A Very Successful Year

This is my first attempt at writing anything like this since the essays I used to write way back in my school days. I am therefore somewhat nervously putting this article together in the hope that it will be of interest to readers.

- Mike Bowers

I’m from Buckinghamshire and I have been detecting for some seven years now, starting out (as many of us did) with one of the old yellow Garrett detectors. I later bought myself a Garrett Euro Ace and at about the same time also got my first good permission.

I began by randomly detecting what is a massive field, and found my first ever hammered, a ‘Lizzy’ halfgroat. From the moment my spade broke open the soil and I saw that coin I was totally hooked.

I carried on with that same machine for about a year then moved on to an XP Goldmaxx Power. Sadly I never really got to grips with this detector and had no more experienced users around to show me the ropes at the time. However, it was a good machine, and I did find a few hammered with it.

I then changed to an XP Deus, which I used up until the beginning of 2016. This detector made some remarkable finds ranging from Roman denarii, hammered silver, and milled gold to one of my favourite finds – a very rare Celtic gold stater.

Earlier this year I swapped machines yet again, after seeing just how well the Minelab CTX 3030 worked. A good friend of mine, Leigh, introduced me to this model and I haven’t looked back yet!

Since having this new machine my finds rate has been absolutely awesome, with lots of Edward III, Henry VII and VIII groats – and really beautiful condition examples at that. Some of my other hammered finds. My year just kept getting better and better, and I know you have to be lucky enough to walk over what’s out there but a good machine certainly helps.

Anglo-Saxon Tremessis

I went on to find a small gold coin that turned out to be an Anglo-Saxon tremessis dating from the early 7th century.