate out of the 700 people camping and day trippers which took the figure closer to 1200 per day, we now have enough buttons to  supply to a third world nation for the next 20 years. I do enjoy detecting firing ranges, 303 are such a joy to find, they give a cracking signal.

Can’t wait for next year!

i went to our MLO bedford dig that was a bit poor for finds compared to last years find i found one of 3 saxon pennies (the best one) also had 2 roman brooches and a few roman coins,buckles,thimbles other coins and other stuff did see 2 Q staters,3 saxon pennies,lots of hammered lots of brooches a beautiful silver seal,then headed to WW found a roman brooch,couple of coins,buckles and on the big field sunday found a full Vassica seal, but i agree the noble was a fake one and even the stater was bought in to get valued but roumors spread it was found at the rally and we also heard there was saxon pannies found which turned out was mine from bedford, i got it valued and the dealer told people they were found at Wonderers.i wont be going back for sure :)

Talked to the chap that found the quarter stater as i was leaving today,he has only had his Deus 3 months

It was a genuine find he found it just a few hundred yards away from were he had camped.

But apart from that it was a poor rally for finds,unless you collect buttons of course

I'm contemplating doing a big rally myself, when I heard how much they made after expenses. :-\ At least I have productive sites.

good report stubble hunter -- looks like over 550 finds were recorded by the time you took the picture on Saturday.
i would say that was pretty good going.

You'll never make a detective Alan lol
That's the old two raffle ticket book shuffle  ;D we have numbers 1-119 with the ref number below the main number and then numbers 502-552 from another book with the reference numbers above. so 170 ish, not quite so go for 1200 and a 1000 acres, in fact that's only 3 more than I recorded last year of a lot less land :-\

All was not lost as I met a lot of old friends and made a few new ones.

The Sun came out for our day which was the Saturday and being walking wounded, I stuck to a very small area about 50 yards square having used the tractor and trailer transport to field number 6.

In that small area I saw 3 roman coins, a thimble,tudor cloak clasp buttons and buckles etc come out.

Having done some homework before the trip I was fully aware that we were going into a hit and miss area as any recorded sites fell outside the fields open to us.

It was a fun day, but unlikely to be a serious one for our group of friends.

The chips and Guinness went down well but as mentioned some toilets were a bit of a problem or perhaps I should have said a small few who used them were born with their Arse holes in the back of their necks.

We will go again given the chance. ;)  Jerry.

llanelli club members also done the 3 days, between us we managed  buttons, 15 roman coins poor condition few more buttons  pin head, 2 verynice lead tokens, buttons decorated pin head, couple of buckles, horse hame?? seal, buttons and a few georges 11, no hammered, 2 trips to local pub in wantage what more could you ask for, great weekend  mickycoin ;D ;D

Looks Like a mixed bag of reports some good some bad. I'd put it down to personal expectations of not just only rallies but Metal detecting in general. It's a hobby and past time or is it a glory hunt  ??? .
I love to go out and enjoy the day. If I find something that's a bonus if not oh well happy to enjoy the country side views and all its nature.  

I'd  loved to have gone but was busy the weekend


Enjoy
TF

Come on lads you cant pick an area full of gold and silver for a rally lol...This area was not detected on previously ,as i was talking to guys connected with the farm in local pub who said it was out of bounds to local detectorists..Weekend Wanders by standards have picked some great sites in the past ,not far from this site and their running of the rally was a credit..Those -----holes who pushed the toilets over are a disgrace to this wonderful hobby...I met many new and old friends and two novices who had found their first Roman coins....Saw many pictures on cell phones of wonderfull finds from Isle of Wight,Midlands,Oxford,London...Met Dutch,German,American and Australians detectorists who were a pleasure to meet...Met old friends Slow & Low and Gordon Heritage ..Gary Bruhn was doing his usual detecting movies ...On hoard hunters lol........Was in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford yesterday seeing wonderful finds made by local detectorists ...whow and of course the wonderful Alfred Jewel.....I got a Edward 1 hammered,but found many jewels ......called detectorists lol...It was pleasure meeting you all ..Thank you all ROB ;D ;D ;D

Well said mate  ;) It's a Hobby and past time and a great place to meet others. Glory hunters need to stay away and stop moaning. Enjoy the day have fun After all it's a "Hobby" Rant over !!! :o
TF ;)

The penny will drop one day mate and you are right its not about finding hammered and Roman..

what i cant work out is where all those buttons came from , we all find buttons all the time , most of the ones i found didnt look that old , i found 40+ in a day and 2 hrs sunday morning , relichunter had 100 in 3 days  :o :o :o , avalon has the new franchise with levi on his new collection , everyone i spoke too was the same dozens of buttons .

1200 people probably found literally 1000,s of the little buggers .

so were where all the other artifacts / coins  :-\ :-\ :-\

surely with that ammount of obvious footfall throughout the whole area other loses must have been very considerable ,

i had 1 vicky penny , just doesnt add up sorry .

the finds certainly didn t ring true........however my weekend usually revolves around me spending shopping time (and  money) on the misses and entertaining my daughter to the point of collapse!!.......i dont care how many buttons where allegedly sown into the ground, it beats Dorothy Perkins ;D

What? £50 just to meet people? I think your both in denial lol

i attended this rally on fri and sat and had i known it was a rally only to meet people i would of kept my £58 in my pocket. rob i'm suprised you had any time to detect at all with meeting all those people and going to the museum it must have been a whirlwind weekend for you.  ferret if the organisers of the weekend wanderers rally did'nt use words like roman villa/saxon battle/medieval in advertising these events then the glory hunters would gladly stay away

Just paid £55 this weekend gone to get away from people Chef ;D Nope Its a hobby for me just like fishing (fished for over 35 years and hated matches) Not saying I didn't attend just done the social "match or 2" and raised a few £ on the way.. Like I said It's a hobby and past time when it becomes a "Chore it's a Bore"  ;)
Happy hunting
TF

it just dawned on me , how could i not realise , the big heavy parcel i delivered was full of buttons ready for next years weekend wanderers big dig  ::) ::) ::)

..............................smart move chef , you could make a fortune there mate    'CHEFBUTTONS ' :D :D :D

God bless you Mike, we only took our clothes off for a bit of  how’s your father, ;) and they ploughed our clothes right into the field they did!

Could we av’e our buttons back please!

So very true LM But Look at most rallys the ALL use these words for one reason or an other!!

It don't mean that you will FIND any  "roman villa/saxon battle/medieva" artifacts but have a CHANCE... With this being a CHANCE HOBBY VOTE with your feet and not your mouth (not directed at you btw) But in general we have ALL had a "duff" dig well its not Duff just DOWN ON LUCK and you didn't walk over it on the day.
rant over (sorry)
TF

this was my high light of the w/w..bumping into these 2 headers..hope you took some nice buttons home guys.

they both had a roman coin each infact  kev had 2  out of interest plus the buttons of course mickycoin ;D ;D

Expensive week end for me

£55 for my week end ticket

£90 bed and breakfast for two nights

£25 petrol

I am no glory hunter,but i do expect a few coins over 3 days hard detecting

you could have all attended the dw rally on sunday for quarter of the price and found more  :D :D and met up with fellow detectorists :) ....it's a gamble though aint it , nobody knows whats hidden under those fields that would make the hobby to easy  ;)

At least I came back with a profit after I sold two coins to one of the dealers ;D

oh there were plenty of profits made that weekend steve  :D :D :D

paid £130 for me treerat & babyrat  we walked for two and a half hours NOT A DIG ,
 >:( but we did bump into roman ray , so not all bad , sunday was same ,if bullets were staters id,e be a happy ox ,we were in the car and on our way home by 11. ???
will stick to detecting wales rallys in future lol. ;D

Went for the 3 days...Many bullets and buttons a silver sixpence and a ring of little age. Nearly got divorced in the process and froze to death on friday night. Besides all that enjoyed the weekend and will be going again. As everyone knows you can never know what is going to be there and have always had a great time at weekend wanderers rally's,

ray why is the good looking one always in the middle of the photo  ;D ;D ;D ;D,how did you get out through all the mud on sunday hope all your finds were good,all the best.viv

Been in denial for years mate and spent many thousands in denial lol ;D

Many differing views on the Rally and each to their own. I think it is now expected to represent more of a social event than a gaurenteed detecting utopia. I learnt back in 2008 it was not for me and will not be attending again. I choose last Thursday and Friday out at two of my own sites, both very succesful for differing reasons and had a day at the footy saturday and enjoyed the motocross Sunday a win, win all round for me and spent no where near fifty Quid. You wanna go, you go, just don,t run it down if you find nothing as you could say the same about any rally any where. You know next time.

Well said mate ...everybody to there own and my surname is Farrer ...Where is Farrar RD as a matter of interest ?lol

I always try and hold rallies on productive  area’s,  and I feel gutted if no- one turns up hammered or Roman on a dig. On average 6-7 hammered usually turn up with a dig  of 20 people. So the WW bash had  about  1200 people per day on the Saturday and Sunday so they should have turned up 840 hammered over the 2 days, which sadly was not the case.

I think the Wiltshire downs are a bit hit and miss, a lot of land but very little habitation. :-[

hi avalon, i think you have hit the nail on the head regarding, amount of land and what was actually inhabited, i think its common knowledge now that fields 6 and 11 produced the better finds they were the 2 closest fields to esstablished inhabited areas, were people  lived and worked and actually lost things to be found at a later date, my view only mickycoin ;D ;D

If the WW want to hold another button rally, I have a fresh supply for them ; D

now thats a large pile of buttons steve  :D :D

is that fridays finds or saturdays  :o :o :o

Blimey Steve, you must have muscles like 'Garth' to dig that lot.

I have several hundred field I'm currently researching and the same runs true as far as I can make out so far about fields closer the habitation
being the more productive. I think we all get confused with what we 'see' currently and how the landscape was back in history. There was so much more
scrubland, forest and flooded estuaries back then that's possibly arable land now.

Hi Mike, I think they must have popped off my jeans on Friday night, when I saw the singers legs  :D :D :D

' they dont look happy , maybe we should offer them a refund ' ,  :o :o :o

probably the same guys who pushed the toilets over  :-\ :-\

The button moon rally was held on the Oxfordshire downs Steve

Most of the Wiltshire downs are either MOD schedule 1 land or crown estate, so no one really knows what's up there

You really know how to down a man Shaun :D

I think part of the Wiltshire downs, Marlbrough side, runs through to Hungerford and Oxfordshire.

Looks like you found more buttons than i did, and i had 100 over 3 days,must have been a very busy area so i wonder were all the coins were?  

The south end of the high street Rob. The club moved to a brand new stadium earlier this year at Nantporth just out of town.

Sinclair and i from Scotland detected field 3 on the friday and i found a vale of pewsey gold quarter stater,4 roman grots,a roman brooch and a nice lead token.On Saturday i found a nice Edward farthing another 5 roman grots,2 rose farthings and medieval jetton.Sinclair just couldn't find anything of interest at all at this time apart from the multitude of buttons and bullets we were both getting.We then met a couple of freindly D.W members,G.I Jane and rolling stone i think there avatars where and G.I.Jane gave sinclair a small wales badge which he placed in his empty finds tin for the next day as we were done for the day.On the Sunday Sinclair found a nice wee cut half of John to end his hammy drought so thank you G.I.Jane for the good luck charm. ;D ;D.Here's a couple of pics of the Celtic. :)

Getting confused here  ???

I was talking to the chap that found the gold quarter stater as i was leaving on Sunday was that you ?

You told me that you had only had your Deus a few months and you found the quarter stater,and a bullhead sixpence late Friday afternoon when everyone else had gone over the area

You never mentioned all these other finds,seems you had an excellent weekend when all those around you were only finding buttons and bullets.

There was a suggestion from another member on this thread that you dident find the quarter stater at the rally and you simply brought it with you to get it valued,well at least you can now put them right on this

Well done on your finds 

i along with at least 100+ detectorists detected field 3 for most of the day on friday and everyone i spoke to had only found buttons/bullets or lead so well done on your finds and just goes to show what get's missed ;)

............says the guy who's button count has gone from 100 to 200 in just a few days  ::) ::) ::)

I was not the person doubting the mans gold quarter stater was found at the rally,in fact I congratulated him when  i spoke to him Sunday

The 200 buttons was a typing error it should have read 100 not that it is anything to brag about

A lot of detecting and digging  ;D

Herbie was with me most of Saturday and can confirm i had at least 30 - 40 before he left

The typing error has now been put right,thank you for bringing it to my attention Mike

Hi relichunting,could there possibly have been 2 found?I do not possess a Deus,I sold mine three months ago and didn't find a bully.I found the coin with my trusty E Trac,half the field heard me when i found it and came over to congratulate me.We weren't camped there but where staying in my caravan at Bedford and travelling everyday to the site.We didn't talk to anybody on the Sunday that i can recall as we just dumped of our wet stuff and headed for home about an hour after the rains started as we were a bit scared of getting stuck in the mud lol.We were in a blue astra with a top box on.As for bringing it to get it valued,we do not get anything like that in Scotland.It was number 46 in the finds cabinet at the flos stand.If you google vale of pewsey gold quarter stater on the internet a weekend wanderers 2012 report by the moderator of uk and european metal detecting forum with many nice pics of the rally and also a couple of pics of my find in the finds display cabinet.Hope this clears up any issues. :)

I don't doubt you at all Stewart in fact it was another member on this thread that suggested you brought it with you to get it valued  ::)

Pewsey staters are local to that area

As I was  leaving on Sunday, this guy with a Deus told me he had found a quarter stater plus a bulls head sixpence late on Friday afternoon in field 3, he did not sound Scottish though

He even went on to say that it had been displayed in the finds tent,now I only seen one on display all weekend and that was number 46

Probably a attention seeker

I also heard a guy found a gold hammered on Friday,and then on the Saturday the same guy had found another

Lots of stories go on at rallies of this and that been found, I do not believe half of them

Have talked to the organisers of rally  about the toilets and it was a problem when cleaners and an inexperience employee lifting the loos on to a truck ..not vandalism and i apologise for my earlier remarks  ::)

That part of Oxfordshire is full of bullets or cases, many seasoned detectorists would have advised that before you went,but with saying that I've seen many fantastic finds from the WW rallies I've attended.
At least they don't seed the land with Roman grots, as other Rally Organisers do.
I've also done many day's detecting around the Wantage / West Challow area,I've alway's come away with hammered and Roman coinage.
I prefer to detect for 8 hours in Oxfordshire that 40 hours in North Wales.
Roll on next year.