Blackberries and Rare Bullets

Quite a few years ago now Treasure Hunting magazine asked me to field test a new C.Scope detector.

- David Stuckey

One of the challenges I faced was finding somewhere to try it out as, due to the time of year, many fields were crop-bound and my choice of sites was rather limited.

One possibility sprang to mind, however. This was a large area of woodland a few miles from my home, where I often went walking and bird-watching. Deep within the wood was a pond which seemed to be the hub of many footpaths that ran through the area. On just one stretch of footpath I found a considerable quantity of modern coinage, totalling nearly £20 in all denominations. Along with these coins I also found a number of old wartime bullets and a small gold St Christopher medallion.

Moving forward to the present, it occurred to me that these footpaths may well be worth another visit, just to see if a similar quantity of coins had been lost there since. On a cold, but sunny, afternoon in November I found myself back at the pond. Somehow, it seemed smaller than I remember, or maybe my mind doesn’t recall things accurately anymore!

I set up my Minelab Safari and started searching along the same footpath I’d explored many years earlier. Finds were few and far between, consisting of just a few pennies here and there, but I recovered none of the £1 and £2 coins that filled my finds bag the last time round.

I ventured off the paths and onto the leaf-covered floor of the wood. Plenty of silver paper and drink cans came to light, but few finds of any interest. That was until I detected round the base of a large silver birch tree.

My detector gave a promising squeal. I keenly scraped away the leaves with my boot until I spotted a shiny black object about 6 inches down. When I picked the object from out of the ground and turned it over I was amazed to see that it was a Blackberry mobile phone (Fig.1). It would have been quite an expensive phone in its day and a frustrating loss for its former owner no doubt.