DetectingWales.com Rally 54 - The heatwave, hammered, and hotspot rally

[proconsul]

A bright, sunny Sunday morning saw DW’s band of detectorists once again gather for another rally in Gileston. We’d been to this farm before and we knew it was quality detecting land. Attending members were given a short, unexpected tour of the farm as a slight misunderstanding of the farmers instructions meant that once we’d all parked up we all had to move in convoy to the neighbouring field. This only took a couple of minutes however so no great inconvenience was caused.

The assembled troops were, as usual, given a pre-rally pep talk to let them know where they could and couldn’t go and Rob directed people to the fields we found to be most productive last year. Our previous rally on this farm produced more than 30 hammered coins so we were expecting some good results on this occasion as well.

We knew of a Roman hotspot on one of the fields that we had not been able to get onto last time. Rob pointed this out as well as the field that produced most hammered coins last time. Then the members were let loose and dispersed across the farm to start detecting.

One group of detectorists headed for the expected best hammered field and another group made straight for the anticipated Roman hotspot.

Within a few minutes the hammered field produced the first results, a broken Elizabethan hammered from Nick and a hallmarked ring from Davtec which may be white gold or possibly platinum.

 Meanwhile, down at the Roman field, the people who had made this choice had established that there was, indeed, a Roman hotspot on the field and Roman coins started to pop-up left, right and centre.

Most of the Roman coins on this field  were confined to a pretty small area and this area soon became pockmarked with holes.

This small area was pretty intensively detected throughout the morning and well into the afternoon and despite all this attention Roman coins were still being pulled from the soil well into the afternoon. Jeff C, for example, found a really nice example at three o’clock in the afternoon right next to a whole that somebody else had dug earlier. It just goes to show that even when you think you’ve detected an area to death finds have probably still been left in the soil.

Napoleon, despite having to work until 3am, managed to drag himself to the rally and was rewarded by a rather nice, large Roman coin in good condition.

King of the Romans was undoubtedly Richard 16 DD, who concentrated for hours on a tiny area no larger than 20 ft square and found nine bronze Roman coins and a silver denarius. Willow tree added to the denarius count later in the day with a nice example of his own. He also managed an interesting fob seal although this was not Roman.

Wayne found a very interesting example of a Roman coin with an unusual design upon it which some people have suggested maybe a Roman brothel token.

Meanwhile, the hammered total was rapidly rising with nice examples found by Bobkoi and Davtec, amongst others. IFINDNOTHING as usual confounded his name by finding something nice - a medieval hammered jetton.
We were joined at lunchtime by FLO Rowena who kindly identified our finds and recorded the more important ones.

We anticipated that the stubble may have made life a little difficult for detecting so instead of opening half the farm for this particular rally and keeping the other half for a second we decided to open the whole farm and return in a couple of weeks when the stubble fields have been disced. Undoubtedly these fields have a whole lot more to give once we can get our detectors down close to the surface.

The weather stayed nice for us all day and with the usual good company this was a really pleasant and productive rally and I for one can’t wait for part two in a couple of weeks time.

We were unable to get around to photograph all the nice finds that came up so please feel free to append your own pics of your finds to this report.

Geoff

[proconsul]

More pics...

[proconsul]

More pics...

[Da Monkey]

Cracking finds, well done to all - Damn I missed it    

Looking forward to the 23rd   See you all there...

[jaydogg]

A fine write-up Geoff. Also Mark found a medieval groat which I'm sure he will post pictures of. Well done to all those who made good finds.  

[Nick]

Thanks to all concerned for a great day out, Saw some fantastic finds, well done to you all.
Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen a Roman earring.

[crashland]

Lovely weather, great bit of land and nice to see some old friends again. Smashing finds. Well done to all and thanks to DW for another great rally.
Rob

[Zeus (Joel)]

Looks like some Fab finds were found. Well done to everyone andd see you on the next dig after the 23rd 

[JRD]

Wow looks like I missed a good one!

Hope you left some for our return visit 

[Neil]

Great report and photos Geoff - looks like I am out of a job!

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that.

Well done everyone

Neil

[Pipster]

Super report Geoff, Enjoyed that  Well done to you all on some great finds ... Can't wait to get this cast off !!!
and join in the action ....

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

Thanks to all concerned for a great day out, Saw some fantastic finds, well done to you all.
Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen a Roman earring.

Not confirmed as roman earring, thats my file naming. The FLO confirmed it as a earring, and it came from the Roman Hotspot... We shall see.

[Da Monkey]

Are you sure it's not a Roman body piercing ? I'm sure they'd have tried it if they'd thought of it...  

[gijan]

congrates 2u all,some fab finds,,gi.jan x rollingstones.....

[beachboy (viv)]

another great report Geoff and photo's ,the Fields showed up another big variety off things and the next one will do the same well done everybody.Viv