A year in the life of DetectingWales.com
Neil:
As our first calender year as a Detecting Website is drawing to a close, I thought it would be apt to have a quick review of the past year and touch upon some of the highlights and the occasional lowlights of what has been a very eventful year.
The 15th February 2009 saw the the inaugural Detectingwales.com rally located in the Ancient Vale of Glamorgan courtesy of Altinkum. It was an absolute success and started the ball rolling on the rally front. For that we owe Altinkum a debt of thanks as he brought our Rally plans hurtling forward by several months with his kind offer of land. It was an eventful day, with a smattering of hammered and milled silver coins and a small coin shaped piece of gold than soon started us off speculating that Mickycoin may have found the Worlds first Welsh stater! No matter what the report was back from the Museum, I personally am still convinced it is a coin!
Into mid March and TaffLaff has recently joined the site full of enthusiasm and provided us the land for our 2nd Rally. The numbers were swollen for this one following a media campaign which sees Detectingwales.com securing a regular slot in Treasure Hunting magazine. We have managed to attract members to the rally from West Wales, Hereford and Bristol - all of whom make some decent finds. Ancient Pat steals the day for the first and not the last time with a 22ct gold ring. Borderfox found a fake Charles 1st Halfcrown and James 2nd aptly found a James 1st shilling amongst other silver coins.
At the end of March we ventured into Caerleon - home of the Romans and also as it turned out home of Suspect Devices! This was certainly not the most relaxing rally for myself as shortly into the day I think it was DetectorDave who informed me that a suspect device had been found. I still laugh now when I think of the alarm on the wpc voice when I rang the police station to tell them that we had found a suspected bomb. She calmly asked were there many people around the area. When I replied "Yeah, theres about 30 people leaning over the hole as we speak!" She literally screamed and yelled at me to make a 100 metre exclusion zone! To cut a long story short Newports finest came out and were shortly followed by Herefords Army Bomb Disposal Squad. The result two hours later was one industrial animal feed trough! Still it must rate as the funniest rally to date, as we virtually found bugger all apart from the trough!
Its early May and a rally that went down in the history of Detectingwales.com rallies as Hammerdfest 2009! It was our first raid over the bridge and once everyone had secured their passports, and said goodbyes to loved ones on fear of not returning, we were in the fields! At least 14 hammered coins and numerous milled coins, buckles, Roman dice, and other finds appeared. Some of the stand out finds went to Chef in the form of a virtually unmarked Groat and Ancient Pat again who had three hammered coins. Barry also found and then lost again a medieval buckle. The only other downside was the pile of Human excrement which was destined for the fields. I think it was Adie who remarked that his car had stunk for weeks later! Well gents as they say "Where theres muck, theres brass!"
Rally Number 5 and we venture to Basseleg to land supplied by Millsy. I only briefly attended this one as I had a prior engagement on an all day Stag Doo! (what a suprise ::)). Geoff supplied the report and photos with the main finds being Colegwent with a gold and diamond ring and Shungav with a hammered sixpence.
We were back over to England for Rally number 6, which became known as The Sunburnt Rally as it was officially scorchio! :P It was a strange rally as not a lot of any age came out, although Terry did managed to find a gold coloured two dollar New Zealand coin, which is where he got the Kiwi Terry name he now goes by!
Over to Blackwood for Rally number 7 supplied by Digga which became known as the Meshak Memorial Rally following the unfortunate passing away of Detectingwales member Derek who was a close friend and neighbour to Phil Ynysboeth. The first find of the day was an infamous stair rod holder which led to much amusement all round following an ongoing debate as to their purpose! More importantly Ancient Pat was at it once again with two groats and a hammered gold coin. The first hammered gold to appear on one of our rallies and may there be many more!
The summer saw our long awaited Two Day Rally Event held in the glorious Vale of Glamorgan. There were numerous highlights that included:
TaffLaff's mansion of a tent, Gazza flying in from Spain, Gazza's cooking and his cabaret (the £1.70 joke! ;D), Marks gold sovereign, Beepy's Republican Denari, Casa Dos's bee hive thimble, Numerous hammered coins, Steven Kings Bronze Age gouge, TaffLaff's Roman button ;) (he knows what I mean), oh and the repeated requests at night time to keep the laughter down! ::)
Day two of the summer event saw us all rise a bit the worse for wear from our sleeping bags and back in the fields for more of the same. The stand out find was Willowtrees spoon. Once again though we were treated to numerous other items and the largest laugh of the day must have been amongst myself, Casa Dos, Adie, Richy etc as we sat watching TaffLaff, Melonhead, Phil Ynysboeth, Borderfox and others dig the biggest hole to date seen on a Detectingwales Rally. They were at it for nearly an hour and still none the wiser as to what they were digging for!
Rally number 10 was kindly provided by OneMoreCoin and turned out to unearth the rally finds of the year which fell luckily to Steven King in the shape of two socketed Bronze Age Axe Heads. Numerous members played a part in the digging and Melonhead recorded it all for posterity in digital video. A truly great moment in our brief history as Detecting Wales.
October 4th saw a return to Caerleon and the addition of new members for as far as Northampton and Wolverhampton. We really have spread our wings since such humble beginnings. The finds of the day fell to Dennis Long with a gold and diamond ring and Earth24 who had a nice groat.
The final rally so far this year was held over the bridge again with a return to one of our previous sites, minus the human excrement now though! Not quite as successful as the first visit but that was due to the land not being available that we wanted. We still saw a smattering of hamsters though, with Benny having the coin of the day in the form of a James 1st shilling.
Apart from the finds on the rallies, we have been treated to some outstanding personal finds including Collegwent's stunning Roman Buckle, TaffLaffs Templar Ring and recently Rays Stater. Its not just the special finds though that make this site what it is. We all enjoy reading peoples accounts of their days detecting and seeing whats they have discovered.
As I touched upon earlier there have been times when it hasn't been an easy year for some of us, with a member passing away, and on another occasion a member being there for someone as they left this World. On a less serious note there was also the issue with a few ex-members that was a testing time for the DW admin team, which we have now moved on from and will not be revisiting.
I think after everything this year, the site has come out stronger than ever and this is perhaps best highlighted by the recent joining of our 500th member!
For the forthcoming year we have a few ideas in the pipeline, including a Rally location the likes of which we have never attempted before, and with any luck another two day summer event. So keep visiting the site and making it what it is.
Thanks you for your support over the past 12 months.
Neil, Geoff, Rob and the Detecting Wales team.
P.S. I'll be launching the Christmas Competition next week. Thanks go to Gazza for supplying a cracking prize. More on that later!
Neil:
More photos from the year
Neil:
The bomb!
Neil:
Still more
Neil:
Rally 7 onwards!
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