25th July 2025

 

Next club meeting 1st September – A talk by Ross Farmer ‘The Glory of Advertising’

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

 

August 2025 Social

We are planning to visit to the Bank of England Museum, Bartholomew Lane, London EC2R 8AH on Wednesday 13th August. Proposed meet at 11:00 a.m. (TBC)

 

If you intend coming and have not let me know yet, please do so as soon as possible either by phone or email.

 

A Note from the Treasurer

The club subscription has been held at £20 for the coming year and subscriptions are due now! Please remit as soon as possible.

 

BANS Autumn Weekend Event

The Autumn Weekend 2025 of the British Association of Numismatic Societies (BANS) will take place in Lichfield over the weekend of Friday 19th September to Sunday 21st September 2025. If any club member wishes to attend, contact the club secretary for further details and the delegate booking forms.

 

July 2025 Meeting

Father and son, Andy and Paddy of Fun Detectors gave a presentation on metal detecting and illustrated their hobby with tips on techniques, their finds and on bringing others into the thrills of metal detecting.

 

They have a limited company Fun Detectors, started some 7 years ago which arranges metal detecting events and gives interested parties experience days in the hobby. The company will loan all the equipment needed at the experience days.

Paddy began metal detecting at a young age, but already has a large suite of videos that are available to view on YouTube under the Paddy Detects banner: https://www.youtube.com/@paddydetects/videos

 

In these video recordings Paddy and Andy display their many finds, and showed one to the club on his first gold coin find, which was an 1870 half-sovereign.

 

Paddy displayed many of his finds, objects in silver, lead, tin, iron and gold. One of his best finds was a Bronze Age ribbon gold object which was subsequently purchased by the British Museum. His favourite coin find was a silver drachm of Caligula, which was found during a group detecting event.

 

Right: We see some of the display, examination and storage equipment used by Fun Detectors. Note also at the edge of the picture the handle of a metal detector.

 

Andy went onto discuss permissions for detecting, and that they could be quite hard to get. He also noted that as well as open fields, old buildings, footpaths and churches were often good places to find objects. In one spot he found four shillings and a half-crown in a small area.

 

In one field, possibly a fort site, many

Roman coins were found, and also a gold Stater.

 

 

Below Right: A display of Paddy’s finds

 

The signal received by the detectors is very dependent on soil conditions – whether wet or dry, and the compaction of the soil. In ideal conditions it is possible to detect a Roman coin at a depth of 12 inches.

 

Asked about marshy conditions Andy thought the most metal objects sink well down and hardly anything was found in these soil conditions.

 

A question was raised if the signal response varied with the quality of the silver in the item.

 

 

 

   


The signal response scale on metal detecting machines is very variable, and while it may indicate a silver or gold object it depended very much on depth and material. With experience it is possible to get “in tune” with the machine to be able to identify the response given by some metals.

 

With the large number of Roman finds it raises the question of how widespread was the agriculture of those times.

 

Andy said it was amazing how many hoards have been found, but only the major ones get publicised. It was also mentioned that on one occasion at a metal detecting fair quite a few gold coins were found in one area.

 

With regard to land-owners it was essential to cultivate a good and equitable relationship. References from other land-owners dealt with would give comfort to farmers that you are responsible detectorists. Unfortunately, the actions of “night-hawks” does create suspicions about detectorists generally. Most farmers have been approached at some time by detectorists, and you need to get to know them well.

 

The value and sale of any finds made are divided between the land-owner and the detectorist and are on a Gentleman’s Agreement basis. Where arranging for a group of metal detectorists to work a permission it is usual to charge the individual detectorists £20 a day, and this is split 50/50 with the land-owner. If a discovery is made efforts should be made to conceal or protect the find site.

 

Talking about some of their finds, one of the most recent was a WWI silver cap badge. Buttons are a very common find, but sometimes coins are found in the same area as buttons. A good find by Andy was a Charles I half-crown.

 

It was noted that often metal finds are not found on a first, or even second sweep of a site. Changing the walking/ sweeping pattern on subsequent site visits may then reveal the metal objects. Most land has buried objects to be found, but it was noted that Georgian coins were the commonest finds.

 

Fun Detectors have a small holding of some 14 acres and also arranges group detecting experiences as well arranging club events.

 

As a final comment there is history all around and below us.

 

Patrick and Andy were warmly applauded for their presentation.

 

Fun Detectors are based near Fleet, and can be contacted at   info@fundetectors.co.uk

And their website is

https://fundetectors.co.uk/

 

 

Future Events.

•         London Coin Fair – Shortlands, London, W6 – 6th September 2025

•         Midland Coin Fair - National Motorcycle Museum –10th August & 14th September 2025

•         Spinks Auctions –30th September 2025

•         Noonans, Mayfair, W1J 8BQ – 27th August and 9th September 2025

             Morton & Eden – November 2025

St James Auctions –24th & 26th September 2025

Baldwins – 25th September and 1st October 2025

 

Past Events

. •       50 years ago a very heavy talk was given to the club on “The Continental context to  

            English medieval coinage and with special reference to Sterlings”.

•         40 years ago in 1985 Frank Milward took a lighter view with many anecdotes in a talk

            entitled “Tales of a coin dealer”.

•         30 years ago, Bryce Neilson entertained us with a talk on “Coin Production and Modern

            Coin Varieties”.

•           20 years ago the talk was on “The Life & coins of the Emperor Aurelian” by John White

            10 years ago Jonathon De Hadleigh talked on ‘The State of Coins at the End of the Middle  

            Ages’

 

 

Club Secretary