I had been invited to a group dig with Central Searchers by my friend and fellow metal detectorist Graham Lister. It was only the second group dig I had ever attended in three years so was really looking forward to it. My friend Graham picked me up as planned and we headed off to a small village called Yeldon, Bedfordshire in England. There were over seventy people attending and the atmosphere was buzzing, three large fields awaited us and everyone was raring to go. I had decided to take my Minelab Excalibur II with me as rain was predicted and knew it would be safe as it was completely waterproof and although I had some funny looks from people using an underwater detector on the land I continued across the fields swinging away. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement as it turned out that the farmer had put a lot Green waste on the field, small pieces of shredded metal was everywhere and my finds were a big fat zero. After three hours of this, I decided it was time for a break. My friend Graham was also having a bad day and asked me what field I was going to do next. I looked across the landscape and noticed a church on a hill in the next field. "That’s where I'm going next" I said. "But that's a mile away" my friend replied. I said yes but that’s the only road that leads into the village alongside the field which led up to the church. Back in the day people would have walked along that field to get to the church. My friend looked at me as though I was mad and said Good luck as I trundled off towards the church. Once there, I decided to come away from the hedges by about ten feet as not to pick up too many bottle tops or ring pulls and off I went swinging away. My first find was a small musket ball and thought great that’s a start! I continued for another twenty minutes without a signal and remember saying to myself: all I want is to find my first Silver Hammered coin, which in three years of detecting had eluded me. It was then that I got that magic tone I knew was a coin tone. I stuck my spade into the dirt and with one push pulled out a fair size clod of mud. As I did, I noticed a flash of gold bounce away from the clod. It was then I got my first sight of what I now know was a full gold Celtic Stater. I sank to my knees more out of exhaustion, then anything else I looked up at the sky and said in a load voice "You have got to be frigging kidding me". A Corieltauvi Celtic full gold Stater was laying on the ground dating from C.55-45BC over two thousand years old, what a find! I was in shock, a mixture of excitement and awe as I carefully looked at this coin glistening in the sun. I ran my detector over and over the ground just to make sure that there were no more coins around. Took some photos and sat down, it had been a hard day and this one find had changed the bad day into the best day of my life detecting. I returned to base camp and although hungry, thirsty and tired, I showed my find to the guy in charge. It was amazing how within minutes people were shaking my hand and congratulating me. A buzz came over to the base camp and everyone wanted to look at this coin which was in mint condition. A sense of pride came over me as I was told that although a few silver hammered coins, a couple of Roman coins had come up on the dig, mine was the only gold found. That’s how it was the day I found my first gold coin but counting my blessings on the way home, I thought that if I hadn't of gone out of my way to study the landscape I would never had found that coin. This only goes to prove that sometimes it’s worth thinking about what’s around you when things are not going your way.
Good luck guys and happy hunting!
Ernieplucknett – England, UK.
