DetectingWales.com

We normally try to avoid parking in muddy fields but we didn’t have a lot of choice at this rally. The very friendly farmer had assured us that if anyone did get stuck in the mud he would come to their rescue with his tractor but luckily his help was not required and everyone managed to get in and out of the parking field although some did need a bit of a push to get them through the stickiest bits.

We had been to this farm before and it had provided a successful and productive rally so we were in high hopes that a return visit - with a lot of the land having been ploughed in between – would produce even more interesting finds.

The land available was a mixture of not too stiff stubble and pasture. There were a few cows in one of the fields but they kept themselves to themselves and they didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them.

After the usual brief meeting to let everyone know where they could and couldn’t detect everyone spread out over the fields and the finds soon started to appear. Surprisingly the first interesting find went to Tafflaff (Rob) who had found the land for us and flouted the apparently unwritten rule that people who organize rallies hardly ever make decent finds themselves.

Rob came up with a nice thistle penny of James Ist. This was in nice condition and had been tokenised. This was followed a few minutes later by Mike who found a large bronze pin with a design at the top that looked a bit like a lion’s paw. Various theories were proposed as to how old it was. Some people were of the opinion that it was Roman. No doubt we shall find out in due course.

Jtalbot0001 was next to come up with a hammered although rolled up. John tells me that he intends to use it as an experimental coin to try out his coin flattening techniques as he has a fair few coins that need flattening.

Our three Czech members who came to the first rally we held on this farm and found a gold coin had another successful day, coming up with a tiny Lizzy silver halfpenny (surface find), a cut half and a really interesting flat, bronze, double-sided figure of a man’s head and torso which looks medieval or earlier in date.

Late in the day Tezza revealed that he’d found a complete Tudor pin in good condition. This was bent in half but Rob assures me that this was not an accidental bend; they were made like that.

The rally ended at 4pm to allow time for vehicles to be extracted from the mud whilst it was still light but happily everyone managed to get out of the field without too much drama, albeit taking half the field away with us on our boots and tyres…

Geoff

Great report Geoff - gutted I missed the Rally, but not the mud!

Rob is correct that the Tudor hair pin is supposed to have that bend so that it could be worn on display at the front of a ladys hair - like Queenie in Black AdderII.

The man's head and torso is very interesting and I am at a loss date wise (Anglo Saxon anyone?). Be great to hear what it turns out to be.

Well done everyone.

Cheers
Neil

Order of the Garter Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense

z

Enjoyed a few hours detecting apart from parking in a muddy field as you said. Found a few worn Victoria coins and a few buttons. Thank you D W.

BM your button is from the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars and the item in your second pick could be a sword hanger? ;)

Looks like some really interesting finds and a great day.
I like the cock fighting spur (pic 4&5) I found a plain, undecorated one several years ago and was contacted by a collector who saw it online and offered me £70 for it, which I declined as I don't like to sell my finds.
I'm also intrigued by the head and torso figure.
Worth braving the mud for.

Thank Geoff ;)

here is my best find from sunday i did not pay it any attention until i cleaned off the mud as we packed up i showed it to steven k and he identified it and the doc who was passing agreed im takeing it to the find of the month at rare on wednesday with my detecting mate pulltab paul and will hopefully get it dated    

Wow Mark I think you might have stolen find of the rally with that one :o At first I thought "La Tene III all the way" but looking at that spring I'm now thinking earlier, It could add weight to Mikes pin being closer to Bronze Age and also throw wide open the age on that figure :-\

Well ignore the above :D It's a middle Anglo-Saxon lozengiform brooch 700-900 AD and still the find of the rally for me and still leaves the pin and face wide open ;)

Well done to all the finders....... The face item is a bracket from a copper alloy chafing dish post medieval :)

What do you know Dale!   Well actually a lot by the looks of it  ;D

Damn good call that man!

http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/577117 (http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/577117)

Yes great id Dale ;)

Cheers, I haven't long came across that one I had to scratch my head to remember tho, the item I found awhile back and Danny (Monkeymad) is also off a chafing dish.

That's a great ID on the chafing dish item, you learn something new every day! I really thought it looked older. Is there a picture anywhere of a complete chafing dish? I just want to understand the purpose of the face part being able to swivel. Is the face part meant to be the leg or foot part of the dish? Can't figure out what a chafing dish looks like. What would it have been used for?

Swivelling support from a copper alloy chafing dish. The find consists of two elements, an incomplete bar, topped by a grotesque man's head shown in profile, he has a large nose, thick lips and a wide trapezoid eyes, these details being shown by deeply incised lines. A beard may be suggested, but there is no hair, the head perhaps being covered by a cap. The bar curves away to form rounded shoulders below which it is broken. The other element is a straight, bifurcated, tuning fork like, bar, the first part being secured between the arms by a rivet which passes through both parts. It too is truncated. Supports like this were used in sets of three on chafing dishes, the part bearing the head being riveted to the dish to form legs and the other part being free to swivel over the top of the dish to support the plate. These supports are discussed by Gordon Bailey (Detector Finds 4. 58-9) with illustrations of their use. A date in the sixteenth or seventeenth century is likely.

Anyone got a copy of this book ?

yes taff, looking at it now

Well researched chaps. Heres another image of a similar item.

Great to see that we are all still learning on the finds identification front.

It's a great find Mark and well-spotted on that ID Geoff. I thought it was 100% La Tene when I saw it, and I wasn't aware that there were Saxon brooches in this one-piece form. The write-up of another on the PAS site is interesting:

Naomi Payne is currently reporting on some examples recently excavated at Sedgeford in Norfolk. She notes "Middle Anglo-Saxon safety-pin brooches appear to be a type found mainly in the east of England. Hattatt published two examples (Visual Catalogue, fig. 140, nos. 1442 and 1385) from Norfolk but misattributed them to the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Excavations at Flixborough, Humberside, have produced nine, eight of which are similar and one almost identical. There is another parallel from Brandon, Suffolk (no. 5007). A further example from Gringley on the Hill, Nottinghamshire has been recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database (reference SWYOR-B804D7)." Further examples on the PAS database now include GLO-8D5E03, SF7054, KENT1321 (no illustration) and NLM7136 (no illustration). Two have characteristic 8th-century animal art (HAMP-CEBED7 and NMS-829627). See also K. Leahy, The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Lindsey, page 146, Fig 52

I hope I am excused therefore, as Hattatt himself got it wrong!

We will let you off on this occasion Peter, but try not to make a habit of it! ;)

Cheers
Neil

i love it. well identified everyone concerned,a right bunch of sleuths. :o

Tut tut Peter  ;D ;D