Ashenaya's Metal Detecting Blog: Best of July's Roundup..

If you are like me i'm sure that July has come and you are excitedly anticipating the start of the new season.. Roy and myself have had a few months of limited detectable ground and reliant on some of the pasture fields we have which have not yeilded many great finds, mainly due to the hot weather we have had and the ground being baked hard as concrete..

This month some of our favourite fields have just started to have the potatoes taken off which is good due to the fact that spuds predominantly have had a good deep plough to raise the humps of earth for the seeding.

So on to the finds for July..

I managed to start the proceedings off on our last day on pasture with a very unexpected find of a hammered short cross penny of King John. The coin is a Class 5c and struck at the Canterbury Mint with the moneyer being Samuel. Mass dates the class 5c range for this coin is 1207-1210. Unfortunately its has seen better days and is quite worn with a crack through the coin. We have had several visits to this field in the past and it has only produced a few copper coins of the late Georgian and early Victorian era so as you can imagine this was a welcome find.

Hammered Short Cross Penny of King John

Moneyer Samuel - Mint Canterbury

Next up was our first day back out on freshly harvested potato fields, the ground was perfect, rolled flat and very easy to dig which made things so much easier especially with the air temperature still being quite warm this time of year. Again we had been on this field a few times in the past and aside from a few obligatory musket balls and a few worn copper pennies nothing of any real substance has come from it.

James 1st Half Groat 1604-1619

Roy struck first just before our 11 o'clock coffee break calling over that he had had a find and walked over to present a small hammered silver half groat of James 1st. Again slightly worn with very little detail on it but another hammered coin now safe from the plough.

The coin is of James 1st Second Coinage which puts the date somewhere in the date range of 1604-1619

Needless to say Roy was very pleased to have got off the mark for the new season and what a great way to do it.

The next few hours saw some rain showers and a bit of ducking and diving back to the car for some food and a couple of coffees but after a few more hours and many buttons later my etrac gave me a nice low tone which proved to be a lovely little find.

18th Century Silver Jewelled Cufflink Button

A lovely silver jewelled cuff-link button with the link still attached unfortunatley the other button is missing probably causing the loss the the cuff-link from the wearer.

The button is circular with a convex back and a concave front, into which a faceted clear glass stone is set. The metal 'cup' is of composite sheet construction, with a circular-section simple looped wire shank soldered to it. The stone is retained by twelve claws, immediately below which there are circumferential grooves (possibly decorative, but also joints in the composite construction). The link is a cast type with an openwork design.

I do like a nice artifact and this put a great end to the day.

So on what looks set to be the last outing of July Roy has come up trumps again with another hammered coin from on of our potato fields. After several hours of searching Roy came over to show me a rather worn silver hammered coin, there wasnt a great deal of detail left on it but the outline of a shield was clearly visible. At first I had it down as being a sixpence from the reign of Elizabeth 1st but after close inspection and assisted by UKDFD it turned out be be a Groat of Queen Mary. What a great find especially as Mary's coinage seems the be very illusive.

Below is a picture of the coin found on the day followed by a picture of what it would have looked like in its glory..