are their many of you who do Metal Detecting on here? Whats the best finds you have done on the Wirral? Ive been looking at a few places like ..

I haven't done any metal detecting but I've noticed quite a few people at different times on the beach at West Kirby and by the lighthouse at New Brighton doing it, I know it's not much help but it gives you a clue that people are about metal detecting.

yer i went to new brighton & meols is it?? beaches and found sod all, and i have been going to another place recently and been finding a few things there my first few coints gonna go back soon.........

No offence mate, but if you're going to do metal detecting do it responsibly and preferably with an organised club. Try contacting the West Kirby Metal Detecting Group. You'll learn more that way and at least anything found will get recorded. Otherwise, you're just pilferring our precious past.

It's also worth applying your interest to helping in a more constructive way like getting in touch with any local archaeology groups and offering to help them on excavations. They don't encourge 'night hawks', but would probably appreciate responsible metal detectorists helping them if supervised.

finders keepers
how can you pilfer somethiung that was lost many years ago or even recent if it was buried forget all the bloody do gooders its yours if you find it and if other people want one let them find there own bunch of grabbers.,

Point taken scary, but it's one thing digging up your own back garden and another thing if it's on someone else's land.

Like it or loath it it's the law, and when I say pilfer I don't really mean it like stealing from an individual (other than the land owner perhaps) I mean it robs us of our understanding of the past. Anyway, it's a bit different finding something by accident and deliberately setting out to dig somewhere up, especially if you know it's a historical site.

Just my opinion.

i'm totally different i think its a good thing to go digging and looking for (old things) on historic grounds. its very interesting. thats my opinion. and aslong as you have permission its not really stealing or anything.

Any how i have been in contact with a metal detecting club over the weekend that i am hoping to join and will be hopefully going to their next meeting ... id like to gain more experiance on how to do it properly without making a mess!

Unfortunately, it's that sort of attitude that's given metal detecting a bad reputation. Many important archaeological sites have been ruined by irresponsible metal detecting. If all you're after are old beer cans or the odd £1 coin then go for it. If, however, you're after valuable stuff, then you should be aware of The Treasure Act 1996.

The Treasure Act is a piece of legislation designed to deal with finds of treasure primarily those made by metal detectorists in England and Wales. It legally obliges finders of objects which constitute a legally defined term of treasure to report their find to their local coroner within fourteen days. An inquiry led by the coroner then determines whether the find constitutes treasure or not. If is declared to be treasure then the owner must offer the item for sale to a museum at a price set by an independent board of antiquities experts. Only if no museum expresses an interest in the item or is unable to purchase it can the owner retain it.

'Treasure' is defined as being:

- All coins from the same hoard. A hoard is defined as two or more coins, as long as they are at least 300 years old when found. If they contain less than 10% gold or silver there must be at least 10 in the hoard for it to qualify.
- Two or more prehistoric base metal objects in association with one another
- Any individual (non-coin) find that is at least 300 years old and contains at least 10% gold or silver.
- Associated finds: any object of any material found in the same place as (or which had previously been together with) another object which is deemed treasure.
- Objects substantially made from gold or silver but are less than 300 years old, that have been deliberately hidden with the intention of recovery and whose owners or heirs are unknown.

Under English law a landowner has sole title to any archaeological artefacts found on his or her property. Legitimate metal detectorists come to an agreement the owners of the land they detect on to share any proceeds from treasure sales. Those who detect illegally, either on Scheduled sites or without the landowners' permission cannot benefit from the Treasure Act.

Illegal detectorists have had their loot confiscated and can face fines and prison.

I was out Friday with Spider found two rounds as we call them. The local soil is so acid anything in the groung will rot to nothing if it is left.I am not a joiner, as such so I am not a memmber of a club.We always respect the law and the land we go on, and leave it sometimes cleaner than before we started. Like it or not there is law and rules you need to know before you start. You should at least know who your local finds officer is and why you need to know.I will catch up later on finds etc.I must agree with Geekus as I know he is comming from the heart. I am off out so have to dash.

That is probably spot on, i do respect the law and id never go on a land thats under the rule not to go on and heritage sites etc unless id have permission... i am however careful and look after places were i have been.

Fair enough mate. If you're in any doubt though, check out Liverpool Museum's web-site (particularly the bit about their portable antiquities scheme). Nobody's trying to stop you from enjoying yourself, but as Nightwalker says there are laws. I'm sure joining that club you've mentioned will make things much clearer.

yer i hope they do mate but archaeological people hate Metal Detectorists BUT wont admit it because 90% of things that have been found i think are by Metal Detectors.hmmmm true or not im not sure its just what i think and others have though simular

haha one mate of mine always says that laws & rules are their to be broken haha.... :S...

I wouldn't say archaeologists hate metal detectorists, they just don't like the ones who break the law or rob from sites they're investigating.

I disagree as well that 90% of artefacts are found by metal detector people. The archaeologists are interested in lots of things (not just metal objects), but sometimes sites get wrecked and valuable dating evidence is lost when people take things like coins from their original contexts. The history of a site is like a giant jigsaw and if someone comes along and takes away so much as one small piece it prevents everyone from seeing the bigger picture.

ahhh i think i have to totally agree with you there mate, yes i have been told that in the past like about the jigsaw, thats why every find we make we record it as best as we can!... and i hope to learn more when i join a club..

sorry if this comes out to blunt.but if i went to the shore and found coins or a gold bangle or summit. sorry but you aint getting your mits on it. if i went to a farmers field with his permition i would sell it and split it with the farmer.if i found a skeleton with a gold ring on it i would leave it as a mark of respect.but would all you archaeologists ile tell you the simple answer is no you would get your little trowel and tooth pick out remove it stick a bloody number on it take off the ring and put the bones in a bloody box on a shelf instead ov leaving it in its resting place and thats a fact !!!! i no ive gone off the point a little bit about metal detecting but if you found yourself in that position then what would you do ime speaking about hundreds of year old remains not recent so whats yout opinion on this !!!!!

I think people forget that a lot of archaeology only really takes place because a site is under threat of development. Like that dig they did the other year in Neston just before they built the new supermarket in the town centre. Archaeology is expensive and in cases like that the developers have to pay for any archaeology to be done so that the history doesn't get destroyed by their building work. Most professional archaeologists are not treasure hunters, they're researchers who only really excavate places if they have a very good reason to. And as far as I know, most skeletons get reburied. What with all the nasty diseases that people used to die of in earlier times, you wouldn't want to be digging anyone up unless you had to!

I remeber when my uncle found a gold bracelet in spain. My mum took it to pikes to get it valued as it wasnt your average Argos jobby. Turned out to be an Italian hand made something or another and they valued it around 10 times the price of scrap, which 15 years ago wouldnt have been that much, I wonder what it would be worth now.....

(I'll see if he still has it)

i dont always believe what i see on the telly but i seen an archaeology and seen row upon row of boxes containing remains and human skulls on shelving with numbers printed on them.why dig someone up to put in a box and leave on shelves you say they rebury them ?? if thats the case then why and where probly in a mass grave without there persetions whitch will probly be lying in a vault somewhere instead of leaving them intact to me that seems so rong just grave robbing but licenced to do so why not just do a dig take a photo of the item on or with the owner ie deceiced fill it back in instead of raping a grave ie taking something that isnt yours to take but if you find an item that was discarded of or lost then stuff the laws still finders keepers beter in my pocket than siting on a glass shelf with a load of anarachs drtooling over it

Can't really help you there scary. I'm not an archaeologist. Maybe somebody else will explain it better than me. Still, I think a lot of what you see on telly is the more interesting (unusual) stuff, not your average archaeology. You'd only really find things like grave goods in very old (pre-Christian) burials.

The majority of what diggers find is usually just rubbish. And I bet that museum vaults are filled with far more boxes of broken pots than bones or valuable artefacts.

When I watch Time Team and see them using as many as three JCBs to excavate a site with the full knoledge and a nod from the authoritys put in place to oversee our historical past. I find it hard to accept that a guy with a trowel can do as much harm in a life time as Profesor Mick Aston and Baldric do in three days.I would love to find something worthy of a place in a museum basement where 90% of what they have is kept. I have been going to the Wlliamson Art gallery and Museum for over fifty years and see nothing new apart from the specials(like Aldi).The Viking History of Wirral will be opened up by somebody with a metal detector not a somebody waving a rule book.
NCMD Website www.ncmd.co.uk

You obviously feel quite strongly about this, scary! Metal detectorists probably mirror society – there are those who go by the book, those who will follow the rules only when it suits them, and those who don’t give a shit. You may have seen TV programmes where digs have to be done in secret so detectorist tossers don’t arrive at the site in the middle of the night and take anything of value, ruining all the archaeology in the process. Personally, I can think of little more mind-numbing than spending my time using a metal detector in the vague hope of finding something of monetary value – I’d rather do the lottery - the odds are about the same!

Nightwalker I take it you dont go fishing.

Nope!!!!

Scary i totally agree with every single thing you said there. i couldnt steal from any grave yard so to speak id just cover it up and move on... its not in me to do such thing! but if i had permission to go to a place and found gold yes id split it!

Final input from me on this one guys.

Thinking about it, if you go about metal detecting in a more responsible manner you could metal detect on somebody's land (with their permission, of course) and anything you found classed as 'treasure' you could still sell to the museums without breaking the law. Chances are anything significant would be considered far more valuable by the experts because of its historic or archaeological importance, and you would receive more for it than you'd probably ever get by selling it on to a dealer for scrap value or to someone on the blackmarket. Unless an item is expertly identified you probably wouldn't know its true value anyway.

By establishing good contacts with your local museum's finds officer or a well organised club, you'll benefit from their knowledge & training. They'll help you identify and date your discoveries. You'll be helping increase knowledge of what's out there in the fields, and you could possibly make a name for yourself if you help find anything important.

If you don't do this, you're breaking the law and holding on to things which might be far more significant than you recognise. You'd be preventing yourself from ever taking full credit for the find being made. You'd be preventing other people from learning from it (if all you do is keep it in your own personal 'museum'), and you'd probably prevent yourself from ever getting a fair price for anything valuable you find.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think that you're doing yourself or anyone else any favours doing things your way.

Completely agree with everything you say geekus - a perfect summary.

On a lighter note, a mate and me were allowed to detect in a field in Greasby by a farmer who owned it. Straight away my mate got a signal but couldn't find anything. A couple of seconds, another loud beep but again nothing to be found. This went on for half an hour or so until he'd dug half of the field up with nothing to show for it. It turned out my mate had metal toe caps in his boots and every time he stepped forward his feet went near the search head setting the alarm off. What a D%$&K !!

Some reported finds I found last year on the Deeside of the Wirral

Great finds yewgarth. Love that middle one with the horse(?) head.

Thanks for sharing them with us, and thanks for reporting your discoveries.

Cheers

Thanks for sharing now we finally get back to the topic thread haha... keep the pictures coming guys ....

Hope you like the picss

They are relatively modern finds - I have a full set of the threepenny bits - not from detecting though.
Keep on trying
good luck

[youtube]YiBBs_MogAc[/youtube]

These are some of my finds from last year

enjoy

im not sure what the top one is, the coin is very different from anything else we found!... silver....

...not much detail to go on there, leelad! But if that's a thru'penny piece next to the coin in the top picture then it's obviously quite small. Could be a 'silver' three pence. They were generally round, rather than angled.

Recommend you put a ruler below any objects you photograph to help indicate the size. Either that, or place a more modern object like a fifty pence piece or pound coin next to them for the sake of comparison.

thats a really good idea that, thanks.... i will re do some pictures with a ruler...

Here is my time metal detecting yesterday & what i found...

need some help identifying some things though...

Please can you tell me if you think its a old belt buckle im not sure?


The other one we thought was a ring its got some sort of square stamp in the inside???



And the best find was a Army Service badge is Brilliant condition. What year would it have been from?. i dont know nothing about it. Thanks



any a nice one penny

King George died 52/53 so the badge will be from pre that year. Looks like a general service badge I think. Probably before the Service Corps got its Royal prefix, whenever that was. RASC (Run Away Someones Coming)

Thats brilliant i hope it is one of those, not worth much but its still a great find

It always gives you a bit of a thrill no matter what you find!

The ASC became RASC in 1918, so the Cap Badge would be from George V not George VI, and would be dated between 1910 and 1918.

EDIT: However it has got the word Royal on the left and so could be either George V or George VI

The cap badge is RASC which would be dated later than 1919, during WW1 and to 1919 the ASC cap badge was of solid design with ASC in the middle of it, the cap badge above was used during WW2.

Thanks for that Bert well happy to have found out more about it

The square stamp in the ring is a hallmark, so it's either gold or silver.

Hi Lee, i bet that detector is the best buy you ever made .cheers tankrat.

are you sure that would be a hallmark stamp? were do you think would be good to check it out?

using a 2 year old thread for your spam chloe

Mods notified.

Right, dredging up an old (ish) post here. Are there many detectorists on here? Would love to see some finds.

Im very new to this, been out about 4 times and my detector is faulty already! So need a new one. Thinking of getting a Garrett 250 as ive heard these are good machines.

My finds to date are rusty nails, clumps of metal and a 20p! But need a new detector now, so until that comes along I can only view finds and watch videos on youtube

So anyway, would love to see some finds, and possibly get to know a few people

the garrets are good machines but no good for the beach as you would have to turn the sensitivity right down on the wet sand ive been using one for the last 3 years but just sold it if you could get your minelab fixed there much better than the garrets but you will find plenty with a ace 250 there also realy easy to use jeff

Just curious moretonjeffo, how do you know x_plore's broken detector is a Minelab?

he was looking for a coil in the wanted section last week for an old minelab musketeer

Hi Jeff, to be honest I should of got a garrett to start with. I'm not too fussed about using it on the beach at the mo, as I will be in fields mostly. Maybe I will get a garrett and use that for a couple of years then move to a better detector and move onto beaches. Thanks for all your emails and assistance, its most appreciated

Right, I have a Garrett ace 250 now love it! found quite abit with it, from modern day coins, to old ones. Found some old one pennies and half pennies, oldest coin i've found is an 1871 six pence at my horse yard! As well as the Cunard steam ship medal for the lifeboat crew member of the Berengaria I have listed in the history section which was a very successful thread! Any new finds I may put on this thread or might start a new one with my finds

Any 1 fancy a day detecting tomoz I got an untouchable permission call or tx asap Paul límit of 3 peeps ASAP 07793555415

Have you had any luck with this in the past Paul?

I found an axe head and coins close by but only just got this permit visit but I know from research it could well be a good site

U wanna come along ?

My lady friend has a decent set of threepenny bits...

A bit short notice, Paul.maybe next time pending on time and day.Let us know if you find anything interesting.Its also something new i haven t tried yet.And love to try different things.Enjoy x

your over your message limit paul was just wondering if any one went im hoping to get a new detector next week so would be up for a detecting day then

What you getting jeff? Was the minelab rubbish?

hoping to get a eurotek pro xplore the minelabs faulty only picks up about 2 inches and only in 1 small section of the coil have you been out and found anything lately that lifeboat medal you found is a great find

Thought it was, oh well! Yer found some coins and a ring, thought the ring was a WW2 German corps ring, but the people on the forums said it wasn't. Heres a couple of pics.....





Are you still using the Minelab or do you want me to come and get it? Are you up for an outing when you get your new one?

Hi Jeff PMS empty . Ur welcome to come along m8 .

I will show u all my finds on sat xplore .

Ok cool, look forward to it.

yep id like to come along id just use xplores faulty minelab till I get mine can u pm me some details

I have a spare Garrett ace if u wanna borrow that ? It's only a 150 tho ha its still a good machine tho

that would be brilliant paul I used to have a garrett 250 so I can use that no problem looking forward to it

Council dont let you metal detect on the beach? Is that correct

Correct, to many holes left for people to fall down,

Too many UXB's as well I shouldn't wonder, especially along the Mersey...

http://www.merseyshipping.co.uk/features/rnwwiibomb/rnwwiibomb.htm

Ha ha well I'm a firm believer that it should be allowed anywhere as long as u respect the land and leave it as u find it .

Think you are wrong there, the fishermen leave larger holes when bait digging as do the kids when making channels.

Come anywhere near my garden I'll set the dog and kids on you...

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-get-off-my-land.png



...and I'd be more afraid of the kids if I were you.

You may find this interesting (sorry if it has already been posted) click

All you metal detectors-- why not get on to the company putting the elecy cable across wirral to see if you can get permission to detect along the path of it before the land is handed back to farmers and topsoil replaced. They have dug up the soil and may have brought things closer to the surface.

Very interesting read Derek, thanks for sharing.

Good idea fish, but with the health and safety going round, I highly doubt we would get permission. I know they have already dug through a Victorian tip site, unearthing the old bottles ect... another hobby of mine is collecting and digging these bottles, but I doubt I would get permission to even walk along their spoil piles looking for bottles

But saying that, theres no harm in asking is there

Another huge find. It's all out there !


Thousands of ancient coins discovered in Buckinghamshire field

Metal detector enthusiasts in Buckinghamshire have uncovered what is thought to be one of biggest hoards of ancient coins ever found in Britain.

Paul Coleman from the Weekend Wanderers Detecting Club discovered more than 5,000 coins buried inside a lead bucket two feet under a field near Aylesbury.

The hoard contains specimens dating back to the 11th Century - the late Anglo Saxon, early Norman period..........more on link


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-30654568

He was an amature too according to the radio this morning,wouldn't mind have a bash at this myself.

Oh wow!! It's all there to be found just finding one of those would put me in a spin. I,ll be out there searching soon you just never know. Xplore what a find eh could be you next.

I wish!

Trying to make myself a sand scoop , not prepared to pay the prices asked for real thing. Have just been messing around on the old beach by me and can see how useful one is. Also think next thing I need to get is a probe. What do you think Xplore?

Sand scoops are very expensive. I've always just used a shovel as im rarely at the beach. I've got a garrett pro pointer and im lost without it, very handy probe, on the expensive side but well worth it in the long run.

could always use one of these for a fraction of the price

http://www.diy.com/departments/bq-metal-soil-sieve-w110mm-l390mm/189497_BQ.prd

Yes that's looks ok .I just went the beach because easier to dig at moment. Been watching you tube seeing them all finding great stuff . Looks so easy doesn,t it. They were all abroad though beautiful beaches.

yes some nice beaches they record on. I always hope to find a nice bit of gold when im beach detecting, never do though!