A Great Hammered Day

On those cold, snowy rather bleak winter mornings I sometimes question my sanity, because I’m opting to leave a nice warm comfortable home to walk around a muddy field.

- Antony Jones

The morning in question was no exception and with winter woollies on, sandwich and flask all packed I was off to see what delights the day might bring.

We all met up at the farm, had a quick chat with friends, and then I was off detecting, quickly passing through some small pasture fields to get up to the main much larger ploughed one. Well as a group Muddy Boots might certainly live up to their name, for what looked like the stickiest clay ploughed field I had ever encountered lay in front of me.

With the snow now coming down I stepped onto the ploughed soil. A ring pull, another ring pull, a section of a crushed drinks can, and a lead weight were all quickly located, then came a couple of Roman grots lightening my spirit somewhat.

I had a quick hedgerow sheltering ciggy to celebrate my newly made Roman discoveries, while thinking “Why oh why did I leave my flask back in the car?”

Then it was back to the detecting with a revitalised and renewed energy. I soon found another Roman coin, this time showing an unidentified emperor with what appeared to be a very long neck. Well I certainly didn’t feel so cold now. The end result of another good clear signal on my Teknetics T2 was a large silvered dandy button, or at least so I thought. However, feeling it there was no loop or stump on the back.

My find turned out not to be a button at all, but a lovely Charles I hammered silver shilling (Fig.1).