Some time ago we, my friend and me, decided to go hunting at new place. We're hunting together for a year now, but sometimes... well, let's say we like this hobby so much that after few weeks of winter we just can't stand it anymore and need to go out even for a while. Of course it's not always the best idea, like our trip we made few weeks ago:
It was cold, ground was frozen solid, we had to dig one small hole for ten to fifteen minutes and all we found that day were just WWII bullets. Of course fortunately winter always ends and snow always melts, but, on the other hand, that's not always that good:
But weather conditions are not the only things we need to worry about. 99% of the people we met are nice, friendly and informative. For example the owner of the "best field ever" (more about it later) not only told us that "we may detect there whenever we want, and treat his land as if it were our own" - he also told us where may be other interesting places to hunt and where other detectorist like to detect in the neighborhood. But sometimes places look dangerous and creepy. Alf was lucky to crash his spaceship on top of friendly American family's house. This member of his species who crashed where we decided to hunt was not so lucky, and was quickly put on display - a more than clear sign "LEAVE THIS AREA OR WE WILL HANG YOUR GUTTED CORPSE NEXT TO THIS ONE".
But you all love this hobby as much as we do. There's this incredible fun when you find new cool coin - you may not see it, but I was definately happy on that photo:
Especially when you come across such situation:
When a small silver coin from late XVth century is just lying on the ground like that
But let's get back to our best field ever. Usually I'm doing the research and finding places with higher potential. So I picked a large field close to small river. We went there and spoke with the owner. As I said earlier - there was no problem with obtaining his permit. I'd also like to mention that when we were going to that field we were talking about what happened the day before on our forum - one guy, quite popular there, found his first Roman coin - and it was a Vespasian - the emperor I'd love to have in my collection. So for the entire way I was explaining to my friend that Vespasian's denarius - it's the coin I'd love to finally find.
The field was nice, though there was no pottery at all - and when you look for old finds - you should always look for pottery shards, that's the best advice around here. This field did not have any pottery shards on it, so we began to worry a bit. Moreover - for the first 30 minutes or more - all we found was trash. I did not find any coin in the first 30 minutes - and that's a terrible sign. And then... no, it wasn't me. My friend started to dance. And I knew what that meant. He found a Roman coin and it looked like it was a... Vespasian's coin. You can imagine how I felt back then Roman coins are my absolutely favourite ones. We narrowed our search and after another 30 minutes or maybe more... I found it. It was definately very, very Roman-like. And when I cleaned a bit I saw very worn out definately ancient head visible on it. But that's not everything - about 15 minutes later I managed to find another, this time in much better condition!
Here are my two denarii from that day:
And here are our all three of them from that day:
The first one, as it later turned out, was my oldest coin I've found with my metal detector. It's a Roman republican denarius of Publius Crepusius, minted in Rome in 82 BC with laureate head of Apollo on the obverse and horseman on the reverse.
It was absolutely mindblowing, my previous oldest coin found while detecting was Trajan's denarius from 101/102 AD, so this coin beat previous one by more than 180 years! But it turned out that the second coin I've found that day was even... BETTER!
It is a denarius minted in Rome in 54 BC by... Marcus Junius... Brutus. Yes - THIS Brutus who stabbed Julius Caesar. There's head of Liberty on obverse and accensus (poor soldier from the early years of the Republic), two lictors and a consul walking left on reverse. Hardly visible, below them, there's written "BRVTVS".
And later that day also turned out that my friend's one was not a Vespasian's, but Titus' denarius - even rarer coin than we previously thought since Vespasian ruled for 10 years while Titus only for 2.
There was no other option - our next hunt had to be on the same field. We returned there next week and...
I managed to find another Roman republican denarius, this time "serratus" - with serrated edge (they were made that way to show people who were using them that they are "good" - made fully of good quality silver and not of copper core with thin, silver plating). It was minted in Rome in 79 BC by L. Papius. There's head of Juno Sospita on the obverse and gryphon running right on reverse.
There was no more Romans on that field for us unfortunately, but on our way back we stopped on another field and there was an absolute surprise waiting for us. We get out of the car, I took my stuff and went further from the road when I saw my friend... dancing again
He found beautiful Trajan's denarius just two meters from his parked car.
So in two days we managed to find five stunning Roman coins (plus few other, also nice ones). We are surely going to return there once the fields will be ploughed again!
It was cold, ground was frozen solid, we had to dig one small hole for ten to fifteen minutes and all we found that day were just WWII bullets. Of course fortunately winter always ends and snow always melts, but, on the other hand, that's not always that good:
But weather conditions are not the only things we need to worry about. 99% of the people we met are nice, friendly and informative. For example the owner of the "best field ever" (more about it later) not only told us that "we may detect there whenever we want, and treat his land as if it were our own" - he also told us where may be other interesting places to hunt and where other detectorist like to detect in the neighborhood. But sometimes places look dangerous and creepy. Alf was lucky to crash his spaceship on top of friendly American family's house. This member of his species who crashed where we decided to hunt was not so lucky, and was quickly put on display - a more than clear sign "LEAVE THIS AREA OR WE WILL HANG YOUR GUTTED CORPSE NEXT TO THIS ONE".
But you all love this hobby as much as we do. There's this incredible fun when you find new cool coin - you may not see it, but I was definately happy on that photo:
Especially when you come across such situation:
When a small silver coin from late XVth century is just lying on the ground like that
But let's get back to our best field ever. Usually I'm doing the research and finding places with higher potential. So I picked a large field close to small river. We went there and spoke with the owner. As I said earlier - there was no problem with obtaining his permit. I'd also like to mention that when we were going to that field we were talking about what happened the day before on our forum - one guy, quite popular there, found his first Roman coin - and it was a Vespasian - the emperor I'd love to have in my collection. So for the entire way I was explaining to my friend that Vespasian's denarius - it's the coin I'd love to finally find.
The field was nice, though there was no pottery at all - and when you look for old finds - you should always look for pottery shards, that's the best advice around here. This field did not have any pottery shards on it, so we began to worry a bit. Moreover - for the first 30 minutes or more - all we found was trash. I did not find any coin in the first 30 minutes - and that's a terrible sign. And then... no, it wasn't me. My friend started to dance. And I knew what that meant. He found a Roman coin and it looked like it was a... Vespasian's coin. You can imagine how I felt back then
Roman coins are my absolutely favourite ones. We narrowed our search and after another 30 minutes or maybe more... I found it. It was definately very, very Roman-like. And when I cleaned a bit I saw very worn out definately ancient head visible on it. But that's not everything - about 15 minutes later I managed to find another, this time in much better condition!Here are my two denarii from that day:
And here are our all three of them from that day:
The first one, as it later turned out, was my oldest coin I've found with my metal detector. It's a Roman republican denarius of Publius Crepusius, minted in Rome in 82 BC with laureate head of Apollo on the obverse and horseman on the reverse.
It was absolutely mindblowing, my previous oldest coin found while detecting was Trajan's denarius from 101/102 AD, so this coin beat previous one by more than 180 years! But it turned out that the second coin I've found that day was even... BETTER!
It is a denarius minted in Rome in 54 BC by... Marcus Junius... Brutus. Yes - THIS Brutus who stabbed Julius Caesar. There's head of Liberty on obverse and accensus (poor soldier from the early years of the Republic), two lictors and a consul walking left on reverse. Hardly visible, below them, there's written "BRVTVS".
And later that day also turned out that my friend's one was not a Vespasian's, but Titus' denarius - even rarer coin than we previously thought since Vespasian ruled for 10 years while Titus only for 2.
There was no other option - our next hunt had to be on the same field. We returned there next week and...
I managed to find another Roman republican denarius, this time "serratus" - with serrated edge (they were made that way to show people who were using them that they are "good" - made fully of good quality silver and not of copper core with thin, silver plating). It was minted in Rome in 79 BC by L. Papius. There's head of Juno Sospita on the obverse and gryphon running right on reverse.
There was no more Romans on that field for us unfortunately, but on our way back we stopped on another field and there was an absolute surprise waiting for us. We get out of the car, I took my stuff and went further from the road when I saw my friend... dancing again
He found beautiful Trajan's denarius just two meters from his parked car.
So in two days we managed to find five stunning Roman coins (plus few other, also nice ones). We are surely going to return there once the fields will be ploughed again!
