DetectingWales.com

Detecting Wales Rally 81 Day 2 – The Man with the Bronze Age Axe!

I don’t think I am the only one to have awoken on the morning of day two of the rally thinking “What the Hell happened last night!” It all seemed a bit of a cloudy haze, and wandering the camp at 7am I was greeted by numerous faces that looked like they had spent the weekend in Glastonbury rather than one night on a detecting rally. It’s the DW Effect!

Breakfast was being served again by our wonderful host, but I am afraid today I couldn’t face it as I was somewhat worried I may have been seeing it twice! Lashings of coffee and pain killers from the mobile pharmacy that is Mike’s caravan slowly enabled me to function and it was just as well as in convoy style cars started to turn up for the days action.

The remainder of the DW clan arrived and pretty soon we were approaching the start of another rally. Today we not only had the 600 acres from yesterday, but also a further 1400 acres from the neighbouring farmer. That’s a total of 2,000 acres or put bluntly about 3.12 square miles (I had to use a calculator for that!)

The night before we had been checking the land available, and hadn’t realised that there was a small issue regarding the River Wye getting in the way of some of the land. This was promptly pointed out by Handyman, only for Chef and I to immediately poo-poo his map reading skills. We should have known better after all these years than to doubt him. Turns out its Chef and I who can’t read maps and equally couldn’t find a piece of hay in a pile of needles! So, we lost about 200 acres but that still left 1,800 acres which I defy anyone to detect fully in a lifetime never mind one day.

So we were off into the fields heading in numerous directions many of us never to bump into each other again, as the fields really were that colossal. Before we started I managed to get a photo of Parki John’s Bronze Age Spear Head that he had uncovered the previous day and we had even married up another part of it found by another member. Its an odd looking item, but is still as sharp as a katana and may well be a miss cast item. That said though Cheffy had managed to find a comparison on PAS so it may just be a different variant to those we have previously seen.

Finds as with yesterday were appearing from numerous locations, with the nicest early find I saw being unearthed by Ancient Pat. It consisted of a Georgian hallmarked silver Huntsman badge in fantastic condition considering its been rolling round in the soil for many years. A highly collectable item and a jeweller would easily repair it.

Dylan made an interesting find of a contemporary forgery of Charles II Half Crown dated 1676. A dangerous item to have in your possession in those days, as if you were caught making them it was a death sentence, and I believe even handling them was equally seriously frowned upon in an off with head sort of style! Great find Dylan just a shame it wasn’t silver, although I understand at the end of the rally you were rewarded with a short cross penny of John. See perseverance pays off mate.

Next find of note I saw was Mike with a smattering of Georgian coppers including a cracker of George 1st and more interesting an early Medieval chatelaine. I wonder what happened to the attached implements. Here is a link to a similar one on PAS for you Mike: http://finds.org.uk/database/search/results/objecttype/chatelaine/broadperiod/EARLY+MEDIEVAL (http://finds.org.uk/database/search/results/objecttype/chatelaine/broadperiod/EARLY+MEDIEVAL)

A charity raffle was held with Minelab kindly donating one of their latest probes as the start prize. Over £220 worth of raffle tickets were purchased with Nobby winning the star prize. In fairness he had purchased a tenners worth of tickets though!

One of the final finds of the day I saw before I had to head home at 3pm was a Medieval bronze heraldic horse pendant from days of old when knights were bold, etc. You know the type that boasts a heraldic coat of arms. They are interesting finds and there is a huge market out there for collecting them. Will be interesting to see what this one looks like once it has been delicately cleaned.

By the time I got home I also understand that an early Bronze Age Flat Axe Head had been found along with more milled silver coinage, Roman grots and a couple of poorly fibulas. Hoover G also managed to suck up a mortar finn along with a silver St Christopher.

A memorable weekend of camping, detecting and laughing where along the way we managed to raise a massive £1,178.82 for a charity that’s close to Farmer Ben and his families heart. In Ben’s words “A truly fantastic weekend”.

Well done Taff Laff, Deadlock, Proconsol, Andy, Alan and the rest of the Mods for making the event run like clockwork.

As usual keep checking in at Wales’ premier detecting forum for Rally announcements and the latest detecting news. There are several more rallies scheduled for the coming months, and then of course another one of the calendar highlights that is our Annual Santa Hats Rally.

Keep The Faith

Neil

More photos

thanks Neil for a great write up and all involed who put this together, with a nice bit of money for charity a great weekend all round ;)

Many thanks DW for organising a great two day rally ! with many great finds also found by one and all.

Although I only managed Sunday it was, once again, a very memorable experience.  Your (again amazing) write up only goes to show how much I missed by not being there for the rest of the Rally. Probably a good job I wasn't, it would have taken me till the next one to recover. ::)
 What a great donation to the B'Ham Childrens Hospital. I bet Ben and his Wife were over the Moon with it. Nice to know we can enjoy ourselves  and do a little good at the same time.
Many thanks, again, to those who make the outings possible, what would we do with out you. ;D

Now I'm going to be a bit cheeky and add my find of the day (not yet confirmed)  a possible Iron Spear Head. You'd gone home by the time I came back Neil.

Val

great reports as usual neil , and well done to all the organisers and a huge thanks to ben and his wife for a truly memorable weekend and to all dw members who made it such a success .

I got to mention one very keen newbie to dw rallies MIDASTOUCH ( IAN ) . who caught a train from Penarth to Gloucester , a bus to ross - on- wye and finally a taxi to the farm  :o :o :o :o , now that's keen , well done ian it ws a pleasure to meet you mate

Cracking finds  Well done to all

And all that just to fall over on the night  ;D
Geoff

Great report for a great weekend ;)
This is GiJans coin 1849 10 cents of King WILLEM II KONING of the Netherlands and how it once looked.

great dig once again guys enjoyo.....i only rubbed the soil gently off my garrett find and SNAP......gutted.....anyway fab read on it cheff geoff  ,thank u ever so much for the id and the pic...ur a star..x

Great repoprt and great finds.

The dating of the chatelaine is contentious, see here for the UKDFD view:

http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=30171&title=chatelaine&cat=261 (http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ukdfddata/showrecords.php?product=30171&title=chatelaine&cat=261)

While I agree that there's no absolute certainty on these the argument put forward for a later dating is a bit weak to say the least ??? The later example shown is silver has a different arrangement of hole, 4 not 3, and is a different shape, the same argument could be made for a pair of Roman tweezers actually coming from Boots the chemist in the 1940's :-\

Well done Neil on yet another excellent report. if only people knew how much effort went into writing the report, resizing the piccies and then posting it up, not to mention giving up a lot of detecting time to take the pics of others fonds!

as for the map reading skills, my fees are cheap!!  ;D ;D 

Another great report Neil , but now you've got me worried. You said that even handling the Charles 11 forgery could mean losing your
head.
QUESTION.... 1  Is this law still in existence ?
                        2  If it Is and my head is removed, how will I be able to drink my beer ?

1. yes

2. you won't!   ;D ;D

Now Alan you've really got me worried with the answer to question 2 ???

The actual crime came under law for high treason for which the sentence for men was to be Hung, Drawn and Quartered...............................but don't panic I think I can get you off the Quatering ;D

...and i can get you off the hunging!!  ;D ;D ;D

..so all you need now is picasso for the drawing!!

Phew thanks both, I knew I could rely on you  ;D ;D

Sounds every bit as good as Handyman told me - naturally, I believe everything he tells me!
One day I hope to get to an event like this. :)
davidt.

Right back at you buddy  :) Didn't want to miss this two-dayer for anything - my very first rally too. On Friday night, I said that I would just be happy with one interesting find. Well, I found a Jetton, a child's thimble, two buttons and a couple of old pennies so I was very pleased. Even better, I got to meet some great folks and thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Ben and his family. The views were also spectacular - even if we were denied the chance to see the Northern Lights on the Friday. My neck was crooked and my legs ached on Monday and Tuesday, but the fall I performed on Saturday night bore no lasting damage. I was obviously too relaxed with the amount of Cider, Beer, Vodka and Strange Mushroom Brew consumed  ??? ;D

Great write up of the two days Neil - it would be fantastic to go back there next year if possible.

HI All,

Just a message from the Taylor-Davies family (Farm owner) thank you for the kind words, the excellent report writing, but most of all for taking the time to come and show us your finds with enthusiasm and explaining to us what each and every one was - thanks also to the guys that let us have the various finds for us to frame and hang on the wall in the farm house as a memento of what had been dropped or mislaid on the farm over many thousands of years. A massive thank you to Alun who took our youngest daughter Erin out for a few hours detecting on the Saturday evening which she absolutely loved and funnily enough have been out every evening since! and now she has turned off the iron we have found various buttons, coins and bronze bits and bobs. It was a great weekend and we are so thrilled that you all dug deep for 'Birmingham children's hospital' who about 2 years ago saved our boys life - for which we will be eternally grateful - Jobe has his own fellowship in the hospital where they treat serious head and brain injuries and continue to research children's brain injuries, so thanks so much for that. Of course if you ever fancy another rally - you know where we are and we would love to see you all again.

It was a pleasure Ben to meet your family and your good-self and all for a worthy cause.

Beautiful scenery, cracking breakfast and the evening entertainment and food, it was also one of the best rallies I have ever had the pleasure to attend. ( I really could get used to it!)

The various finds that we donated to you was the least we could do and will hopefully be a talking point in years to come on the history of your farm.

Kind regards..........Doug and the DW team.

great write up , enjoyed the 2 dayer ..will be staying away from homemade blackberry vodka  ;D.
fantastic fun ,enjoyed the quiz and bbq .and a great sum raised for charity.below some pics i took sorry for delay first time i have been in front of pc( please can we sort something out to be able to upload pics straight from mobiles)

cracking write up neil again , i like the ninja throwing star 3rd picture from the bottom :D :D

That was the spur rowel that I found in the orchard which I donated to Ben's wife.