I was on day 7 of my recent 7-day trip to the UK. It was 10 o'clock in the morning. I was daydreaming while I was wandering around another big English farm field. Dreading the inevitable time that the trip would end in just a few short hours. It had been a good week. I had dug 6 medieval hammered silver coins, my first ever Roman silver coin, and a milled silver coin from the 1800's. That’s on top of lots of other cool and interesting doodads and relics that I dug throughout the week. My daydream was abruptly interrupted by the sudden sound of my EQUINOX 800 sounding off! It was giving me a jumpy and erratic signal. Hitting every number between 20 and 30! Never going under 20 and never going one digit over 30. I was fairly close to a tractor entrance into that field at the time. It figured it was either a beer can or a grease tube from the farming activities but decided to dig it up and get it out of the field anyways. I pinpointed the target and stuck my shovel in the soft tilled dirt. I gave the back of the shovel a push with my foot and rechecked the hole. Missed it... so I pinpointed the target. Moved the shovel to the left a bit and stepped the shovel back into the dirt. As I pushed the dirt forward a second time, a big yellow thing rolled off the edge of the moving dirt, catching my eye! When I bent over to pick it up half of me was wondering what it was. The other half of me was saying, "That looks like gold!" As I started to pick it up, it slipped out of my fingers from the sheer weight of it! That's when I knew it was defiantly a big piece of gold!! I called some other members of the group over to check it out. It turned out to be a 3 ounce, solid, ancient gold ingot!! I was freaking out!! After a few pictures, I picked up my gear and started carefully swing around the area. 2 steps and 3 swings later I got solid 19 TID on the Equinox. After just digging the ingot 15 feet away, I immediately stuck the shovel in the ground. As I gave the back of the shovel a gentle shove I about started to hyperventilate as I seen a 11.2 gram, solid ancient gold ring flip over with the dark English topsoil!! In a matter of minutes, my detecting trip went from very good to very outstanding! As I stood there all I could say was, "I'm freaking out."
Tim - Illinois, USA
