METAL DETECTING - DAY AND NIGHT

Very quick hunt in the fields behind my house. I've got approximately two hours so I'm gonna have a quick go around on pasture. If I don't get much there I'm gonna go over the road into the stubble field and give that a quick bash. I have found bits and bobs all around the place but to be honest although it's a beautiful day and I'm just glad to be out I'm not expecting to find much at all because this is land that I've really bashed pretty hard. I'm going with 18 by 15 coil. I want to get as deep as possible on this pasture, because it has been done years before, by people with other detectors. They won't have been going as far down. I want to get way down, find some good stuff, hopefully. Ah, I was reading roughly 1246, jumping around a little bit, but it looks like a spindle whorl. Yeah it is. Doesn't appear to have any detail on it, but a lead spindle whorl. I'm not five feet from the spindle whorl, got a lovely big musket ball. Looks like some sort of military button. That was about 7-8 inches down, maybe. Can't quite see what's on there, but with a little bit of cleaning, it might be a bit clearer. It's not a bad find. Not quite sure what that is. I thought it was a button at first. It actually has writing around the sides. It may possibly be a small Roman bronze coin. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll have to clean that very gently, I think. This is one of those ones where you get down to the last tiny little bit of soil, and then suddenly something metallic drops out. It's normally something reasonable, and I think this one is a small button. It is, but it does appear to have quite a nice pattern on. Not sure how well that's coming out, but it's quite a nice, well-preserved, patterned button. Here's another one that was a tricky little signal. It was reading 12, 15, but it wasn't half bouncing around, and it's either a button or another coin. It actually looks like another coin. Yep, there's definitely writing around that side there. Can't see, oh, yep, it's a Queen, wait, what it looks like is a Queen Victoria. Farthing, but it's in atrocious condition. Absolutely knackered. There's another coin in terrible condition yet again. By the size of it, I don't know, by the size of it, I would say it was either a Victorian or Georgian halfpenny, but the condition of it is awful. Absolutely awful. Slight raised bust there. It looks like a George III. Very difficult to see, though. There's another musket ball. Almost looks polished, that one. Very shiny. Well, in just over two hours, I managed to find maybe half a dozen things that are worthy of mention. That's them there. The finds do span the ages. We've got spindle whorl, which was used to aid spinning fibres or spinning wool. Hasn't got any decoration on it, so it's probably one of the earlier ones, Roman onwards. There's a George III halfpenny. Very little detail. Two musket balls. Tiny little thing there with a rose emblem on. No idea what that is. Two very small and very worn coins, one of which I thought was a Roman coin, but now I think they're actually both Queen Victoria farthings, in atrocious condition. There's a button. I found a few buttons. There's another button there with a little bit of detail on it, a flowery sort of a pattern. That's very bent, but it's a, what are we, I think it's a clog clasp. It would kind of, whatever, it would fasten the clogs together, or fasten boots of some sort together. It does appear to have a little hook. It's been either snapped off or bent on the back of it. And then there's the button. It's got a little bit of detail on. Just about read it. It says volunteer engineers. So I'm gonna get a soft brass brush and try and polish that up a little bit. Right, here's the button. Looks like it's out of focus. And here's the soft brass brush. I'm basically just gonna make little circular motion like that and just lightly scrub it all over. Now this might take quite a while but it should polish it up and it may highlight a little bit more detail on it. I think that's probably about as polished as it's going to get. There's not much detail on there but still it's a reasonable find. So there wasn't masses of finds there but it was a very short hunt in an area that I'd really bashed hard over the last two years since I got the e-track so to find anything was a bonus to be honest with you. I was reasonably pleased with that. And I was finding a lot of small bits of lead in the stubble field. And if there's little small bits of lead, then there's possibly still going to be hammered coins there. They give pretty much the same sort of signal. I found quite a few buttons there as well, and also a couple of coins. So I would say for every 20 copper coins I find, I maybe find one silver one. So I think I'm pretty much due a silver one over there. I may have a look there tonight, if the weather stays good. I may sneak out for a couple of hours once everybody goes to bed. Sitting right on the top, you can see, I've hardly dug any muck out, there's a cracking signal reading 11.47. This is in the ploughed field just near my home. It's got stubble in it at the minute. And people with any detector of any sort couldn't have missed that one. See the size of it there in relation to my hand? It probably is early 1800s. If I can get any detail off it, I'll give you a date. But I don't think there's any detail on it. Nice big old musket ball there. Wasn't very deep, four inches maybe. It's a big old fella, that one, though. I'm not quite sure what that is. Looks quite similar to the buckles that you wear, the kind of buckles that would go on like a strap, like a musket sort of strap, the sling for carrying a musket rifle, but I'm not entirely sure. Would have definitely had some sort of strap or leather attachment of some sort. That was quite a long way down. Pretty much came out the bottom of there, which will be maybe six to eight inches. Here's another one right on the top. This is exactly how I found it. Can't see what it is yet, so I'm going to get the torch out. I don't really see it too well, although it looks like silver. Definitely looks like silver. I don't know whose it is. It's possibly a George III. That's a Maundy 3 pence. It's George III 3 pence. This is going to take some cleaning up, but hopefully that'll be a nice coin. I haven't found one of those before. I found a George II Maundy 2 pence. But I think this is George III, I think so. Well, that's the sum total of a night-time, two-hour hunt in the fields around my house. That's a gilded button, I didn't video-digging that one up. That's a George III penny. I can't get a date off it, but considering most of the ones I find are 1806, I would hazard a guess that it's 1806. They must have produced a hell of a lot of coins in that year. And that is the best find. It looks... well, it looks crap, basically. But... When that one's cleaned up, I'm sure it will be very nice. It has got really horrible black tarnish. There's no way you could scrub that off, but there is an easy way to clean it. But as it is now, it's as black as the night is long. So how to clean a black tarnished silver coin. Silvery side of a bit of tin foil or aluminum foil as you call it in America. Spit and then hold it between your thumb and first finger and you should hear it like fizzing and crackling. And it also should warm up. Hold it like that for two or three minutes until the fizzing and crackling stops. Open it up and the tarnish, although it's still there, it should be a lot looser. You should be able to rub that off with a soft scrubbing brush. There you can see the black's lifted quite a lot. It was a very soft brush so it's not getting it all off. And it's time to move on to the next stage. See the portrait a bit better. But now I'm going to use this stuff, bicarbonate of soda. Just tip a little bit into my hand, mix it with a bit of water then get a very soft scrubby brush and just scrub that paste into the coin and you'll fairly be amazed at how clean it comes up. Just coat the coin in that and then just give it a very gentle scrub. This might look harsh but the bicarbonate of soda is very soft and although I'm now rubbing quite hard because it's very stubborn this muck on the coin it's not doing any damage at all which you'll see at the end. That coin didn't come up perfect, there's still a bit of muck on so I'm trying the spit trick again, just to try and shift that last stubborn bit of muck. Well I gave it another going over with the spit and tin foil, and then I rubbed a bit more bicarbonate of soda paste into it, you can see by rubbing the bicarbonate of soda in it hasn't scratched the coin at all, it's just polished it up. Normally they come up perfect but this one's still got a little bit of tarnish on because Because it was very, very... Wasn't the perfect coin to start with, but it's certainly a hell of a lot cleaner now. Still bits of tarnish on it, but it was very, very black. You can see down the side of here, there's still little pits off where the corrosion was. That's 1763, George III, three pence. Really stubborn black. Stains, stains, discoloration. Subtitles by the Amara.org community It's not corrosion, discoloration. That was about seven or eight inches down. Dear God.