Back In 2003 I had the luck to gain permission to detect on a farm just outside the town of Malmesbury Wiltshire.
For those readers that don’t know, Malmesbury was a pre-Roman “ancient city of the Britons" known as Caer Bladon and is also recorded by Guinness World Records as the oldest borough in England.
With this sort of history there was a very high possibility of finding something of interest but just one snag; upon talking with the farmer he explained to me that 4 guys had previously searched his fields for 4 years. I don’t know about other detectorists but it did put a damper on my enthusiasm when I heard those dreaded words. It turned out 4x4 = don’t worry about it, lots of finds still to be had in the next 10 years.
In 2007 I was searching one 30 acre field which had produced a few finds such as a Pope Pius V papa bulla seal a Spanish soldino and a septimius severus denarius. At this point I had found one loom weight, when It began raining rather heavily (good old English weather) Being ex-military I braved the weather to the point that my waterproofs gave up and something clicked in my head and said time to go.
As I started heading for the sanctuary of my car I got a signal and began finding roman bronze coins. Two hours later and past saturation point I had found 24 coins.
The coins recorded on Pas were donated to the Athelstan museum and up and till September 2012 a further 14 were also found and donated.
On the 21st September 2012 armed with my recently purchased upgrade, an SE Pro I started my yearly search for more coins.
Ten minutes later with the machine set to deep & auto sensitivity on maximum setting I got a nice clear signal.
Digging down 20 inches I reached the hard pack clay and noticed a black corroded object which turned out to be remains of a coin. Picking away at the clay and the broken edge of an orange colored pot appeared It went through my mind have I found the remains of a coin hoard.
After 2 hours of careful digging the remains of the small pot and its contents lay next to the hole and I was the first person to look at them for over a thousand years, what a feeling it is.
The coins and pot are now with the British Museum. Only information available at this time is the amount of coins is 1254 and consists mainly of the emperor Constantine the great.
Before they left my hands I did manage to photograph and record a few coins on the ukdfd web site Hoard_Ref_HR017 . 2 other emperors Licinius I and maximinius II are also present, so I look forward to the official report.
Mimzy - England, UK
