A Productive Weekend of Metal Detecting

Hello all.

This week I am happy to report some real success on the metal detecting front over the course of the recent long weekend here in Adelaide.  A case of three days and four interesting, old, or valuable discoveries were made - remarkably, all of them within site of our home!

It started on Friday morning with Heather heading out with her metal detecting 'tools of the trade' to hunt along the riverbank behind our home.  Not long after she got started had she unearthed a big (and I mean BIG) spent shell casing!  The cartridge alone is over 100 mm long (4"), it is 25 mm (1") in diameter, and it used to carry a 20 mm bullet - that is 80 calibre in 'gun-speak' and at almost twice the size, compares quite favourably with Dirty Harry's '44'!

Check out this 80 calibre shell casing!

The markings on the bottom of a bullet's brass casing tell you a lot about the origins of the cartridge.  While not that easy to see in the photo below, this cartridge has the following markings: K2 1941 20MM.

K2 1941 20MM

Prior to becoming metal detectors (family collective description) we had no idea that any of the markings on a cartridge were telling a story.  Since then, however, spent bullet casings are a whole lot more interesting to us.  While some of the information contained in the markings is quite self explanatory, such as the fact that it is a 20mm calibre bullet made in 1941 (making it World War 2 era ammunition), the K2 markings are unique to the manufacturer.  In this case the bullet was made by Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. at their Kynoch Factories, Birmingham, England.  All bullets have similar information contained within the markings on them so next time you see an old shell casing you might want to pick it up and find out where it came from (or not).  We think this shell would have been used in a mini-cannon or an aircraft machine gun of some sort.

Saturday produced the oldest find in Heather's metal detecting experience to date.  Straight out of the ground she knew she had a coin or a token but it was covered in dirt and grime so it was only after she got back home and had cleaned it up a bit that she realised what she had found. 

Coin straight out of the ground

Once the dirt was removed it became evident that she had found a coin.  After some more cleaning the date stamp on the coin revealed it to have been minted in 1853 - that is 162 years ago!  The coin is in great shape with the images on each side being clearly legible.  We typed the date and the words on the coin into Google (what a wonderful tool this is - I don't think there is anything that isn't in there somewhere), and we soon knew what we had.  It turns out that the coin is an 1853 British Queen Victoria copper farthing (a farthing had a face value of one quarter of one penny).  Needless to say that Heather was stoked by her discovery!

HEAD - VICTORIA DEI GRATIA 1853

TAIL - BRITANNIAR REG. FID: DEF:

After the success of Friday and Saturday there was no holding Heather back as she was well and truly gripped by 'treasure fever'.  She could not resist returning to her happy hunting ground on Sunday to give it another go.

Heather with her trusty guardian & companion Bernard out in the field

I was a bit worried that high hopes for more of the success that she had experienced on Friday and Saturday would mean a big let down was imminent.  As it turns out, I should not have been so pessimistic.  A couple of hours later she returned with a button and a busted old spoon - each of which turned out to be very interesting in their own right.

A button from an AUSTRALIAN MILITARY FORCES uniform

Although the copper or brass or bronze button, above, had lost the loop that was used to sew the button onto a uniform, the quality of the image of the map of Australia on the front of the button after being buried in dirt for who knows how long is incredible.  These buttons were used on Australian Military Forces uniforms from the start of WW1 in 1914 through to the end of WW2.  The button itself is of no value due to the damage on the back of it but the imagination gets stimulated when it links a military button found on Sunday in with the bullet found nearby on Friday - you can't help but think that either the riverbank out the back of our house used to used by the military once upon a time, or, the riverbank has been stabilised using landfill from somewhere that the army used to play.  Who knows!?

The second item found on Sunday was an old broken spoon.  On the face of it this was a rusty old piece of cutlery.  When it was first dug up, as usual, it was covered in dirt.  With a little bit of a rub some shiny bits could be seen so the imagination started to run wild that we had found a rare silver spoon. 

This broken old spoon revealed some great clues as to its origins

More rubbing... all of this rubbing revealed progressively more and more clues to use to learn about this old spoon.  It was a bit like getting a genie out of a bottle!  Heather kept rubbing and removing more and eventually 5 hallmarks on the handle of the spoon became visible.  Finding a hallmark is the best way to identify the origin of manufactured metal goods and jewellery as they are almost as good as fingerprints linking the piece to its maker.  The close-up photo below shows how clearly the hallmarks could be seen once the dirt was removed.

5 hallmarks revealed on the handle of the spoon

While we are no experts when it comes to silverware, the internet and Google have information aplenty to tell you just about everything you could want to know about an old spoon.  We are now a little more enlightened and by way of sharing our knowledge, the 5 hallmarks on Heather's spoon told us this:

Firstly, the far right marking of 'EP' in the 'Route 66' road sign like shield, tells us this was not sterling silver cutlery.  'EP' indicates the silver appearance was achieved via a silver coating being Electro Plated over the top of a base metal spoon.  The base metal was typically copper or brass.

Now, from left to right, the remaining hallmarks told us:

• Who made it?: The gothic 'J' in a circle was not as conclusive as hoped for as almost every cutlery maker on the planet appears to have been called 'John'.  So, lets say that 'John' Someone probably made this spoon.
• Where was it made?:  The 'B' confirms that Birmingham in England was the place of manufacture.
• Don't know what the rose in the shield like symbol stands for.
• What quality is the metal?: 'B2'.  Cutlery makers used to indicate the quality of their electroplated 'silverware' using a scale from 'A1' (best quality where two and two thirds of a gram of silver was contained in the electroplated coating) through to 'D' where just one half of one gram of silver was used.  Our 'B2' spoon turns out to have been of 'third quality' and originally contained one and one third of a gram of silver in its coating.

Last but not least is the most valuable find in Heather's collection - an 18 ct gold wedding ring.

18 carat gold ring found in the bank the river

While not found this weekend like the rest of the items described in this blog (Heather found the ring about 3 weeks ago), just like everything else, it was discovered within site of our house along the riverbank.  Using the weight of the ring, its purity (750 is stamped onto the inside of the ring (much like a hallmark) - 750 parts gold per 1000, or 75% pure gold.  Pure gold is 24 carats so 75% of 24 carats makes the ring 18 carat gold), and the gold price of today, the monetary value of the ring is about $200.  I am sure this is far outweighed by the sentimental value of the ring to the person that lost it (but then again, perhaps someone that had had enough of a bad marriage threw it into the river on purpose - we will never know)!  Regardless of how the ring ended up in the river in the first place, Heather's metal detecting efforts are the reason it is in our house today.

Before I close I have to let everyone know that while a quick report like this makes it appear as though all you have to do to find buried treasures is get a metal detector, walk outside, wave it around bit and then dig a hole in the ground the first time a signal rings in your ears and you will be rewarded.  That is just not so.  

Many many hours of time go into developing your skills as a metal detector.  Since Heather got the detector almost two years ago she has learned to interpret the signals and tones the machine gives her and she has learned to 'read the terrain' to identify the most likely locations for success - it is definitely a learned skill.  Only once in a very long while do you have a weekend like the one she has just had.  That's why it was so 'post-worthy'.  Normally a keen metal detector has to deal with sunburn, sweat in your eyes, flies in your face, mosquitoes, sore legs and knees from squatting and kneeling in the dirt and the seemingly endless disappointments from digging up bottle caps and pull tabs, and the old nails and bits of wire that are just everywhere!  The effort required is probably best summarised by quoting a line from a song by one of my favourite bands, AC/DC, "...I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks..."

Every now and again a metal detector will dig up something that is a bit unique and that is what keeps them going back for more.  Much like this blog... every now and again I pull together a decent story and it feels good to share.

Until the next issue of WTF - Where are The Farrows?, stay safe and stay happy!