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Detecting Wales Rally 91 – For one night only Ozzy Osbourne supported by Saxon!

A 7am start saw us heading over the bridge into glorious sunshine on fairly empty roads with the usual chit chat that accompanies a days detecting. You know the sort, tales of finds, rumours of sacred locations, club tittle tattle and the annoyance that builders feel when they are stood up. In fairness it all helped with my post rugby hangover and we seemed to reach the farm in no time at all. In fairness it was a really direct route with basically just the single turn off from the motorway.

For once we were the first to arrive and soon found a very friendly farmer who we enjoyed a bit of rugby banter with and he proceeded to tell us about the two huge silos that transformed cow and chicken (he had 30,000 of them) poop into gas. This in turn ran the farm and allowed him to sell quite a hefty bit back to the gas suppliers. All very eco friendly and to be applauded.

The clan was soon gathered and we started the introduction speech with a minutes round of applause for Rod, a regular DW Rally attendee and a really nice guy who recently passed away.

Onto the fields and today we had a mixture of wheat and barley stubble from last years crop, which was now pretty soft. This was supplemented by a field the farmer is subsidised by the government to keep green looking. It’s a bizarre arrangement to say the least. I don’t know what was on the floor of this pasture, but it certainly wasn’t grass.  

As we wandered into the fields Proconsol was chatting alongside me and commented that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Saxon here today. I thought he’s off his nut, we never see Saxon. Little did I know how the day would pan out. Into the fields and the first thing of interest I uncovered was a belt buckle from the Devonshire 3rd Volunteer Battalion that dates to 1859-1908. Its missing the centre piece and was bent in half, but I have managed to straighten it quite well. I also had a smattering of Georgian and early Victorian coinage in this area, and I know that Lady Stanley had an impacted musket ball from a similar vicinity, so it wouldn’t be too far a jump to presume target practice was the name of the game.
Further into the field I spotted a DW stalwart that is Landyman who was beaming as he had in his clutches a hammered Edward penny. Well done mate – its gone to a good home.

Some of our Czech contingent popped up a tad late due to getting lost but the one chap (who was on his last DW rally as he is moving to Scotland – good luck) had a relatively blank Lizzy penny that he later introduced to a Lizzy sixpence – a lucky send off for him. He was accompanied by another chap with a lesser spotted chaffing dish handle that speculatively dates to late medieval period. A not too dissimilar item is still in use by chefs the world over today. I spoke if something is a good design, why change it?

My hangover needed feeding and as soon as I got back to the car I was greeted by excited chatter from Da Monkey as his side kick Ozzy (in fairness he does look like him) had uncovered the first Saxon coin ever found on a DW rally! It’s a fantastic looking coin, that unfortunately has that bitter sweet element that most detecting finds have of having a small piece missing. Still a stonker of a coin though!

Ozzy knew he had found silver, but thought it was a hammered coin when he showed it to Andy and Mike. In fairness he was correct it was a hammered coin, just not of the usual variety! A great result and it led to some serious gridding of the area to no avail.

The farmers grandson joined us on the great Saxon hunt and informed me that the small copse of woodland next to it had housed a prisoner of war camp, with three of the detainees eventually marrying locally after the war and their family German name still continuing in the nearby village. He gave us permission to have a little bash in there but apart from a buckle it was too over grown to produce any real finds.

The day was creeping away from us and finds still kept turning up including a smattering of milled silver, a George III sixpence, Mike found a silver centre of a coin that to date was undetermined.

By about 4pm we were all dog tired and most of the members had headed home, so we did the same, passing Dylan en-route salvaging some old ammo boxes with the farmers permission. He’s like a local skip rat that boy! In fairness if I'd have thought of it I'd have also had a look.

We have at least three more locations in the pipeline that have been cancelled so far this year due to the inclement weather. Keep your eyes peeled as we will be announcing their dates in the near future.

Until next time, Keep The Faith

Neil

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Great write up Neil,and many thanks for putting together such a vivid and on the spot accounts of the days events.
You are to be highly commended for your efforts and dedication to task..
BRILLIANT !!👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👍

pics :)

Great report Neil and well done Ozzy on the Saxon!

It's an Aethelred II Crux penny, London mint, moneyer Eadsige.

That's quite a nicely struck saxon there.

Looks like a good day was had by all.

i,m intrigued with the dice. was it a lead one by any chance?

Thanks Neil and big up for ozzy,that's a nailer!

I think the dice was lead Alan.

great write up Neil ;)

As heading goes that's got to be the best title ever fair play brilliant,  enjoyed the day apart from Mike eating my Apple pie.  Lol

Thanks to all what a cracking rally nice to meet the members  and the farmer such a nice man

Mikes got a tendancy to eat peoples food.....he finished off my sandwiches on the christmas rally ;D

I know what you mean me and Dylan keep him in tea and coffee on all the valleys :P

thanks for the info .. most lead dice i,ve seen tend to be weighted or not as regular as one would expect. this one seems almost perfect ...... i wonder if indeed its weighted on any number?   ... it would need rolling a thousand times to get a significant probability. 

lovely find though.

cheers alun , dil and mark for your recent donations , they were delicious  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D , oh and nobbys sarnys at xmas were prity tasty 2  ;) ;) ;)

Thanks for the report sorry to miss such a great dig. Look forward to hopefully making the next one.