 
### The Successful Treasure Hunter's Essential Guide

### David Villanueva

### Smashwords Edition

Copyright, David Villanueva 2014, 2016

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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CONTENTS

1. Introduction

1.1 Metal Detecting Made Easy

2. Metal Detectors

2.1 The Rules of the Game

2.2 Code of Practice

2.3 Treasure Law

2.4 The Treasure Act (1996) in England and Wales

3. How to Gain Search Permission

3.1 Tracing Landowners

3.2 Landowner/Searcher Agreement

3.3 Writing a Letter and Getting it Read

3.4 Properly Addressed?

3.5 Writing to Businesses

3.6 Permission Impossible

4. Locate More Sites & Make Better Finds

4.1 Site Research for Detectorists, Fieldwalkers & Archaeologists

4.2 Successful Detecting Sites

4.3 Trading Places

4.4 The Successful Treasure Hunter's Essential Site Research Manual

4.5 See the Entire United Kingdom through Victorian Eyes

5. Dowsing for Detectorists

5.1 How to Multiply Your Treasure Finds Rate by Twenty-Five Times or More

5.2 The Successful Treasure Hunter's Essential Dowsing Manual

5.3 Photographing Treasure Auras

5.4 The Successful Treasure Hunter's Secret Manual

6. Metal Detecting and Family History

6.1 My Ancestor Left an Heirloom

7. Finds Identification

7.1 The Essential Guide to Old, Antique and Ancient Metal Spoons

7.2 Turning Trash into Cash

7.3 Cleaning Coins & Artefacts

8. Further Information

8.1 Great Books in Print from the Same Author
INTRODUCTION

Having been involved in the hobby of metal detecting or treasure hunting since the early 1970s I have a good idea of the problems metal detectorists face. A couple of years ago I asked a large group of detectorists what their biggest problem was with regards to the metal detecting hobby. I have to say the results didn't particularly surprise me. One quarter (25%) of respondents replied: obtaining search permission and almost as many (24%) said: research and finding sites. Archaeological and Establishment interference accounted for another 13%, while choosing a metal detector and overcoming detector limitations accounted for another 10% each. The remaining 18% of the group were fairly evenly split amongst a number of concerns, which included: identifying and preserving finds, ethics, coping with buried trash, choice of coil and techniques for locating finds and gold.

Although I have written books on site research and obtaining permission, I was interested to read an article by Ryan Williams in **Treasure Hunting** , June 2009. In his article, Ryan said: "When I first started detecting, I thought that the most difficult thing about it must be listening to the sounds the detector makes – interpreting them and walking around a huge field looking for a needle in a haystack. I've since decided the hardest thing about metal detecting is finding out who owns that lovely ploughed field and actually gaining search permission!" Nothing new there then!

I feel your pain, so I have compiled this guide with the purpose of offering solutions to your main concerns and, as a bonus, I have included a few other useful ideas to help you to get the best out of your hobby. To start you on your way, here are my four super tips for successful treasure hunting.

Get out and search. Equip yourself with clothing and footwear to cope with all but the most hostile weather conditions and include a waterproof cover for your metal detector in your kit. Build yourself a portfolio of different types of sites so that you have sites available, which can be searched throughout the year. Metal detecting sites you can consider are: allotments, arable land, beaches, building sites, camp sites, footpaths, foreshores, gardens, meadows, orchards, parkland, pasture, set-a-side, watercourses and woodland. Arable land is often only available for a few weeks in autumn or spring, whereas beaches, foreshores and watercourses can be searched all year round. Orchards are generally searchable between autumn and spring, while pasture and woodland should be searchable most of the year.

Research, research, research! If you habitually go metal detecting where nothing much happened in the past then all you are likely to find is – nothing much. You need to concentrate on searching sites where there was human activity in the past and the more numerous and wealthy the humans the more you are likely to find with your metal detector. You can start by visiting your local library and reading about the local history of your neighbourhood.

Learn to dowse. According to the British Society of Dowsers anyone can learn to dowse. Traditionally dowsing has been much used for finding water, however in essence dowsing can be used to find anything, unknown, lost, buried or hidden and so lends itself well to metal and mineral prospecting, treasure hunting and metal detecting. I personally have found dowsing invaluable in saving enormous amounts of time by avoiding areas barren of finds and by developing the technique of using just one dowsing rod I can guide my metal detector swiftly to good finds.

Look after your finds. You've worked hard to recover your finds, the last thing you want to do is to throw them in a box and leave them to corrode to dust, for if you don't take a few basic precautions that is what is likely to happen. A useful FREE guide to conservation is available from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) <http://www.finds.org.uk/conservation/> or your local Finds Liaison Officer.

This book is only available as an E-book, however a similar but much more comprehensive guide is available:
METAL DETECTING MADE EASY

A Guide for Beginners & Reference for All

(True Treasure Books, 2014)

**METAL DETECTING MADE EASY: A Guide for Beginners and Reference for All** , Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 132 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2014) ISBN 978 0 9550325 7 8 (Also an E-Book)

http://www.truetreasurebooks.net
METAL DETECTORS

In the case of recovering metallic treasures there is an overwhelming array of metal detectors to choose from. If you already own a metal detector, then you have probably made a good choice and frankly any metal detector worth its name will perform the task reasonably well. For those of you who are not already in the metal detecting hobby I will make a few suggestions but the final choice of what to buy must be yours. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard the question: "Which metal detector is best?" The question should really be: "Which metal detector is best for me?" For the answer depends very much on you and your requirements. How fit are you? Do you want to search beaches, rivers, farmland, underwater?

The vast majority of metal detectors are designed for finding coins, jewellery and similar sized artefacts in the top few inches of ground on inland sites while discriminating out the undesirable contaminants: iron and aluminium foil, for that is what most participants of the metal detecting hobby want. Iron is a major contaminant on farmland and aluminium foil abounds on dry beaches and recreational areas. Most popular machines work on a Very Low Frequency, Transmit/Receive system, discriminate audibly and/or visually and use the motion system of ground cancelling. Ground cancelling nulls effects from minerals in the ground and the motion system requires the machine to be kept moving otherwise desirable objects are also cancelled out. The system actually works a lot better than might be imagined. To pinpoint a target there is usually a selectable non-motion all metal mode although it is easy enough to pinpoint in motion mode by passing the head over the target in a cross pattern. Machines at the lower end of the market may be non-motion and may have little or no discrimination although by nature, these types are fairly insensitive to iron but very sensitive to aluminium foil.

Within the motion detector range there are choices to be made regarding the desired amount of user control over the machines electronic operation. Manufacturers are clearly split between simple 'switch on and go' and fully programmable detectors; some manufacturer's making only one type and some making both types. Logically the computer controlled programmable type will be better able to maximise depth and sort out the trash from the cash but you could spend a great deal of time messing about with the settings trying to achieve perfection instead of getting on with the searching. My own view is that if you are getting at all involved with dowsing then that will more than make up for any advantages of the computer control without the complexities but at the end of the day the choice between simplicity or bells and whistles is entirely yours. White's have been the traditional UK choice for programmable types but Garrett, C-Scope and Minelab also offer programmable models.

A less popular type of hobby metal detector works on a principle known as pulse induction which is a non-motion deep seeking system. These machines are notoriously sensitive to iron and very few discriminate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals (those that do discriminate tend to reject some desirable objects.) Pulse machines are firm favourites among beachcombers and underwater treasure hunters because of their ability to reach greater depths on most targets, typically twice that of many VLF machines, and to cut through severe mineralisation such as black sand.

There are two types of very specialised machines generally available one being underwater detectors, which are sealed to keep out water and constructed to withstand the pressures encountered in deep water. The other speciality is the so-called hoard hunters, which are usually some sort of 'two-box' design, carried like a suitcase, rather than a forearm extension as with conventional detectors. Hoard hunters are designed to find only large objects, the size of a pint (565ml) pot upwards. They do not discriminate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals as treasure may be buried in an iron container (detectors cannot detect through metal) and they are very deep seeking capable of probing several feet into the ground.

The standard coil size fitted to the majority of detectors is between eight and ten inches diameter, which is a compromise to enable the detector to perform reasonably well under a variety of conditions. Most manufacturers produce a range of optional coil sizes typically from 3.5" (89mm) up to 15" (380mm) diameter or more and these can be employed to improve performance under certain conditions. As a rule of thumb the larger the coil the deeper it will detect but they have their disadvantages too: less sensitivity to smaller targets, more difficult to use on heavily mineralised or iron contaminated ground and less accurate pinpointing. Larger coils are also heavier and more cumbersome to use although the weight can be compensated for by hip mounting the detector control box if the machine has that facility.

In addition to size variation there are three different types of coil construction: concentric, 2D or widescan and symmetrical electromagnetic field or SEF. Concentric coils, usually fitted to metal detectors as standard, have an inverted cone detection pattern, which achieves maximum depth only at the centre of the coil. Widescan coils have a pudding basin shaped detection pattern and while they don't achieve as great a depth as the same size concentric coil they do take in a larger volume of ground per sweep. If it's fast ground coverage you are after, the widescan coil is better and if it's depth you are after the concentric coil is better. With SEF coils, which have two loops side by side, you effectively get concentric and widescan at the same time albeit with slightly more weight and possibly less accurate pinpointing.

THE CHOICES. The choice of machine is very much dependent on what you want to do with it. If you just want a basic machine then go for one of the lower priced ones from your own Country. They are better value for money and probably more suitable for your conditions. Typically if you buy an American machine in Britain you pay pound on the dollar and the conditions and even the artefacts which are looked for are quite different in the two Countries. Amongst the higher priced detectors, foreign technology may be superior to your Country's and there may be less advantage in going for the home produced model. Foreign detectors made in Britain or for the British market have a large following; Laser and Whites were the traditional choice but now Minelab and XP seem to have taken the lead.

If you are serious about the metal detecting hobby then I would suggest you go for a detector in the middle to top price bracket. You can always buy second-hand to keep the cost down and detectors can keep going, or be kept going, for many years. I have a fifteen-year old Tesoro that is still in regular use. If you expect to search mainly inland then a VLF machine will be more suitable. If you want to search beaches then a pulse machine will probably be more suitable but bearing in mind the lack of discrimination on Pulse Induction machines it may be preferable to go for a VLF machine with a good reputation on beaches such as Whites or Minelab.

Anyone who spends a lot of time detecting usually has more than one metal detector. I personally have five – a Detech EDS with 12 inch SEF coil as my main inland machine, a Minelab Sovereign XS2aPro with 15 inch widescan coil, which I use mainly for the beach, a Laser B1 Hi-Power as a back-up and two Pulse Induction machines for beaches and deep-seeking work. I also have a selection of coils for nearly all my machines. Although the general advice is that Pulse machines are not suitable inland, I use The Pulse Induction C-Scope, which has an 11" coil, on some fields in conjunction with dowsing, which eliminates most of the problems and capitalises on the Pulses depth capabilities. I wouldn't suggest for one minute that my selection represents the absolute best in metal detecting technology but, in conjunction with dowsing, it does allow me to perform well over a wide variety of sites and conditions.

CURRENT POPULAR METAL DETECTORS

BOUNTY HUNTER USA VLF

C-SCOPE UK VLF & PULSE

FISHER USA VLF

GARRETT USA VLF & PULSE

LASER (TESORO) USA FOR UK MARKET VLF

MINELAB AUSTRALIA/EIRE VLF & PULSE

TESORO USA VLF

VIKING UK VLF

WHITE'S USA/UK VLF & PULSE

XP FRANCE VLF
THE RULES OF THE GAME

A new Code of Practice, a 4-page leaflet, was introduced in 2006 and having an impressive list of organisations endorsing it will carry some weight with landowners. Printed copies are available from Finds Liason Officers (FLOs) and copies can be downloaded from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) Website: http://www.finds.org.uk or National Council for Metal Detecting website: http://www.ncmd.co.uk The National Council for Metal Detecting (NCMD) has a Code of Conduct that has stood the hobby in good stead for many years and you can use that if you prefer.
CODE OF PRACTICE FOR RESPONSIBLE METAL DETECTING IN ENGLAND AND WALES

Being responsible means:

Before you go metal-detecting

1. Not trespassing; before you start detecting obtain permission to search from the landowner/occupier, regardless of the status, or perceived status, of the land. Remember that all land has an owner. To avoid subsequent disputes it is always advisable to get permission and agreement in writing first regarding the ownership of any finds subsequently discovered (see http://www.cla.org.uk/ http://www.nfuonline.com).

2. Adhering to the laws concerning protected sites (e.g. those defined as Scheduled Monuments or Sites of Special Scientific Interest: you can obtain details of these from the landowner/occupier, Finds Liaison Officer, Historic Environment Record or at http://www.magic.gov.uk). Take extra care when detecting near protected sites: for example, it is not always clear where the boundaries lie on the ground.

3. You are strongly recommended to join a metal detecting club or association that encourages co-operation and responsive exchanges with other responsible heritage groups. Details of metal detecting organisations can be found at http://www.ncmd.co.uk/ http://www.fid.newbury.net.

4. Familiarising yourself with and following current conservation advice on the handling, care and storage of archaeological objects (see http://www.finds.org.uk).

While you are metal-detecting

5. Wherever possible working on ground that has already been disturbed (such as ploughed land or that which has formerly been ploughed), and only within the depth of ploughing. If detecting takes place on undisturbed pasture, be careful to ensure that no damage is done to the archaeological value of the land, including earthworks.

6. Minimising any ground disturbance through the use of suitable tools and by reinstating any excavated material as neatly as possible. Endeavour not to damage stratified archaeological deposits.

Recording findspots as accurately as possible for all finds (i.e. to at least a one hundred metre square, using an Ordnance Survey map or hand-held Global Positioning Systems (GPS) device) whilst in the field. Bag finds individually and record the National Grid Reference (NGR) on the bag. Findspot information should not be passed on to other parties without the agreement of the landowner/occupier (see also clause 9).

Respecting the Country Code (leave gates and property as you find them and do not damage crops, frighten animals, or disturb ground nesting birds, and dispose properly of litter: see http://www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk).

After you have been metal-detecting

9. Reporting any finds to the relevant landowner/occupier; and (with the agreement of the landowner/occupier) to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, so the information can pass into the local Historic Environment Record. Both the Country Land and Business Association (http://www.cla.org.uk) and the National Farmers Union (http://www.nfuonline.com) support the reporting of finds. Details of your local Finds liaison Officer can be found at http://www.finds.org.uk, e-mail info@finds.org.uk or phone 020 7323 8611.

10. Abiding by the provisions of the Treasure Act and Treasure Act Code of Practice (http://www.finds.org.uk), wreck law (http://www.mcga.gov.uk) and export licensing (http://www.mta.gov.uk). If you need advice your local Finds Liaison Officer will be able to help you.

11. Seeking expert help if you discover something large below the ploughsoil, or a concentration of finds or unusual material, or wreck remains, and ensuring that the landowner/occupier's permission is obtained to do so. Your local Finds Liaison Officer may be able to help or will be able to advise of an appropriate person. Reporting the find does not change your rights of discovery, but will result in far more archaeological evidence being discovered.

12. Calling the Police, and notifying the landowner/occupier, if you find any traces of human remains.

13. Calling the Police or HM Coastguard, and notifying the landowner/occupier, if you find anything that may be a live explosive: do not use a metal-detector or mobile phone nearby as this might trigger an explosion. Do not attempt to move or interfere with any such explosives.
TREASURE LAW

Regrettably there is no international law on treasure finds and the laws differ from country to country and even from State to State in the USA. Given below are a number of legal definitions that could apply to treasure together with the popular court ruling on finds made under each category:

**Lost property** , which has been involuntarily parted from its owner, belongs to the owner or their heirs and if they cannot be traced, title goes to the finder.

**Mislaid property** , where the owner puts the object down and forgets about it, reverts to the site owner, if not claimed by the owner.

**Abandoned property** , which is simply thrown away, goes to the finder.

**Embedded property** refers to buried artefacts or even natural minerals, which fall outside the definition of treasure trove. Court rulings for such finds will generally be the same as for treasure trove.

**Archaeological objects or portable antiquities** may cover excavated objects as recent as 50 years old, in some countries and states, which have to be reported to museum authorities or similar. A reward is often paid but check local laws. Export licences may be required (e.g. European Economic Community) before such objects can be removed from the country.

**Treasure trove** , defined as objects made substantially of gold, silver and their alloys (plus paper money) hidden or concealed for several decades, with the intention of recovery, where the owners or heirs cannot be traced. Treasure trove finds on private land normally go to the finder, providing the finder wasn't trespassing. If the finder was trespassing then finds go to the landowner or site owner. Finds on government land go to the government.

**Wreck** , being an abandoned vessel, or something abandoned off a vessel, which is either afloat, stranded, aground or sunken. The salvor is normally entitled to a reward related to the value of the find

By necessity the above is a simplification and before you spend a lot of time and money on the hunt, you would be wise to ascertain local law on finds (a detailed description of the situation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is given below). It would also be prudent to have a written agreement, with the landowner or site owner, on the distribution of finds (usually a 50/50 split between finder and landowner). A sample agreement form is included at the end of this chapter.
THE TREASURE ACT (1996) IN ENGLAND AND WALES

At present, treasure is defined, under the Act, as any object other than a coin, at least 300 years old when found, which has a metallic content, of which at least 10% by weight is gold or silver. And all coins that contain at least 10% by weight of gold or silver that come from the same find consisting of at least two coins, at least 300 years old. And all coins that contain less than 10% by weight gold or silver that come from the same find consisting of at least ten coins at least 300 years old. And any associated worked objects (e.g. a pot or other container) found in the same place as treasure objects. And any objects or coin hoards less than 300 years old, made substantially of gold and silver that have been deliberately hidden with the intention of recovery and for which the owner is unknown. From 1 January 2003 the definition of treasure has been extended on prehistoric (i.e. up to the end of the Iron Age) finds to include all multiple artefacts, made of any metal, found together and single artefacts deliberately containing any quantity of precious metal.

The Act applies to objects found anywhere in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including in or on land, in buildings (whether occupied or ruined), in rivers and lakes and on the foreshore (the area between mean high water and mean low water) providing the object does not come from a wreck. If the object has come from a wreck then it will be subject to the salvage regime that applies to wreck under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. The Receiver of Wreck (located via Customs & Excise) must legally be notified of all property recovered following the loss of a vessel; and the salvor is entitled to a reward related to the value of the object, either from the owner, if identified, or the Crown.

If you are searching in other parts of the British Isles or outside of Britain altogether, you should familiarise yourself with treasure law for your specific area. In Scotland, for instance, all ownerless objects belong to the Crown. They must be reported regardless of where they were found or of what they are made. The finder receives market value as long as no laws have been broken. Not all finds will be claimed. Further information from: Treasure Trove Unit, National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF.

I have the experience of having had to report eleven separate finds of treasure since the introduction of the Treasure Act. There is little wrong with the Treasure Act itself but problems can arise when the Code of Practice isn't followed. My major concern is the lack of confidentiality promised regarding the findspot, for it seems that a number of Coroners, in the early days, gave away fairly precise details of findspots to the Press. For the benefit of novices the implication is that if thieves, usually called 'Nighthawks', learn the location of your site they may raid it in the hope of finding more treasure and may cause serious damage to the landowner's crops or other property in the process. You wouldn't blame the landowner if he then banned you from his land with his neighbours probably following suit. Painting the blackest picture, you could lose access to vast tracts of land and countless other treasures.

You are probably thinking if that is what could happen when you comply with the law you'll keep quiet when you find treasure. Unfortunately the penalty for not reporting is far greater, for if you get caught; you may be fined up to £5000 and be imprisoned for three months. You are then branded a criminal, which could seriously ruin your life.

But things are not as bad as they may look, mostly good things come from your honesty, like access to the next site and your next treasure find. The problems can be overcome if you know how. And you will know how by the time you've finished reading this chapter.

My first treasure find, in February 1999, was a gilt silver medieval ring brooch, unfortunately missing its sword-shaped pin, inscribed with the letters IESVSX (Jesus Christ) found, in close proximity to two contemporary silver coins. The findspot, on the site of a medieval Hundred Court, was near the boundary between two Coroners' provinces. It took three weeks to get one of them to accept responsibility as the Coroner's Officers were out most of the time and didn't return calls.

I was asked to deposit the find with a choice of three or four fairly local museums. I chose the most convenient to me and I am pleased to say the curator was very helpful. The landowner was on holiday at the time of the find and I arranged to delay depositing the items with the museum until the landowner had the opportunity to view them. When I deposited the objects in April, the curator advised putting a four-figure Ordnance Survey map reference on the Treasure Receipt and recorded the eight-figure reference separately.

The Museum didn't want to acquire the finds and after reference was made to the landowner, they were disclaimed and returned to me without fuss or publicity on 17 September 1999.

The second find began in April 1999, with the finding of a single Ambiani type E Iron Age gold stater by the landowner. This coin didn't qualify as treasure by itself and wasn't reported. On September 30, 1999, I found two more Ambiani gold staters in the same place and reported all three to the Coroner about 12 days later. (I knew who the Coroner was this time.) Because of the difficulties of my getting to a museum (at my own expense), we arranged for the finds to be deposited by the landowner at a different museum to the previous find. Based on advice previously received, I briefed the landowner on what information to put on the Treasure Receipt. With the agreement of the landowner, the curator filled in both the Treasure Receipt and the museum's standard receipt, recording eight-figure findspots together with the name of the farm on both receipts. The landowner was given the museum receipt and we were both later sent copies of the official Treasure Receipt.

During December 1999 and early January 2000, I recovered four more Ambiani staters, one by one from the same place. I reported each one to the Coroner within 14 days of each find and the four were handed over to the Museum on 10 January 2000 by the landowner. The dual receipting procedure was repeated although in answer to the landowner's comments about terms on the museum receipt, which couldn't be applied to potential treasure finds, the curator crossed out the disagreeable parts.

The inquest was originally scheduled for late January but was postponed to 24 February as a result of the additional finds. The inquest was a quiet affair with only the landowner, Coroner, two officers and myself in attendance. The coins were inevitably declared 'Treasure', the museum having an interest in acquiring them. Expenses were offered for attending court.

The Coroner's officer phoned the following day to tell me that the local Press wanted to speak to me, he also told me that he was legally obliged to reveal details of the find to the Press. I had discussions with the landowner who wanted no publicity. We decided that it would be better to speak to the Press and appeal to them not to reveal sensitive information, rather than risk them making their own stories up from what they got from the Coroner's office. While one reporter made it clear that he knew the landowner's name and the name of the farm, he did act responsibly and complied with our wishes to publish neither.

The Curator took the coins to the British Museum. We (landowner and myself) then received a letter from the Department of Culture Media and Sport (who administer the Treasure Act) saying the coins were being valued, the valuation would be sent to us and we would have 28 days to comment and offer alternative valuations. I did actually attempt to obtain a couple of valuations but could only get ballpark figures without the valuers being able to view the actual coins. One dealer requested £50 for this service but subsequently gave me a free retail valuation for which I was grateful.

On 11 May I received a letter from the Department of Culture Media and Sport with a valuation report from Sotheby's (£1260-£1400). The letter said that the valuation committee was sitting the following day and we were not going to be allowed to make representations on the provisional valuation owing to Public holidays.

On 16 May the Department of Culture Media and Sport advised that the committee had valued the coins at £1350 and we had one month to make representation if dissatisfied. The Museum was also allowed to make representation on the valuation. The Museum then had up to four months to settle, from the time this figure was accepted by all parties. We agreed to accept the valuation, which was close to the ballpark figures given by the dealers.

Discussing this case with Bob Whalley, Co-ordinator for Policy, National Council for Metal Detecting, it came to light that the first coin found by the landowner should not have been declared Treasure as it was only a single find at the time. The Department of Culture Media and Sport agreed. The museum wanted all seven coins to maintain the integrity of the supposed hoard, however by request the coin was returned to the landowner and an agreed pro rata award, split equally between the landowner and myself, was made for the other six coins during October 2000.

After the autumn ploughing the landowner and myself found a further Ambiani stater each on the same field. I reported these to the Coroner within the stipulated 14 days and suggested we delayed handing the coins over until I had carried out further searching. As it happened, I didn't find any more, so the landowner took the two coins to the museum in mid-January 2001. The museum wanted these coins to add to the other six so they inevitably were going to be declared treasure. I was quite puzzled why the museum even wanted the coins in the first place, as Ambiani staters must be the most common Iron Age gold coins. In answer to that question the curator told me that they needed to keep them together for posterity and future research when improved analytical techniques may be able to provide more information.

Between January and the Inquest in May, the Coroner and his two officers all retired leaving a Deputy Coroner and a new officer to take charge of the case. As the Coroner's officer suggested the inquest was going to be just a brief formality, neither the landowner nor myself attended. The following day the Coroner's officer rang the landowner saying that the coins had been declared treasure and the Press had been given details, including the Landowner's telephone number. The Landowner was not happy, I was not happy and the following week when a report on the find appeared in the local paper, giving the full name and address of the farm, in the midst of the Foot and Mouth crisis, we were livid. Locally there was not much that could be done other than to ask neighbours to look out for intruders, while Bob Whalley and I moved into written complaint mode. Bob wrote to the Deputy Coroner while I tackled Doctor Roger Bland, Adviser on Treasure. We eventually received replies from Doctor Bland, the Deputy Coroner and from two other Coroners who had each inherited part of the retired Coroner's area owing to a County reorganisation. The deputy Coroner said it wasn't anything to do with her any longer and couldn't comment, while one of the 'new' Coroners said she only referred to findspots by map reference. The second 'new' Coroner, on the other hand, while suggesting that information was given to the Press during the inquest, somewhat more encouragingly confirmed that her officers should not report findspots to the Press and promised to check out other possible sources of 'leaks', such as the Police Press Office.

Meanwhile the valuation was set at £440 for the two coins that the Deputy Coroner had determined had both been found by me and my attempts to rectify that verdict have fallen on deaf ears. The landowner and myself accepted the award, which was paid in January 2002, split 75% in favour of the landowner (I couldn't really claim half the value of a coin I didn't find).

In June 2002 on a club search in the grounds of a medieval manor house I found, within ten minutes, a fifteenth century iconographic gold finger ring engraved with figures of Saint Catherine, a bearded male believed to be Saint John the Baptist and floral motifs. This clearly had to be reported to the Coroner. Aware of the recent reorganisation in the County, I wrote to the most likely candidate from the Treasure Act Code of Practice book and asked that my letter be passed to the appropriate Coroner if that office no longer dealt with the parish where I had found the ring. My letter was passed on to another Coroner who turned out to be the lady who only refers to the findspot by map reference.

I was asked to take the ring to the museum, which had dealt with the Staters and we went straight for the Treasure Receipt this time. I only gave a four-figure map reference for the findspot to be entered on the Treasure Receipt even though the Curator wanted six. I explained why I didn't want the full findspot reference recorded on the receipt and offered it to be kept separately although that was declined for the moment. The local museum wanted the ring so it went to Treasure Inquest, which unfortunately was scheduled while I was away on holiday and I was unable to attend. There was only the briefest mention of the ring in the local newspaper, gaving only the name of the parish as the findspot and I eventually received a half share in the £3750 award.

A year (almost to the day) after finding the medieval ring, I found a Roman silver ring with a gold stud supposedly representing the evil eye to protect the wearer. I reported to the Coroner and deposited it, in exchange for a Treasure Receipt, at a different museum, which was more convenient at the time. The ring was disclaimed and returned to me with the landowner's agreement.

My next treasure find was a sixth century gold Saxon pendant, which I reported to the same lady Coroner as the previous two finds. By this time the County Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) had taken over the role of 'treasure receiver' as a natural extension of his administration of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, where found objects are voluntary reported for inclusion on a national finds database. I handed over the pendant to the FLO in exchange for a Treasure Receipt. The local museum wished to acquire the find so it went to inquest, which I was able to attend, where the Coroner cautioned me not to give out the findspot in court! The press were present and interviewed me after the short hearing, later publishing a small article, only revealing the name of the parish, and the photograph of the pendant, which I had given them. I later received my share of the £1300 award.

My seventh treasure find was a seventeenth century gold Memento Mori ring, unfortunately badly damaged by agricultural machinery. I reported this to the same Coroner as previously and handed it over to the FLO in exchange for a Treasure Receipt. Not surprisingly it has been disclaimed.

My eighth treasure find was, another small cache of nine Iron Age gold staters and second addenda to the cache from the same field as previously was declared treasure without any issues and an award of around £350 per coin was paid.

My ninth treasure find was a small Bronze Age founder's cache of broken axes and ingots for which the landowner and I waived our awards so our local museum could benefit.

Treasure find ten and eleven, consisting of more Iron Age gold staters are working their way through the system at the time of writing.

Clearly there has been a vast improvement in the handling of potential treasure in my area over the past few years, however I still urge you to be cautious when reporting your finds. Here are my unofficial suggestions for protecting yourself and your landowner friends when you find potential treasure:

Leave your treasure 'as found' and resist all temptation to clean or restore your find except for the absolute minimum necessary to identify it as possible treasure.

The National Council for Metal Detecting will willingly advise in the process of reporting treasure and it is well worth involving them from the start when you have possible treasure to report.

County Finds Liaison Officers (FLOs) are now heavily involved in the treasure process and will also advise and help.

Your only legal obligation is to report the finding of potential treasure to the Coroner within fourteen days of becoming aware that it is possibly treasure.

Discuss the matter with the landowner as soon as possible.

Do the reporting yourself. The legal responsibility for reporting rests with the finder and no one will look after your interests as well as you.

Bear in mind, especially if you want to keep the coin, that the first coin found of a scattered hoard may not be treasure, if it was the only coin found on that occasion and there was sufficient time to sell the coin before the finding of the second coin.

Report your find to the Coroner in writing within 14 days and keep a copy of the letter. In the first instance only report the findspot as the name of the parish in which the find was made. If it is not clear which Coroner needs to be informed, ask your FLO or write to the most likely Coroner and ask for your letter to be passed on, as necessary.

Always take photographs or have photographs taken of all possible views of all objects, before you hand the objects over. You will at least have something to show an independent valuer and, if you want to publish, there won't be any copyright or access issues.

There is no time limit for handing over the find and you should be allowed a reasonable amount of time for such things as photographing, valuing, showing it to the landowner, displaying it at a club meeting etc. Bear in mind, however, that you are responsible for the security of the find until you hand it over.

These days Finds Liaison Officers often collect potential treasure from finders, however you may be asked to deposit your find at a museum or FLO at your own expense. You are not legal obliged to take your find anywhere, however, if you can arrange this it is best to comply. Insist on being given the Treasure Receipt, (filled out in your presence) in exchange for your find.

The Treasure Act Code of Practice requires that the precise find spot must be established and should be kept confidential. You can insist on the confidentiality requirement when the Treasure Receipt is completed and have the precise findspot kept separately.

A section of the Treasure Receipt is labelled "Location of findspot". Only enter vague details of the findspot such as name of Parish, four-figure map reference or a nondescript name for the site such as 'Field A'.

If a museum is interested in acquiring the find, a Coroner's Inquest will be arranged. You should be invited to attend the Inquest for which you can claim expenses and I suggest you should attend if you possibly can – you will at least know who was there and what was said. The press may be there, so be careful not to reveal findspot information if they are.

Following an Inquest the Press will probably want to speak to you. Whether you speak to them is up to you but you can at least appeal for some confidentiality and perhaps avoid them uncovering, or inventing, more than you would like revealed.

The final stumbling block is the valuation, which will be given via the Department for Culture Media and Sport some weeks after the Inquest. You need to know if the valuation is 'A Fair Market Value' so that you can decide whether to accept it. Fair market value is an attempt to arrive at the price you should expect to get if selling your find on the open market and the Treasure Valuation Committee tries to arrive at the 'hammer' price without auctioneer's deductions. Pick out a couple of dealers specialising in coins or objects similar to yours from the advertisements in treasure hunting magazines. Ask the dealers to give you their buying-in price for your find (send photographs if necessary). I am sure they will oblige for little or no charge. If the treasure is very rare it should be possible to arrange viewing for independent appraisal. You should be offered two opportunities to contest the valuation, one before the valuation committee meets and one after. I would accept the valuation if it falls within or above your dealers' ballpark figures and contest it if it falls below. If you are going to contest the valuation, get in before the committee meets if you can. There is a slight possibility that the museum involved may contest the valuation and succeed in getting it reduced – if this happens, unless there is clear justification, you could appeal against it all the way to the Secretary of State, if necessary.

An alternative, if both you and the landowner agree, is to refuse any award for the find when you first report it, which will result in the find being disclaimed without inquest and valuation. You are unlikely to have the find returned, as it will probably be taken by a museum.
HOW TO GAIN SEARCH PERMISSION

The biggest problems facing the treasure hunting and metal detecting hobbies today are undoubtedly finding productive land and securing search permission. My book Site Research, (Greenlight Publishing, 2006), deals extensively with the quest for productive land through map, local history and document research. Research in itself will always help secure search permission by effectively answering the landowner's question: Why do you want to search my land? What's more you are almost guaranteed good finds once you obtain permission. So site research is a very good way of improving your chances of obtaining permission.

As the new chairman of a metal detecting club, which over the years had become a 'landless society', I was charged with the task of finding land for the club to search. This is where things can get difficult. Many landowners will willingly give permission to one or two detectorists to search but facial contours distort somewhat when you say: "And will it be OK if I bring twenty mates along?" I skirt around this problem for the club by saying 'as few as one or two of us' and if that is the agreement then the club can run a rota system so that all can share eventually in the 'reduced number searches'. One other potential problem with clubs is the amount of cars that turn up for a search. Car sharing doesn't seem to go down well with detectorists and this can be a problem for a farmer. Please make sure it isn't a problem or you probably won't be visiting that farm again.

Let's now take a look at the reasons search permissions are refused. The biggest reason used to be the non-committal: we don't allow that sort of thing. Today, in my area, Kent, the most often quoted reason is that: we already have a couple of detectorists on our land. As well as still not allowing that sort of thing, another reason might be that the occupier is a tenant and in that case, the tenant will usually co-operate if you get permission from the landowner.

Our task here is not to try and oust other detectorists from land they have diligently obtained permission to search and any attempts at that may result in everyone being banned from that particular land. But rather to work around other detectorists' patches by seeking out productive land where permission can be relatively easily obtained or no other detectorist treads, for whatever reason.

One very important point is that you absolutely must work tidily. There is little point in making the effort of getting permission only to have it withdrawn because you are making a mess and bringing the whole hobby into disrepute as well. So wherever you are searching - field, beach, garden - you must leave the site as you found it with all holes filled in and extracted rubbish removed. If the land is used by domestic animals such as livestock or horses the consequences of leaving unfilled holes could be tragic. King William III was killed when his horse stepped into a small hole – fortunately there were no metal detectors in 1702 so they can't blame us for that. Landscaped areas such as gardens and parks need special attention and aim for invisible extractions. Use a straight-edged trowel to cut a neat plug with three or four sides approximately 200mm (8") long. Cut the plug with sloping sides to help its keying in when you replace it. Lift out the plug, invert it and place it on a sheet of polythene, plastic bag or Frisbee so that loose dirt and the plug can be put back into the hole, the same way it came out, without leaving a brown halo on the surrounding grass. In very dry weather the grass will die back after being disturbed so either water the grass after find extraction (you may need to carry a bottle of water with you for this purpose) or only search these places when the ground is damp.
TRACING LANDOWNERS

It always helps a great deal when seeking search permission if you can address your request to the landowner by name. If nothing else it shows you have done your homework.

The easiest place to start is the classified section of the telephone directory; http://www.192.com Yellow Pages; http://www.yell.com Thompsons; http://www.thomweb.co.uk etc. You can get access to printed directories outside of your telephone area at your local library and on-line directories cover the entire UK. A typical search would be for farmers in a locality, defined by name of nearest town or city or first half of postcode. If you have more information such as name of farm, address, etc. you may be able to perform a more selective search.

There are a couple of points here. The entry does not necessarily list the name of the current landowner, some farms have business names and those with personal names may date from the 19th century. For farms with personal names, if you can't get any closer to the current landowner's name, then if you use Mr. (surname) you will be OK much of the time. For farms having business names you could address letters to the landowner or chief executive and start: Dear Sir. However this is not very satisfactory and you would be better to pursue other avenues to find the name of the landowner. The second point is that the names and addresses of these farms are public knowledge and many detectorists in the area have probably already tried them, so if you are approaching them without a good reason, expect to be turned down.

Another method of finding the landowner, particularly useful for fields with no obvious farmhouse attached is to visit the area and ask people living or working in the immediate vicinity. You could also ask at the local church, local shops or businesses, post office, newsagent or public house.

When you gain search permission, it is a good idea to have a written agreement. Most landowners, however, seem to prefer verbal agreements and you will just have to go along with that if that is the case. Occasionally a landowner will insist on a written agreement, so there is one you can use on the following page.

LANDOWNER/SEARCHER AGREEMENT

The following terms and conditions are agreed between landowner and searcher:

The landowner grants permission to the searcher to use location equipment and hand tools to search and extract finds from the ground of land known as:

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

During the period:

From:........................................... To:..........................................

The searcher enters the land at the searcher's own risk.

The searcher shall report all worthwhile finds to the landowner within a reasonable time of being found in accordance with the landowner's wishes.

The searcher shall report any bombs, missiles or live ammunition discovered, to the landowner and to the police.

Archaeological discoveries will be reported to the landowner in the first instance. The information will then be passed on to the local museum or archaeological body providing the landowner agrees.

Potential treasure discoveries will be reported to the landowner in the first instance providing this can be achieved within fourteen days. The searcher will carry out any mandatory legal reporting obligations.

All finds (or the value thereof) and treasure awards will be shared equally between the searcher and landowner.

The searcher shall take great care to: work tidily, avoid hindrance to the working of the land and avoid damage to the landowner's, property, animals or crops. In the unlikely event of damage the searcher shall rectify the damage at the searcher's own expense.

The searcher shall comply with any special conditions, recorded overleaf.

This agreement may be terminated by the landowner at any time and if so terminated the searcher shall immediately cease all operations.

SEARCHER

NAME: .................................................................................

ADDRESS: .............................................................................

............................................................................................

............................................................................................

SIGNATURE: .........................................................................

DATE: ..................................................................................

LANDOWNER

NAME: .................................................................................

ADDRESS: .............................................................................

............................................................................................

............................................................................................

SIGNATURE: .........................................................................

DATE: ..................................................................................
WRITING A LETTER AND GETTING IT READ

If you have the ability to knock on any landowner's door for the first time and sweet talk him or her into unconditional permission, please carry on! For most of us, it is a very different story and writing is usually the best way to avoid being traumatised or getting a flea in the ear. Writing has the advantage of introducing yourself and your hobby at the recipient's leisure, giving him a chance for a considered reply, rather than a knee-jerk no! If the landowner feels strongly negative, then a quick note returned to that effect avoids a potentially unpleasant confrontation. Some landowners will respond positively almost immediately but the majority will not respond at all and you won't know why, at the time. This is the downside of letter writing.

One reason for lack of response could be that your letter was never read. This may be because your letter is illegible or unintelligible or was never received or not opened. We can and should take steps to maximise the chances of our letter being read.

Firstly a hand written letter will probably be the best received providing it is completely and easily readable. You should know how well you own penmanship is received, if not, ask anyone who does not know your writing well to assess an example. If there is any doubt, you must type or word-process your letters, or have someone do that for you.

Business type letter headings are best avoided although club letter headings are generally acceptable. A typical letter might be laid out as the example on the next page. Save your letter if you have produced it on a word processor, otherwise make a copy of the letter and keep it.

Put the letter in an envelope with minimal folding. Enclose a first-class stamped self-addressed envelope, a copy of the Code of Practice and copies of maps and any other printed material that supports your argument for wanting to search the land. Indicate on the map where you want to search if it isn't obvious. Affix postage stamps to the correct first class postage rate. Avoid labels or franking as this may make your letter look like a circular and get it relegated to the bin.

Post the letter and wait. You will often get a fairly quick yes. If you haven't heard from the landowner by the end of four weeks, visit him, if possible, taking a copy of your letter and any research with you. You are not 'cold calling' so he should be approachable and you will just have to try and convince him to say yes even if it is only for a short probationary period.

If you can't get to see the landowner send another brief letter suggesting you think the first may have been lost in the post and enclose duplicates of everything you previously sent.
Your name

Your address

Your telephone number

Your email address (if you have one)

(Date)

(Landowner's title) (Landowner's Surname)

(Landowner's Address)

Dear (Title e.g. Mr) (Surname),

Several years ago a local farmer kindly gave me permission to use a metal detector on his land. The finds recovered, from the top few inches of soil (coins, tokens, buttons, buckles and a variety of other metal artefacts that had been lost, hidden or discarded over the past 2000 years) led me to develop a considerable interest in the history of the area.

During the course of research I have come across several references to a Roman road that is supposed to have run through (name) parish. According to major sources (e.g. Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain) the road ran from the Iron working area of (name) through (name) to (name), where it crossed the river and travelled up the east side to (name). It looks highly probable that the road continued on from (name) to (name) Street, crossing your land. It is, perhaps, worth noting that Roman finds have been made on nearly all adjoining fields.

I would greatly appreciate having your permission to use a metal detector on your land with a view to determining the course of the Roman road.

In return for your kind permission, I would offer to:

* Report all worthwhile finds and findings to you.

* Share any finds or their value with you on the customary 50/50 basis.

* Work tidily without leaving a mess; removing all junk uncovered.

* Respect your property and take care to avoid causing damage, loss or hindrance (I have N.F.U./C.L.A. approved Public Liability Insurance).

* Abide by any conditions that you may wish to impose.

I am at your disposal should you require further information or a demonstration and look forward to your reply.

Yours Sincerely,

(Your Signature)

(Your Name)

Enc: SAE, Code of Practice

The example above presupposes that you already have permission on some farmland (it always helps if a landowner has already given you permission). If you are seeking land for the first time a more suitable letter might read:

If, like me, you have an interest in the history of (parish) you will probably know that the village used to host an annual fair. I have a copy of Owen's book of fairs dated 1773 which states the fair was held on July 25 for edge tools. At the time, everyone seemed to know how to find the fair from just the village name so the site of the fair is not recorded.

(Then explain why you think the fair or whatever was held on their land)

I would greatly appreciate having your permission to use a metal detector on your land to recover metal objects, such as coins, tokens, buttons and buckles, from the top few inches of soil to determining if the (event) was held there.

In return for your kind permission, I would offer to:

* Report all worthwhile finds and findings to you... (as previous letter)
PROPERLY ADDRESSED?

I remember well passing finds around a dining table large enough to seat a couple of football teams, when I was invited in for tea and cake by a Knight and his Lady. Metal detecting is a very interesting hobby and you often find yourself having to write or speak to all manner of people – aristocracy, clergy, businessmen – and many have strong preferences as to how they are addressed. While it is not a criminal offence to get it wrong, it will help your case greatly if you get it right.

In Permission Impossible I cover the most likely 'titled' persons you are likely to come across and generally include the correct address for the envelope, the letter opening (Dear:) and how they should be addressed if you need to speak to them. If I haven't covered the situation or you don't have my book, you will need to get down to your local library and consult one of the following books:

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage

Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage

Pears' Cyclopaedia

Titles and Forms of Address, (A&C Black)

Webster, Jennifer, Forms of Address for Correspondence and Conversation

Whitaker's Almanack
WRITING TO BUSINESSES

Farmers are the most likely businesses you will be dealing with and they are often either one-man-bands or family businesses, so if you have a name, address your letter to that person. With any business you deal with it is always better to try and find out the name of the person who deals with matters relating to company land and how they like to be addressed (Dr., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, etc). A quick phone call to the business concerned will usually establish that and unless it is a very small business you shouldn't get dragged into a conversation about the precise nature of your interest in their land. If you must write without the person's details, address your letter to The Secretary and start your letter: Dear Sirs.

When signing off the letter, if you don't know the addressees name and you start your letter Dear Sirs, it is safest to use: Yours faithfully. Use: Yours sincerely if you address your letter to someone by name. Similarly when writing to titled people other than directly to Royalty or the Pope use: Yours sincerely if you know the person personally or Yours faithfully, if you don't.
PERMISSION IMPOSSIBLE

THE FIND OF A LIFETIME STARTS WITH EITHER GAINING OR LEGALLY AVOIDING PERMISSION

DON'T MISS OUT ON GREAT SITES AND EXCITING FINDS...

"Just a quick note to say I purchased your "Permission Impossible" book earlier this year. I read it many times, decided on the "project approach", did my research and spent some time finding the actual landowner. Within 2 days of her receiving my letter, research info and maps, she had invited me to the farm for a chat.

The upshot is that I now have my first land – 200 acres of pasture / arable, the farmhouse being a 1620 listed building – with a roman road passing through it, "Camp" marked on one field on an 1803 O/S map, a roman villa recently identified by aerial view in an adjacent field, springs, a Saxon hillfort nearby and significant finds on nearby land over the last decade.

So – thanks, who knows if I'd have secured this if I'd not followed your advice, and if I find anything interesting you'll be the first to know!"

Cheers, Paul

Dear Fellow Metal Detectorist,

METAL DETECTING SEARCH PERMISSION MADE EASY

Where can you legally search without permission? How do you find the landowner to ask for search permission? How do you persuade the landowner to give their permission? These are the burning questions of many participants in the hobby, be they beginner or old hand.

Like you, I wrestled with the permission problem for years, preferring to avoid the issue, rather than tackle it and consequently my finds and my interest in the hobby suffered to the point that I almost stopped metal detecting. Then it struck me that if I really wanted to get the best out of the hobby, I just had to get out there and obtain search permission. Once, I set my mind to it and developed a few strategies, I found getting search permission was relatively easy and in no time at all, I had access to an extensive portfolio of productive land. As a result, I have been responsible for eight reported finds of Treasure and have built up a collection of other coins and artefacts that would be the envy of many.

I have drawn on many years of experience at successfully and painlessly gaining search permission on a wide range of sites both as an individual detectorist and club leader to reveal ALL in this fact-packed book:

Where you can legally search without permission

Where you can search with a permit

Where you can search without obtaining permission

How recovering lost 'valuables' can help you gain permission

How to track down landowners through local knowledge

How to track down landowners through public records

How to write a letter and get it read

How to correctly address titled landowners

The rules that will help your case

A simple search agreement you can use

Leave this visiting card to reverse refusals

Metal detecting on public land

The direct mail approach to gaining permission

The project approach to gaining permission

How watching the property market can lead to easy permissions

Volunteering your services to gain permission

The subsidy approach to gaining permission

Contact details for major UK Landowners

How much is gaining access to acres, or even square miles, of productive metal detecting land worth to you? Quite a lot I would imagine. When I first published this book, I found willing investors at £15 on Ebay. But I didn't want price to be an obstacle to you gaining great sites and exciting finds, so you can get all my years of experience distilled into this amazing book for only £3.47 +delivery for the printed book and even less for the E-book

**PERMISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Metal Detecting Search Permission Made Easy** , Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 52 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2007) ISBN 978 0 9550325 3 0 (Also an E-Book)

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>
LOCATE MORE SITES & MAKE BETTER FINDS

It was one of those detecting club meetings when the thorny subject of having no "decent" land to detect on raised its ugly head yet again. "Look!" I said. "All you have to do is carry out a little easy site research and communicate the results to the landowner. It makes gaining detecting permission much easier and you'll make more and better finds. What's more your hobby will be more interesting, as you will know why the finds are there."

"It's okay for you." Somebody responded. "You have access to hundreds of acres of productive farmland and you are positively tripping over good finds." "Yes that's true." I said. "But I only got that through site research. Why don't you just do the same?"

"We don't know how to do it!" Came the chorus. Thirty highly intelligent, highly experienced, highly motivated detectorists and between them they didn't have a clue about where to begin!

I was stunned. I had started in the early years of the metal detecting hobby when the much-quoted maxim was "research really pays", and had taken that to heart to the extent that I rarely switched on my detector on a new site, unless I had done some research first. But thinking about it, even though librarians are among the most helpful people on the Planet, you can't go into a library and ask the librarian to find you a productive detecting site. They just wouldn't know what to look for. But since I do, I'll give you my top research tips:

Start your research near home or in a place, where you are already known. You will have less travelling to do (so more detecting time) and you will find it easier to get permission.

Visit your local public library; it will have a local history section containing relevant books and maps. Once you have exhausted its resources or you need something that isn't held there, the librarian will be able to advise you of other libraries and archives where you can obtain more research material. Libraries also have computers for public use these days, so if you don't have your own computer, the library is the place to go.

The Internet is the biggest library on the Planet so if you have a computer you can do a considerable amount of research without leaving home and when the library is closed. The most popular search engine is Google and you can get a lot of information just by entering the name of the place you are interested in along with the word: history, ancient, old, Roman, etc.

Archaeology UK's database of Archaeological sites (ARCHI, <http://www.digital-documents.co.uk/archi/>) is a fully searchable database of the locations of more than 165,000 archaeological sites, which range from single coins and artefacts to standing buildings. See what has been found in your area of interest and you can almost guarantee finding more of the same. You would need to subscribe to get the best out of ARCHI, nevertheless, the free search facility is well worthwhile.

If you search with your metal detector where nothing much ever happened, then expect your finds bag to contain nothing much. Look for places where people lived, worked and played in the past.

The earliest usable maps of a reasonable scale are likely to be county maps. Get hold of the earliest map you can find for your county and make a note of all features within your chosen area. Everything on the map will be at least as old as the map (probably considerably older) and important too. You will find abbeys, bridges, castles, churches, ferries, manors, parks, ports, priories, etc. If the feature still exists, you may not be able to search it but any surrounding land will hold losses dating at least as old as the feature. True Treasure Books <http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/> stock superbly reproduced Victorian maps for every UK county.

Large scale tithe maps, drawn mainly between 1836 and 1841, covering roughly 80% of England and Wales have sometimes been called the detectorist's map as, together with the accompanying award or apportionment, they show and name every field and plot of land, together with boundaries, owners and land use throughout entire parishes.

Other maps you will find invaluable are Ordnance Survey maps one inch to one mile (1801 - 1971); Landranger 1.25 inch to one mile from 1971; 2.5 inch to one mile from 1935 becoming the Pathfinder (which I prefer for its greater coverage of archaeological find spots) and then the Explorer. After 1850 large scale six inch and twenty-five inch to one mile maps were introduced, defining the landscape accurately and in minute detail.

Ordnance Survey have also produced a number of useful historical maps including Ancient Britain, Britain in the Dark Ages and Roman Britain.

The urban detectorist would do well to look out for Ordnance Survey town plans produced from the 1840s for many towns and cities at scales between 5 feet and 10.56 feet to one mile.

All schemes for canal, road and railway construction as well as river alterations had to have an Act of Parliament and, from 1792, an exact plan, which has resulted in some of the earliest large-scale maps for many places.

Look out for estate maps dating before 1850 in your County Archives. These early detailed maps, some going back to Tudor times, could be your passport to a new farm and exciting finds.

Sea charts are not just for beachcombers, they also map coastal inland sites on a large scale that pre-dates Ordnance Survey.

When all your productive fields are under crop or otherwise unavailable, research any beaches or tidal rivers you can get to and keep bringing home the finds.

Since around the year 2000, Britain has been extensively photographed from the air to produce seamless photographic maps, which are available on the Internet at Bing maps (<http://www.bing.com/maps/>); Google maps (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/) and Google Earth (<http://earth.google.com/>). CDROMs and printed maps and atlases are also available. There is fantastic scope for locating sites by studying these maps as you gain an overview by locating ancient banks, ditches, fortifications, settlements, tracks and watercourses which may only be visible as crop marks from the air.

A good place to start your research is to consult an early relevant county history, which will give you an eye witness account of your county at the time, with particular interest in the wealthies and worthies who had money and other valuables to lose. Good starting volumes would be:

The Beauties of England and Wales

The Victoria County History

The County Histories of Scotland

Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland

The Domesday Book of 1086 records a fascinating snapshot of eleventh century life in all but five English counties. Every site mentioned such as manors, churches, villages, mills, markets, etc. must be over 900 years old and, with the land surrounding them, will make fantastic metal detecting sites.

Front cover and small part of Ordnance Survey Map of Ancient Britain, 1951
SITE RESEARCH FOR DETECTORISTS, FIELDWALKERS & ARCHAEOLOGISTS

EASY WAYS TO LOCATE MORE SITES & MAKE BETTER FINDS

THE SECRETS OF SITE RESEARCH FINALLY REVEALED

"I have just received my copy of the new book Site Research by David Villanueva. This book is a cracker for all of us as the longer that I am in this hobby the more I have a thirst for more data. The new folks to the hobby will find it's a way to advance their knowledge in a short time. The illustrations are on a par with Benet's [a superb colour finds catalogue] and there is an insight when it comes to doing the homework prior to going on a dig is a must. Computer sites for data are also included and pictures of old maps from centuries past are very interesting. Well I think that I have said enough to wet the appetite of those who want to get the best out of the hobby. It certainly won't break the bank and there is always the Xmas list." JBM, Bristol

Dear fellow metal detectorist,

Now you can quickly learn how to put you metal detector's search-coil in the right place every time.

If nothing much ever happened where you search, then all you can expect your finds bag to contain is nothing much. So to keep bringing home the finds you need to search sites where human activity took place in the past. But how do you locate such sites? You could try your local library but, even though librarians are among the most helpful people on the Planet, you can't go into a library and ask the librarian to find you a productive detecting site. They just wouldn't know what to look for. If you have very deep pockets you could employ a professional researcher but I guess that's out of the question for most of us. So, like me, you'll probably be taking the do-it-yourself approach. It can often be a daunting task, particularly if you are a novice, to find sources of data of direct use to you in amongst vast archives of material and it takes time, perhaps years, to learn exactly what reference sources are out there. With one exception, I couldn't even recommend a comprehensive book on the subject as nearly every "How to Research" book I know of is either well out of date or so academic that you would probably need a language degree to get past the contents page.

The exception is Site Research, which has been written with the express purpose of explaining easy research techniques to find sites for the recovery of coins and artefacts. If you are metal detecting anywhere in the United Kingdom and interested in improving your finds rate, you need this book, whether you are a beginner or an old-hand, even if you have no previous knowledge of research. It will tell you how to find your library to get started, and then how to carry out research in libraries, archives or on a computer, whether you own one or not.

The book's 160 pages are profusely illustrated with a range of useful maps, documents, and the finds associated with them. You will be able to read" case studies" and see the results, so you can decide the best form of research to find the type of coins and artefacts, which interest you.

Maps are an important tool for site research so the main types of map available since the 16th century are discussed in detail, including: county maps; Ordnance Survey; town plans; road maps; road, river, canal and railway construction maps; enclosure and tithe maps; estate maps; and sea charts. Just as importantly, you won't get very far with this type of research if you can't read a map so I've covered practical map reading, including how to locate features which have now vanished on old maps. You will also need to know which maps are available for your area or research topic, and where you can obtain the maps you want to look at; so that's covered too, including where you can get both Victorian and modern maps for free.

Studying aerial photographs used to be an expensive pastime but now, with the advent of hi-tech digital aerial photography, you can study much of Britain from the air for nothing. This opens up exciting avenues of research where not only can you spot crop-marks but also such features as Roman and medieval farming, ancient routes, or even the positions of unknown Roman villas. Some archaeologists believe that 95% of archaeological sites have yet to be discovered. Discover one today!

Maps and aerial photographs, however, are only half the story; to "flesh out the bones" of your research you should look, even if only briefly, at written local histories. I am sure you will find them fascinating and just one book could suggest hundreds of potential sites, confirm your map and/or aerial photograph research, and help you secure that permission. Wherever you live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland there is a guide to the principle local histories in your area.

A guide to the best sources for finding metal detecting sites wouldn't be complete without the Domesday Book, which covers most of England and paints a fascinating picture of 11th century life, which can be easily used to find fantastic sites. Again, having spent your hard-earned cash on my book, you won't want to spend a fortune on other books so I've covered how to get hold of the information as economically as possible.

Gaining search permission is a thorny subject. Fortunately site research tends to "sell itself" to the point that not only will farmers willing grant permission to your requests but may even give you a bottle of wine! However, in case you need guidance on the best approach, I have included a chapter on gaining search permission. Once you get involved with site research, like me you will probably be finding coins and objects that have to be reported under the Treasure Act (or Treasure Trove in Scotland). I don't know what the record is for a single finder in England and Wales, but I have had to report eight such finds so far. The chapter "Living with the Treasure Act" fully explains the procedures and my experiences with the Act.

I know of no other book that will guide you swiftly to all the best sources for finding interesting and productive sites for metal detecting, with the added bonus of easily gained permission. It will serve you well for years to come.

Find productive sites

Save time and effort

Rapid Internet research

Everything you need to know about maps, plans and charts

Practical map reading

Uncover local history

Document & archive research simplified

Working with aerial photographs

Easy ways to gain search permission

How to protect yourself and your landowner friends when you find treasure

PREVIEW SITE RESEARCH HERE:

<http://publishing.yudu.com/A6k7e/Site-reseach/resources/1.htm>

**SITE RESEARCH FOR DETECTORISTS, FIELDWALKERS & ARCHAEOLOGISTS**, Soft Cover, 250mm x 190mm, 160 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2006) ISBN 1 897738 285

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>
SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES

Early in the year, just as I was starting to think the growing crops were pushing me out of available land, one of my friendly farmers phoned to say he had a couple of hundred acres which were going to be free of crops for a few months. That'll do nicely I thought. This was the leading farm of a scattered group owned by a farming family and one I hadn't been able to easily include in my rounds as it was quite a few miles off my beaten track. I hadn't done much in the way of research either so I needed to address that to make the most of the available land.

As it happened I was in the process of writing **Successful Detecting Sites** , which is something of a sequel to **Site Research** but concentrates on trading and meeting sites which almost guarantee prolific metallic losses from pre-history to recent times. I thought it would be an interesting exercise if I set about a little easy research using my own books, a field test if you like, just to see what that achieved.

I always think the easiest place to start research is to look at an old map, which gives a snapshot of the lie of the land in the years leading up to the publication of the map. And for this reason, after spending months scouring the shelves of antiquarian booksellers, included in **Successful Detecting Sites** are superb reproductions of some of the best Victorian maps available, covering every county in the United Kingdom.

The maps of England and Wales have been culled from a magnificent and rare work: Thomas Dugdale's **Curiosities of Great Britain** (1846). The renowned mapmaker Joshua Archer was specially commissioned to produce the maps for this book and although the maps weren't coloured, Archer produced a clear sharp map with an abundance of invaluable features for detectorists. The major political divisions of the time, hundreds in most counties, are shown, together with market towns, manors, polling places, roads, rivers, canals, mail coach routes and the few railways that existed at the time. Archer also included a great number of antiquities such as castles, abbeys, priories, Roman sites and even coin hoards on some maps.

Dugdale and Archer stopped at the English and Welsh borders so further searching was needed to find maps for the rest of the UK. **The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland** published in 1868 by Virtue & Co. is an enormous work usually found in three volumes of over 900 pages each. The Gazetteer included sharply printed coloured maps by well-respected mapmaker William Hughes and although attractive, the tendency to cover several counties on one map outside England severely limited the amount of detail shown. The exception is the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, which because of their small area have resulted in probably two of the best Victorian maps available for these islands. Two atlases, by George Philip & Son, finally solved the coverage of Scotland and Northern Ireland - **Philip's Handy Atlas of the Counties of Scotland** (1882) and **Philip's Handy Atlas of the Counties of Ireland** (1883). Both atlases, described as a dream for the researcher, featured almost exclusively one county to one map in full-colour and wonderful detail. The maps were engraved by the esteemed mapmaker John Barthlomew, who at the end of the 19th century had a reputation for producing maps of comparable clarity to Ordnance Survey but at only half the scale! Of particular importance with these maps is that the essential political divisions of the day -- every parish in Scotland and every barony in Northern Ireland are clearly identified by the use of multiple colours.

The maps, 92 in all, are included in Successful Detecting Sites at a similar scale to the originals (around 5 miles to the inch depending on the county size), and the maps are also available separately at around 150% of the original scale. The larger maps are easier to study for research and being attractively printed on imitation parchment could also be presented to landowners as a great gift idea.

Anyway, back at the map of my area, I wasn't to be disappointed for the land in question was not only nestled between three substantial villages but contained a large area of manorial parkland as well. Looking up this manor in one of the county histories listed in Site Research, told me that it had been in the hands of a wealthy family since before the fifteenth century.

According to the county guide in Successful Detecting Sites, all three of the surrounding villages held fairs once or twice a year in the eighteenth century and a recommended source stated that the largest village also held weekly markets in medieval times. A worthwhile project, for later, would be to find the actual market and fair sites. However it was obvious from larger scale old and modern maps that a series of tracks crossed the land between the villages over which many people would have travelled with money to spend at the fairs and market. It would only have been better had there been more markets and the fairs had sold the same type of produce a few days apart, for rich merchants would also have travelled these tracks as they made their living going from one fair or market to the next.

The first field that took my interest was next to the one time manor house on rising ground from where I could see all three village churches. And if I could see them, then people in the past would have too and used the churches to navigate across the landscape in relatively straight lines. I was into interesting finds almost immediately for a Victorian key bow turned up in the first few signals followed by a complete medieval casket key and a crotal bell, not to mention a fair haul of Georgian to modern coppers, buttons and lead pistol balls.

I moved to the neighbouring field towards the largest village for the next couple of searches and while finds were fewer they did include a hammered penny of Edward III and a threepence of Elizabeth I. Hoping for more hammered I tried the next field along towards the main village but that yielded almost nothing apart from a lead stylus. I gather this is Roman as with a it's chisel-ended eraser it would be better designed for scribing in wet clay tablets rather than writing on the more recent slate.

Back on the first field I had just managed to rescue a one-ounce trade weight marked 'EL' from the time of Elizabeth I, when I received an email from the NCMD asking for a volunteer to take a Times reporter metal detecting. I must have had a senior moment for I stuck my hand up and got the job. On the appointed day, I collected the reporter, Mark, from the railway station and drove us to this very farm, where we had a brief discussion on the merits of the various fields available. The first field had just been ploughed, in fact the tractor was still ploughing in the distance, and despite my warnings about its ankle-breaking potential, Mark picked this field for his metal detecting debut. We were waiting for a photographer who was overdue for arrival under his own steam, so we got ready and managed a few minutes detecting before he arrived. "Look at this," said Carl, the photographer, "brown earth, blue sky and everything to play for!" As he went rolling on the ground in raptures, I didn't have the heart to mention the intensive muck spreading that had taken place earlier in the week. I really thought Carl needed to get out more but after he had explained that he usually only had concrete to work with, I realised how fortunate we detectorists are just to be out in the countryside, pursuing our hobby. A hundred or more clicks of the camera shutter later, with about an hour's actual metal detecting achieved, it was time to regroup and discuss the finds before calling it a day. Find of the day went to Mark for a nice lead spindle whorl and between us we also had two 18th century halfpennies, a George V penny, two buttons, two bits of non-descript horse furniture and three pistol balls. Mark wondered why the pistol balls were there and I said it was probably from hunting rabbits for the pot, however he later received a better offer of a Civil War skirmish from the British Museum.

The article duly appeared in The Times, Money section, 24 March 2007 under the title 'Buried treasure is yours for the taking'.

It is always a bit of a worry what the press might print but happily it was a very well balanced article without mention of a nighthawk anywhere. The article concluded: "A decent "switch-on-and-go" metal detector costs between £200 and £700. For that outlay – and thousands of hours of site research and legwork – a steady stream of collectibles can be yours. The chances are that some of these finds will have a cash value, a handful perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands of pounds." I have to say that the main purpose of Site Research and Successful Detecting Sites is to speed up research and reduce the legwork to lead you to more and better quality finds in less time.

With the first field ploughed and quite difficult to walk on I moved to a flatter field the other side of the manor house. There were plenty of finds coming up although all were 19th or 20th century, nevertheless the odd interesting find in the shape of a button, brooch or finger ring appeared from time to time. My car was parked at the far side of the first field so it made sense to detect across it when moving between the car and the current field and I was well rewarded with this action. As I was heading back to the car one evening, keeping half an eye on the huge caterpillar tractor that was bearing down on me, I snatched a king John penny from the ground, followed a few paces on by a substantial part of an Anglo-Saxon horse bridle cheek piece. I had forgotten it was April, the one month in the year that had produced a Saxon find for me, every year for the preceding five years. But my walking back to the car session didn't end there, the next find was a Tudor snake form belt hook and finally a military button. On a later occasion I had hit a 'glory hole' which produced over a dozen examples of Victoria and Edward VII coins, including two silver sixpences. At the end of the session I had only just stepped onto the first field when a good signal produced a sixpence of Charles I and before I reached the car a damaged copper-alloy hawking bell found its way into my finds bag.

Shortly after, with the fields under crop and my publisher's deadline looming, detecting came to an end but from a few minutes spent on a very simple piece of research and the experience gained there is still everything to play for next season.

Anglo-Saxon horse bridle cheek piece (digitally reconstructed)
SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES

LOCATE THOUSANDS OF SUPERB SITES AND MAKE MORE FINDS!

Successful sites, according to most metal detectorists, are those with the potential to produce large quantities of quality coins and artefacts from all periods; Bronze Age to modern.

UK SITE GUIDE - OVER 2450 ENTRIES

Using rare 18th & 19th century sources, David Villanueva has drawn on over 30 years experience in metal detecting and historical research to compile this exciting guide to thousands of potentially successful detecting sites throughout the United Kingdom, with histories stretching back hundreds or even thousands of years.

This is the only site guide you will ever need for the author of Site Research, explains clearly how to generate a host of successful detecting sites from every place in the guide, which will keep your finds bag overflowing for years to come. And to lead you to these sites, there is a wealth of valuable information included together with superb reproductions of 92 highly detailed Victorian maps covering every U K county so you get a complete antique county atlas as well.

92 INFORMATIVE REPRODUCTION MAPS

We needed Victorian county maps covering the UK, showing sufficient detail and features to be of real use to detectorists and are pleased to have located these superb specimens at a scale around 5 miles to the inch (scale varies slightly according to the size of the county).

The maps for England and Wales, by renowned mapmaker Joshua Archer come from Thomas Dugdale's Curiosities of Great Britain (1846) and contain an abundance of information for the detectorist such as detailing the Hundreds, market towns, manors, polling places, roads, rivers, canals, mail coach routes and the few railways that existed at the time. Also included are many castles, abbeys, priories, Roman sites and even some coin hoards.

The maps for Scotland and Northern Ireland, by another famous mapmaker, John Bartholomew, come from two Philip's Atlas' published in 1882 and 1883 and outline every parish in Scotland and every barony in Northern Ireland. The Channel Islands and Isle at Man maps come from the National Gazetteer published in 1868.

CONTENTS: History of Markets and Fairs in Britain. The Siting of Markets and Fairs. Finds from Market and Fair Sites. Finds from the routes. Open-Air Political Meetings. The Siting of Meeting Places. Finds from a Hundred Court Site. Practical Map Reading. Finding the Sites. County Atlas & Site Guide for England and Wales. County Atlas & Site Guide for Scotland. County Atlas & Site Guide for Northern Ireland, Channel Islands & Isle at Man. Gaining Search Permission: the Project Approach. Bibliography and Sources. Code of Practice.

PREVIEW SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES HERE:

<http://publishing.yudu.com/A6jfh/SDs/resources/1.htm>

**SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES: Locate 1000s of Superb Sites and Make More Finds** , Soft Cover, 250mm x 190mm, 238 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2007) ISBN 978 1 897738 306

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>
TRADING PLACES

Many say that the former location of a medieval fair is the finest detecting site you can ever hope to search. While I wouldn't argue with that, there are similar trading sites, largely ignored, which are just as good if not better. These sites are medieval markets, which were held on a more or less weekly basis and catered for everyday needs of the local population, generating a large number of small transactions. The fair, on the other hand, was a grand occasion held for a few days annually where livestock and bulk produce was traded, resulting in a small number of large transactions taking place. On arithmetic alone, market sites should contain considerably more losses than fair sites although the latter may have the edge on quality. Finding trading places where detecting is possible may not be easy, since many sites will have been lost under urban development; but it is far from impossible and the results should repay the effort handsomely.

Successful Detecting Sites lists trading and meeting sites, county by county and some additional local research will also pay dividends. The Victoria County History series, any local histories (particularly antiquarian histories), and even guidebooks are well worth consulting. Having found a promising lead you need to work out where trading might have once taken place. This is because the obvious place for a market or fair today would probably not have been the first choice of our ancestors. To find the old trading places we need to know something of how trading developed.

From the time man commenced farming, back in prehistoric times, there must have been a need to exchange surplus production for other necessities or even luxuries. While some of this trading would have taken place informally, within or between communities, it is probable that more formal markets developed where people would gather to trade. The Romans established towns all over England, principally for the purpose of commerce, where markets and shops were very much a part of life. After the legions left in the early 5th century the towns became prime targets for raiding Saxons, Danes, and others, which encouraged many of the inhabitants to return to village life. Markets were still needed as Saxon settlers were basically farmers and there were still goods to trade. The word "cheap" comes from the Saxon ceap meaning a bargain: hence Cheapside, London's early market; Wincheap, Canterbury's former wine market; and the "Chipping" place name occurring in settlements such as Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire.

The single most important consideration as to where a market was sited is how the goods were transported to market. The easiest way of transporting heavy or bulky goods was by water. The problem of using animal transport overland, aside from poor roads, was that animals, like armies, marched on their stomachs and providing the large quantities of food necessary for anything other than a very short journey was a logistical and expensive nightmare. The Saxons were sailors by necessity, if not by choice, and they used to trade from their boats at a suitable beach, port, hythe or other landing place on coast or river -- we'd probably call these boat fairs nowadays. It is no coincidence that every single one of the eight known Saxon markets in Kent, for example, was served by the sea or a navigable river.

Between the Conquest (1066) and the Black Death (1348-9) the population of England more than trebled to around five million. This was an era of great development with castles, religious buildings, and new towns appearing all over the country. Many of the new towns were given a market place, but elsewhere grants for new markets and fairs were usually awarded by charter from the reigning monarch in exchange for a fee. Throughout the country, in the 13th century alone, over 1000 charters were granted for new markets; and that is not to mention a similar number of fairs. Of course, only the very wealthy could afford the fee and so grants were generally made to the Church or the lord of the manor who then benefited from the rents charged to stall holders. The transport arrangements for getting goods to market still remained the critical factor in the choice of location, and very many new markets were set up at riverside sites. This is why many market towns have a river feature such, as ford or bridge, in their name. Stratford-on-Avon and Tonbridge are examples, which immediately come to mind.

Markets set up where a navigable river did not exist were usually located at crossroads where goods would be brought in by hand cart or animal transport. The original roads, such as they were, may no longer exist but may be represented by footpaths or other features.

Other than the frequency in which they were held, the major difference between markets and fairs was that markets were commercial enterprises and fairs were a religious celebration usually of a saint's day or a holy day, fair charters usually being awarded to an ecclesiastic. The Church was a major influence on the siting and supervision of fairs and transport was less of a problem since the specialty commodities of fairs tended to be locally produced or largely self-transporting in the case of livestock. Fairs particularly, but also some markets, were held very near to ecclesiastical buildings and often in the churchyards themselves. An Act of 1285 forbade the establishment of new markets and fairs in churchyards and over the next 200 years or so many markets and fairs were relocated. Some were relocated as a result of eviction by Church officials; others because of expanding churchyards taking over the site. Even so, the new site would probably still be either overlooked by, or within easy reach of, ecclesiastical supervision.

To give some idea of what might be found at these trading places I want to tell you briefly about three sites. The first is a beach of a borough recorded in the Domesday book of 1086. Part of the original village, including what was possibly a Saxon church, is said to have been swallowed up by the sea. It is on shingle patches near to where the church is said by antiquarians to have stood, that medieval and ancient objects occasionally wash up. Some finds have suffered badly from abrasion and the action of saltwater, while others are surprisingly good for this type of environment.

The quantity and variety of finds made here over the years by several detectorists is very impressive and includes at least 40 hammered silver coins as well as other finds stretching back 2000 years or more. My own finds here include a Celtic silver unit, several Roman coins, a Roman brooch, a Saxon strap end, three hooked tags, and a handful of hammered silver coins.

I am very grateful to Brian, who searches the second site, for making his finds and information available to me. This site is overlooked by an old manor house and lies some distance from a village on the edge of the flood plain of a now modestly sized river. The lord of the manor was granted a market and fair in the 13th century and we believe that this was the site of the medieval market. Brian has made an enormous amount of good finds here, and has already filled a large notebook with details of the better items, which he meticulously records. The one find from this site that is much admired by all, is a copper-alloy spur, from the late 14th or early 15th centuries, ornately decorated in gilt and complete apart from its rowel. Other finds include a gold stater, base Celtic coins, Roman coins and other objects, over 30 hammered silver coins, and numerous artefacts from the medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods (not to mention later finds up to the 20th century). Interestingly, unlike the beach site, nothing at all from the Saxon and Norman periods has turned up here.

The third site is close to, and over-looked by, the church in the same village as Brian's site, although the two sites are about a mile apart. I believe this site was used in connection with the annual fair from Tudor times, either as the fair site itself or perhaps an overnight camp site or parking for horses etc. If the fair was well attended, and held in the middle of the small village as tradition implies, then there wouldn't be room for every man and all his trappings. This area would therefore have been ideally placed to accommodate horses, carts and the like. The site has produced many finds from the Tudor period to the 19th century, but almost nothing earlier. The mix of finds is quite interesting. Coinage tends to be rather sparse, but includes larger denomination silver, such as 16th century sixpences, 17th-18th century shillings and - at the other end of the scale - 17th century traders' tokens. Artefacts are much more common finds here than coins, with examples of almost every conceivable item turning up including buckles, horse furniture, clothing fasteners, seal matrices, weights, cutlery, thimbles, jettons, etc.

In conclusion, the assignment of the above sites to historic trading places is a little speculative, as there is neither documentary nor landscape evidence to confirm that these were actually market and fair sites. Our evidence is only in the finds themselves. It would be difficult, however, to suggest any other reason than trading to explain why such losses occurred in such quantities in these places. The pattern of finds fits in logically with historical fact, other than the relative wealth of Celtic and Roman material on the riverside and beach sites. The Romans, or perhaps the Celts before them, appear to have been the first users of the two market sites discussed; this was at least for landing boats but probably for trading too. Where early borough status was granted the market has continued from where the Romans left off, through the Saxon period into medieval times. Where a medieval market charter was granted, a former Roman site has also been chosen for the trading place.

The finds from the possible fair site also tell the story that the fair probably started in the churchyard itself and was perhaps relocated to this new site in the 16th century - hence the lack of early finds.

So if you have the inclination to dig up lots of good finds you could do far worse than find yourself one or two of these trading places. Carry out a little research and see where it leads. Perhaps we'll soon be reading about your finds.
THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL SITE RESEARCH MANUAL

SITE RESEARCH AND SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES are also available as a combined E-book:

**THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL SITE RESEARCH MANUAL: How to Find Productive Metal Detecting Sites** , E-Book only

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>

SEE THE ENTIRE UNITED KINGDOM THROUGH VICTORIAN EYES

92 Nineteenth Century Reproduction County Maps

The 92 informative Victorian maps, superbly reproduced at approximately 150% original size, cover the whole UK and show sufficient detail and features to be of real use to researchers, detectorists, family historians and anyone interested in how their county looked over 125 years ago. The scale is around 5 miles to the inch varying according to the size of the county.

The maps for England and Wales come from Thomas Dugdale's **Curiosities of Great Britain** (1846) and are by the renowned mapmaker Joshua Archer. They contain an abundance of information such as detailing the Hundreds, market towns, manors, polling places, roads, rivers, canals, mail coach routes and the few railways that existed at the time. Also included are many castles, abbeys, priories, Roman sites and even some coin hoards.

The maps for Scotland, which detail all the parishes, and Northern Ireland, which detail the baronies, come from two Philip's Atlases published in 1882 and 1883 and are by another famous mapmaker, John Bartholomew.

The Channel Islands and Isle of Man maps come from **The National Gazetteer** published in 1868.

Aid your research to find better sites

Look really good framed

Make great presents or prizes

Supplied unfolded

ENGLAND AND WALES

1 Anglesey

2 Bedfordshire 3 Berkshire 4 Brecknockshire 5 Buckinghamshire

6 Cambridgeshire 7 Cardiganshire 8 Carmarthenshire 9 Caernarvonshire

10 Cheshire 11 Cornwall 12 Cumberland

13 Denbighshire 14 Derbyshire 15 Devonshire 16 Dorset 17 Durham

18 Essex

19 Flintshire

20 Glamorgan 21 Gloucestershire

22 Hampshire (with Isle of Wight) 23 Herefordshire 24 Hertfordshire

25 Huntingdonshire

26 Kent

27 Lancashire 28 Leicestershire 29 Lincolnshire

30 Merionethshire 31 Middlesex (with London) 32 Monmouthshire

33 Montgomeryshire

34 Norfolk 35 Northamptonshire 36 Northumberland 37 Nottinghamshire

38 Oxfordshire 39 Pembrokeshire

40 Radnorshire 41 Rutland

42 Shropshire 43 Somerset 44 Staffordshire 45 Suffolk 46 Surrey 47 Sussex

48 Warwickshire 49 Westmoreland 50 Wiltshire 51 Worcestershire

52 Yorkshire (NE): North Riding (part) 53 Yorkshire (SE): Parts of East & West Riding 54 Yorkshire (SW): West Riding (part) 55 Yorkshire (NW): Part of North Riding

SCOTLAND

56 Aberdeen 57 Argyll and Bute 58 Ayr

59 Banff 60 Berwick

61 Caithness

62 Dumbarton 63 Dumfries

64 Edinburgh 65 Elgin and Nairn

66 Fife and Kinross 67 Forfar

68 Haddington

69 Inverness (Mainland) 70 Western Islands (Parts of Ross and Inverness)

71 Kincardine 72 Kirkcudbright

73 Lanark 74 Linlithgow

75 Orkney and Shetland

76 Peebles 77 Perth

78 Renfrew 79 Ross and Cromarty 80 Roxburgh

81 Selkirk 82 Stirling & Clackmannan 83 Sutherland

84 Wigtown

NORTHERN IRELAND CHANNEL ISLANDS & ISLE OF MAN

85 Channel Islands

86 Isle of Man

87 Antrim 88 Armagh

89 Down

90 Fermanagh

91 Londonderry

92 Tyrone

A3 (420x297mm) printed black on parchment effect paper

PRICE: £3.47 + delivery

http://www.truetreasurebooks.net
DOWSING FOR DETECTORISTS

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet 1:5

I would imagine that all detectorists have an interest in improving the quality and quantity of their finds. Yet very few make use of a free technology that can bring spectacular results when employed alongside a metal detector. Dowsing probably hasn't caught on with detectorists because of common beliefs that either it doesn't work or it is impractical. My own experiences, however, have convinced me that dowsing does work and that it can be very easily put to practical use.

Many years ago, having long had a casual interest in the so-called paranormal, I decided to give dowsing a try and bought a pair of L-rods. The instructions claimed that it was necessary to rest one end of each rod in the palm of each hand while supporting the rod loosely between the thumb and forefinger. I found this terribly uncomfortable; couldn't get them to work; didn't have a clue what to do with them if I did get them to work. I gave up on the idea of being able to dowse myself, and discarded the rods. There were two important points that I later learned from this experience:

1. I had unwittingly fallen foul of one of the basic rules of dowsing -- you need to be relaxed and comfortable with what you are doing.

2. The fact that nobody really knows how dowsing works, tends to attract those with fanciful ideas on how you should or shouldn't dowse; there are no strict rules, you just dowse as you want.

Sometime later, I asked accomplished dowser Jimmy Longton to dowse a map for me. In addition to dowsing the map, Jimmy tried very hard to encourage me to learn his craft. I was still very sceptical, even though the British Society of Dowsers claim that: "Most of us can develop the art by practice and perseverance'. When Jimmy told me of his find of a hoard of Viking silver brooches, I could see the improvements that dowsing might bring to my own finds. There appeared to be a more convincing alternative, however, the Long Range Locator. I bought an Electroscope and learned to use it with good results.

About a year later, following a discussion on dowsing, my mother-in-law announced that she would like a pair of dowsing rods for her birthday. I thought she deserved a little more than two remodelled coat hangers so I splashed out on a pair of commercial rods. On her birthday she handed me the rods and asked me to show her how to use them. 'They don't work for me" I explained, "But this is what you are supposed to do..." With that, I threw a pound coin on the lawn in front of me and proceeded to walk towards it, rods in dowsing mode. To my surprise the rods crossed as I walked over the coin. Intrigued by my new-found ability, I experimented with L-rods and discovered that they responded to buried metal in much the same way as the Electroscope.

I can only conclude that by using the Electroscope I had actually taught myself to dowse. There is no need to spend several hundreds of pounds just to learn to dowse. Jimmy Longton has kindly allowed me to reproduce his rod design and dowsing work-out, so you can learn for nothing! If you already have a pair of L-rods, you can use them, if you like, or you can make excellent rods as follows:

You will need 22 in. (56 cm) of round metal bar (brass is considered best) of diameter 1/16 in. (1.5 mm) to 3/16 in. (5mm) to make each rod. Unless you have easy access to round bar, I suggest you use two wire coat hangers (N.B. Measurements and angles do not need to be too precise to make a working rod):

Invert the first hanger and measure 14 in. (36 cm.) from one side, along the horizontal bar then mark and cut through with a pair of pliers or a junior hacksaw. measure 22 in. (56 cm.) back from the first cut and make a second cut. Discard the hooked portion. (Fig. 1).

Smooth the cut ends with a file or emery cloth.

Using a pair of pliers or a vice, first straighten and then bend the shorter arm back to an angle of 135 degrees (Fig. 2).

Measure 7 in. (18 cm.) along the shorter arm, from its end and bend this portion back until horizontal (Fig. 3), then turn the last 5.5 in. (14 cm.) up at right angles. Finally, turn the last 0.5 in. (1 cm.) of the upright inwards, at right angles (fig 4.).

Lay the rod on a level surface and adjust it until it lies reasonably flat.

Make a second rod from the other coat hanger.

**Health warning:** The rods are perfectly harmless when used as described. If you wish to use them to play Conan the Barbarian, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe or act out any other fantasy, don't blame me if you puncture your eyeball or any other part of your body. I would suggest that children using the rods should be supervised by a responsible adult. The rods can be made extra safe by folding their tips back on themselves, wrapping their tips with insulating tape or applying a blob of resin such as Araldite.

Take the short arm of a rod in each hand so that the long arm is on the opposite side to your thumbs. Clench your fists around them loosely and turn your wrists so that your thumbs are uppermost. Tuck your elbows into your body and keep your upper arms in line with your body. Hold your forearms straight out in front of you, the width of your body apart and at whatever angle necessary to keep the rods reasonably parallel to the ground. The rods should now be pointing forward like extensions of your forearms. You may need to adjust your grip so that the rods are just free to move but not sloppy. When you are happy with holding the rods we can move on to the exercises:

1. Hold the rods in the nor-mat dowsing position as just described. Ask the rods to turn left. (You have to treat them like pets; talk to them nicely at first but if they don't do as they are told, shout at them -- it works, honest!) After they have moved, restart the rods pointing forward. The easy way to get the rods to point forward is to drop your forearms so that the rods point to the ground then raise your forearms back to the horizontal. Ask the rods to turn right. Restart. Ask the rods to cross. The rods will cross on your chest. Practice until the rods move easily.

2. Place a coin on the floor then take a few paces back from it. Hold your rods in the normal dowsing position and walk slowly toward the coin saying, (out loud, preferably): "I am looking for a coin". The rods will either cross as you pass immediately over the coin or within a few paces past the coin. Keep practicing until the rods cross at the coin.

3. Place a copper coin, a silver coin and a brass coin some distance apart on the ground. Hold your rods in the normal dowsing position and walk slowly toward the coin saying: "I am looking for a copper coin". The rods will cross as you pass over the copper coin but not the other two. Repeat the exercise with the silver coin and then the brass. Keep practicing until you can differentiate between various metals.

4. Stand sideways to a distant building or other large object that you know the location of and ask the rods to show you where it is. Give the full name of the place, i.e. "Show me St. James' Church". Clear you mind of everything else and concentrate. Once you get this to work, try standing with your back to the "target" (as dowsers tend to call objects they are trying to find) and see what happens.

5. When you have succeeded with exercise 4, take your rods to the gate of a field, which is available to you for searching. Hold the rods as normal and ask: "are there any coins buried in this field?" The rods will cross if there are. Ask the rods to point to the nearest coin, then walk slowly in the direction indicated by the rods, turning, as necessary, to keep the rods pointing straight out in front of you. On reaching the coin the rods will cross. If you want to search for other objects as well as coins, ask the rods to find treasure.

Keep practicing. Once you can obtain a response from the rods in all these exercises, you are basically ready to do anything. Even if you can't do it all at first, you should find that the rods will produce some useful results in the field and you will improve with time.
HOW TO MULTIPLY YOUR TREASURE FINDS RATE BY TWENTY-FIVE TIMES OR MORE

Obviously you would like to increase your treasure finds rate. I know I do. But how do you actually do that? Well let's start by looking at the equipment you are using.

If you are serious about treasure hunting, you probably have a metal detector or are thinking about buying one. But with over 150 models to chose from, which one is best? Which one will make the most finds? If any one model stood out, wouldn't we all be using it? While some machines clearly excel on certain types of site, overall there probably isn't more than a few percent to gain or lose on performance between models, once you get away from the low priced 'toy' range. You would be hard pushed to try out all the models available and frequently swapping from one model to another could not only prove very expensive but would undoubtedly reduce your finds rate, for maybe six months at every change, until you become used to the machine.

Using a pair of good quality headphones always helps. You will hear fainter signals and at the same time, cut out distracting noise from your surroundings.

Then you could look at coil or search-head types and sizes. Wide-scan coils cover ground faster than concentric but at a loss of overall depth. A larger diameter coil will also cover ground faster while detecting deeper but it will find more larger-sized objects at the expense of smaller objects and a smaller diameter coil works the other way around. You pay your money and take your choice.

So what about time spent searching, it has to be true that the more hours you put in, the more treasure you will find. But there are only 24 hours in the day and 168 hours in the week. You have to sleep sometime! Go out treasure hunting regularly if you can, this will keep you in practice and you will find more than if you go on a marathon session occasionally.

Let's look at search methods then. We'll assume you have a site to search, 69 yards wide by 70 yards long. That's roughly one acre. Buried in the site are five treasures within detection range, each marked with a cross.

You could do a systematic search with a metal detector, covering every square inch. If your overlapping search sweep averages 1.5 yards then you would need to cross the site 46 times and walk nearly two miles. It would take a few hours, however you should get 100% of the treasure finds.

Systematic Search: 100% of the time for 100% of the treasure

Some treasure hunters or metal detectorists like to perform a random search.

Random search: 20% of the time for 20% of the treasure (on average)

On the basis of your results, if you then decide to do a systematic search, you will spend 120% of the time for 100% of the finds, so best decide as early as possible to swap from a random search to a systematic one. If you are unlucky and miss all of the treasure on a random search, do you then write the site off as unproductive?

Or you could use an ancient free technology to do this:

20% of the time for 100% of the finds (conservative estimate)

Clearly you could cover five times more sites in the time in takes to systematically search one site. You should make at least five times more finds.

Okay, let's look at how you chose that site in the first place. Did it just come along or did you find it by research? Research will certainly put you in the right ballpark; maybe the plot next to the one containing the treasure, maybe the one with the treasure in itself. But you won't know until you get out there, search the site thoroughly and dig the treasure up.

Unless you use the same ancient free technology to discover exactly where the treasure is (or isn't), what it consists of, how deep it is buried and anything else you want to know – without leaving home and without asking anyone's permission. You need never search a barren site again. This is not quite so easy to quantify as the search technique but by my reckoning this will generate at least another five times more finds. And much more if some of those treasures are caches.

So, just to recap, if you get five times more finds from the search method and five times more finds from site selection the two multiplied together will give you twenty-five times more finds.

Here's how it worked for me. Using the UK Treasure Act's definition where treasure is basically precious metal single artefacts or coin caches over 300 years old, I found one solitary treasure in 25 years before being taught, by a guy called Jim Longton, how to use an ancient free technology to find treasure. I then went on to make eight treasure finds in as many years. Going from one find in twenty-five years to one find every year is an increase in finds rate of twenty-five times. However, two of the treasure finds were gold coin caches so the actual object find rate increased forty times. And of course, my lesser but nevertheless interesting and often valuable finds have multiplied by a similar amount.

"A quarter stater of Eppilus...found by David Villanueva...the only gold find we had from the site (apart from a modern ring which David also found)". DR. RICHARD HOBBS (Reporting on a one-week metal detector survey involving over a dozen participants)

I used to watch in admiration as others won trophies at my treasure hunting club but now I have to keep a shelf free to house all the trophies I keep winning.

"David Villanueva took home all the trophies from the Finds of the Year competition (the second time that he has done this)." PETE CLARKE, CHAIRMAN, Swale Search & Recovery Club

Okay. I'm sure you'll now agree that this ancient free technology, better known as dowsing or divining, is worth considering, after all there is nothing out there that even comes close to multiplying your treasure finds rate by twenty-five times or more.

"And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." LUKE 11: 9-10

"I believe the fact that so many people do believe in dowsing, and that so much appears to have been discovered using the technique, warrants a little investigation." BRIAN GROVE, The Treasure Hunter's Handbook, (London, 2005)

"Many of you don't realize yet that you are the best sensor of all and that all you have to do is fine tune yourself in order to be successful." LOUIS MATACIA, Finding Treasure Combining Science and Parapsychology, (Bluemont Virginia, 1997)

"Either you believe in it − or you don't − but there is no harm in trying it. It does seem to work for some people." REGTON, Metal Detection Specialists

You may not know that savvy treasure hunters have been quietly profiting from dowsing for centuries:

Dowsing has been recorded since the time of Moses, for the story of Aaron producing water from the rock (Exodus chapter 17, verse 6) is often quoted as the first written evidence. Even if we dismiss the Biblical claim, dowsers appear engraved on ancient Egyptian stonework and on the statue of a Chinese emperor dating circa 2200BC. Little else of dowsing is recorded until Agricola, in 1556, wrote De Re Metallica, a composition on mining which included an illustration of a German dowser at work.

Almost a hundred years after Agricola, Martine de Bertereau, Baroness de Beausoleil travelled Europe, with her husband, locating mineral deposits by dowsing. They discovered over 150 ore deposits of iron, gold and silver in France alone, before being imprisoned for practising the 'black arts'. Later, in the same century, a particularly interesting book was written by Jean Nicholas de Grenoble published in Lyon in 1691 under the title of La Verge de Jacob or L'arte de Trouver les Trésors, Les Sources, les Limites, les Métaux, les Mines, les Minéraux et autres choses cachés par L'usage du Baton fourché. (The Rod of Jacob or the art of finding treasure, springs, boundaries, metals, mines, minerals and other hidden things, by the use of the forked twig). Dowsing then seems to have sunk back into obscurity, although, undoubtedly it continued to be practised, at least for finding of water -- the lifeblood of all living things - practised in secrecy, perhaps, because of its occult associations and the Church's condemnation as the work of the devil.

Victorian scientific interest aided by a softening of the Church's attitude brought dowsing out into the open. In 1874, Thomas Welton translated and published Jean Nicholas' book in English. During the following decades a number of respected men, including the physicist, Albert Einstein, performed impressive feats with a variety of dowsing devices. Most of these feats were only of academic value but by the middle of the 20th century dowsing was regularly being put to a great variety of profitable uses.

Farmer J W Young convinced wild-catter, Ace Gutowski, that oil lay beneath West Edmond, Oklahoma by demonstration with a goatskin-covered bottle hung from a watch chain which invariably swung from north to south when over oil. As a result, in 1943, Gutowski drilled a hole and discovered the largest oil deposit in Oklahoma for 20 years. And that is just one of very many examples of oil strikes by dowsers.

Colonel Harry Grattan, CBE, Royal Engineers was given the task of building a new Headquarters for the British Rhine Army at Mönchen Gladbach, Germany in 1952. Planning for at least 9000 people who would need 750,000 gallons of water per day was a major project. Water supply was a big problem. Notwithstanding that the British Army preferred the security of its own water supply, the three local waterworks would have had to upgrade their equipment and pass the costs on in the form of water rates at £20,000 a year. A considerable sum in 1952.

Colonel Grattan knew of a nearby family with a private well, which produced better quality water than any of the waterworks. He employed a geologist with the intention of tapping this source but a trial bore produced very little water. The Colonel was a proficient dowser, however, and decided to use his skills to solve the problem. Using the traditional forked twig the colonel began dowsing and getting reactions everywhere to the west of the test bore. On the strength of this two further trial bores were executed with spectacular results.

The trials showed that the ground was mainly solid clay, but between 73 and 96 feet down there was an aquifer, which produced a copious supply of excellent quality water. The German government, responsible for site construction, were less than convinced by such surveying techniques and were adamant that the water supply would soon dry up. Gaining the support of his superior, General Sugden, Colonel Grattan was able to continue his exploration. Dowsing from horseback, the colonel plotted out the full extent of the aquifer, which extended to within a few hundred yards of two of the waterworks. The British Rhine Army's private waterworks were constructed providing the Army with all the water it needed and savings running into millions of pounds over the years.

Somewhat closer to our quest for buried objects was the work of Major General Scott Elliot, a former president of the British Society of Dowsers who spent many years finding previously unknown archaeological sites by dowsing. His initial plan was that he would find the sites and then hand them over for professional excavation. On discovering that the professionals were not interested, partly through skepticism and partly because they had more than enough sites of their own, the major learned to do his own excavations. He also discovered he could save enormous amounts of time and effort by mapping out the site features by dowsing before he removed the first sod. Nothing spectacular in terms of finds of great intrinsic value were ever reported but nevertheless, over a period of some 20 years the major discovered and excavated an impressive list of sites.

The fairly recent development of treasure hunting as a popular hobby has drawn one or two dowsers to the challenge of using their skills to find buried metal artefacts. In the USA, Louis J Matacia is a surveyor who has studied dowsing for years. During the Vietnam War he was commissioned to teach dowsing skills to US Marines so that they could avoid booby traps, navigate safely through jungles and learn the positions of the enemy. Soldiers reported that using the L-rod in this way saved many lives. Louis is particularly interested in the challenge of the search. Using his dowsing together with a range of scientific devices he has located lost pipes, oil, wells, caves and buried treasures.

The most successful treasure dowser in Britain is Jim Longton from Lancashire. Jim took up dowsing when he retired from the wrestling ring and first hit the headlines in 1990 after finding a spectacular hoard of Viking silver brooches valued at over £42,000 ($80,000). His latest find is potentially Britain's Tutankhamen: a seventeenth century shipwreck, believed to contain untold treasures, including a 230 piece gilt-silver dinner service once owned by Charles I. While divers work on the recovery, Jim is being kept busy locating more treasure wrecks for a marine salvage company.

How does dowsing work? No one knows for sure. In a series of experiments in the late 1970s Chadwick and Jensen showed that buried conductive material causes a magnetic field or a change in the Earth's natural magnetic field which is detectable by dowsers. To explain all dowsing phenomena using this theory we would need to assume that the magnetic effect generated by the target is transmitted over great distances like a radio wave.

"I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient superstition. According to my conviction this is, however, unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time" ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHYSICIST, NOBLE PRIZE WINNER

"We are dealing with a real physical force, as real as gravity and magnetism" PROFESSOR VINCENT REDDISH, ASTRONOMER, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

The fact that science has yet to explain how dowsing works has spawned many spurious theories based on harmony, energy and psychobabble, which in turn has led a number of skeptics vehemently claiming that dowsing doesn't work. The chief among skeptics is James 'the amazing' Randi who, to be fair, put a considerable sum his own money into a challenge with a group of Australian water diviners, the terms of which were agreed by all.

There were three tests, the first to find a gold bar in one of ten boxes; the second to find water running through one of ten pipes; the third to find a piece of brass in one of ten boxes. The dowsers predicted 80%-100% success rate and Randi agreed that 80% would constitute proof and win the prize. The results on the gold test were 4 successes in 35 tries, the water test resulted in 11 successes out of 50 tries, while the brass produced zero success in 26 tries. Randi added all the results together and concluded that the 13.5% overall success rate was only marginally better than chance and that therefore dowsing only worked in the minds of the dowsers. Scientific interpretation of the results, however, actually proves that dowsing works.

"What are we to make of Randi's test for dowsing? The experiment was well designed but I don't quite agree with his conclusions. The test for water and the test for metals were entirely separate experiments -- he shouldn't have combined the results. The dowsers were hopeless at finding metals, they would have done much better if they had merely guessed. But the results for water are rather impressive. By chance alone the dowsers should have been right 10% of the time, their actual score was 22%. The odds are 100:1 against that happening by chance. So the dowsers were quite good at finding water; they weren't as infallible as they claimed to be but they were distinctly better than Randi admits." ARTHUR C CLARKE

Two further comments about Randi's test.

The water diviners should have stuck to what they know - water. You don't call a plumber to fix your TV set. Had metal or treasure dowsers undertaken the test they would have scored well on the metal test and failed on the water test. A few very experienced dowsers can switch from one substance to another but if you want to find treasure - stick to treasure.

Dowsing works best under natural conditions where the substance is buried in the ground for at least a couple of weeks had the dowsers realized that, they might have agreed a more suitable experiment and scored their predicted 80%-100% success rate.

"Will I be able to dowse? I thought only specially gifted people could dowse." I asked Jim Longton. I was so confused by all the garbage I had read. "Of course you will be able to dowse." Jim said. "Anybody who can't dowse must be dead."

"Can anyone dowse?

Basically we think the answer is yes. A few people do find difficulty in obtaining responses while at the other end of the spectrum lie the very gifted dowsers. Most of us can develop the art by practise and perseverance." THE BRITISH SOCIETY OF DOWSERS

"Dowsing rods are simple detectors which anyone can use" PROFESSOR VINCENT REDDISH, ASTRONOMER, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right"

HENRY FORD
THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL

DISCOVER THE SECRETS KNOWN ONLY TO A FEW HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTERS -- UNTIL NOW!

Dear fellow treasure hunter:

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Since learning to dowse for treasure, I have been truly amazed at the results. In the previous 25 years that I was involved in recreational treasure hunting, although I had found a number of interesting and valuable coins and artefacts, I had never found REAL treasure. In no time at all, I was digging up gold and silver, which had to be reported under the UK Treasure Act.

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PHOTOGRAPHING TREASURE AURAS

The Polaroid SX-70 camera, by accident rather than design, has the ability to 'see' auras emanating from buried precious metals. The quantity of buried metal doesn't have to be large for I have photographed auras emanating form single gold coins, however larger targets give better responses. The metal doesn't need to have been buried for long, a couple of days will suffice, although the aura does tend to increase the longer the target has been buried. The SX-70 camera itself is a Single Lens Reflex (which means focusing is directly through the lens instead of a viewfinder). Unfortunately, the SX-70, a success of the 1970's is no longer in production and has to be sought out on the 'previously enjoyed' market. I bought mine for £30/$60 through placing a wanted advertisement in my local 'freeads' paper and I spotted two others recently: one on Ebay, the Internet auction, with a starting price of £60/$120 and a special edition SX-70, in the collectors section of a camera store, priced at £90/$180. Other places you might look for a camera to buy are: boot fairs, antique shops, flea markets, second-hand shops, charity shops, garage sales, yard sales and photographic equipment fairs. Just be aware that there are a number of cameras bearing the SX-70 name and even more that can use SX-70 film but they are not all SLR cameras. The SX-70 Model 3 for instance is not a SLR camera. I haven't been able to quite get to the bottom of why SLR cameras seem particularly good at capturing auras, I believe it is related to the amount of light reaching the film. The SX-70 camera I use is the original SLR folding camera, newer SX-70 SLR cameras should work but I have not heard of one single non-SLR Polaroid producing an aura. If in doubt, stick with the original.

The instant film specifically made for this camera in cartridges of ten is called Time Zero in the USA and SX-70 instant film in Europe. Regrettably Polaroid took the decision to cease production of this particular film in 2005 and all available film is now out of date and extremely expensive. I have used this film successfully up to four years out of date but success in using out of date film depends very much on storage conditions. Refrigeration but NOT freezing, prolongs the film's life so if the film hasn't been refrigerated it is probably not safe to use more than two years out of date and all SX-70 original film expired in 2006. If you have out-of date film all I can say is try it,̶ if the film will produce a satisfactory picture it will produce an aura providing you have a suitable target in the viewfinder. However, all is not lost for as many of you will know, with the rapid advancements in digital cameras, Polaroid ran into difficulties and the Dutch factory was sold to the management. The factory, under the name of The Impossible Project, is again producing SX-70 film to a different formula and slightly faster speed. The first of the new film was called PX-70 Color Shade but that has now changed to PX-70 Color Protection. I bought a box of 8 PX-70 Color Shade and tried it on my test site, which only contains a very small amount of gold (1/4 oz) and silver (2 oz). Happily the film has produced an aura, which you can see to the left of centre.

This seems to show that it is the SX-70 Single Lens Reflex camera that produces the auras, rather than the film. So if you are buying an SX-70 camera for aura photography, make sure you get the SLR type which views through the lens. The non-SLR or box type has a separate viewfinder. For film and refurbished cameras, start here:

http://shop.the-impossible-project.com/allabout/colorshade/

As I just mentioned, regardless of the film you use, you will need to get an ultraviolet (UV) filter to fit over the lens. There isn't a fitting on the lens to take a filter and as far as I know no filters were ever made for this camera, although there are clip on lenses which, if you get hold of one, could be adapted to take a filter. You won't go too far wrong if you take your camera to a camera store and ask them to supply a filter a little larger in diameter than the lens; 30mm diameter is about right but check that the filter will fit your camera before you leave the shop. When you come to use the camera attach the filter with a couple of blobs of a solid reusable adhesive putty like 'Blu-Tack' (poster putty or fun tac), one either side of the lens but not obscuring it. Don't stick the filter on with super-glue or other permanent glue or you won't be able to close the camera up. Finally, one accessory that it would be useful to have is a compass, it doesn't need to be fancy as you only have to identify North and South with it.

Having equipped yourself with SX-70 camera, film, filter(s) and compass you only need a site where you think there could be gold or silver buried. Temperature may be critical, the higher the temperature the stronger the aura. The film needs to be above 55°F/13°C to develop so put it in your inside pocket or somewhere warm in low temperature conditions. Auras should be obtainable below this temperature providing the ground isn't frosty, as the frost tends to scatter the light. The optimum time for taking pictures is either early morning sunlight or late evening sunlight (recommended as the temperature will usually be higher and the aura will be stronger); foggy mornings are also said to produce good results. Presumably a low angle, of sunlight and possibly reduced light is needed for the camera to capture the aura.

Aim to be at your treasure site either at sunrise or a half-hour before sunset. Stand as close as you can to the area where you think precious metal may be buried and, using the compass, position yourself to the North or South of the target area so that you are at right angles to the sun. Focus the camera on the target area and take a photograph. As I am sure you know, Polaroid photographs are self processing and you will have your picture within a couple of minutes of clicking the shutter. Take a look at the photograph to see if it shows an aura. You may be lucky and get an aura first time or you may have to keep trying, perhaps shifting your position backwards or forwards or to the opposite side of the target area. Take a series of photographs over the half-hour period after sunrise or before sunset, if you need to. Persevere and you will soon find your aura and the treasure that produced it.

Beach aura from probable treasure wreck (Time Zero film)

BUT THERE IS A DIGITAL ATLTERNATIVE...
THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL

I was totally amazed when I saw the brilliant red aura, right over the buried gold...

THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER INFORMATION ON FINDING BURIED TREASURE CAN NOW BE YOURS

Dear David,

**"I just received and read a copy of your new book,** Discovering Treasure Auras in the Digital Age **. To put it mildly, I was totally blown away. Is this for real? If it is, it will dramatically improve my treasure hunting results for the rest of my life! I am in the process of assembling all of the recommended gear so I can get out into the field as soon as possible. From a scientific perspective, my associates and I all agree that this may actually be the modern-day solution for a specific, huge treasure in Ecuador that we have been seeking for years.**

Can you tell? I am REALLY excited! Congratulations on an amazing book!"

STAN GRIST,  
Quito (Adventure-Trader.com, StanGrist.com)

Dear fellow treasure hunter:

We both know the problem, you get a good lead on a buried cache, which turns out to be somewhere in hundreds of acres of land. How do you find it? Well you could spend years searching every square inch with a metal detector, providing the terrain is suitable but, if the treasure is too deep for your detector, you would NEVER find it. Then again, you could spend big bucks on controversial long-range locators, which at best only hint at the location or you could try dowsing, which is at least free.

Louis J Matacia came up with an answer in the form of a certain Polaroid camera able to photograph treasure auras, which was great, I found treasure myself using just such a tool. The problem now is that the camera is obsolete, although still fairly readily available on the used market and Polaroid stopped making the film in 2005. The last original film pack I bought was two years out of date and cost $60. And it will only get worse from here on in, eventually becoming unobtainable at any price! So is that the end of using auras to locate buried treasure?

Not at all! I set about trying to find a solution and came up with two! The first is that there is a widely used Polaroid film readily available that can easily be used in the camera. And more importantly it captures treasure auras just as good or better than the original film. The second solution discussed in great detail is – wait for it – YOU CAN CAPTURE TREASURE AURAS WITH DIGITAL CAMERAS! Not collector's items like the Polaroid, mind you, but fairly recent models that you can buy anywhere tomorrow...

AMAZING NEW DISCOVERY LETS YOU SEE BURIED TREASURE FROM A DISTANCE

THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL: Discovering Treasure Auras in the Digital Age, will clearly show you:

a revolutionary new method to find treasure fast

how to buy a Polaroid camera that can see buried treasure and how to use film that is still available

how treasure auras led to finding a gold coin cache

a number of unusual devices for finding treasure that have been investigated – save time and money by knowing the facts

digital cameras that you can quickly and easily convert to see buried treasure and how to use them

metal detectors you can use for final pin-pointing and recovery

treasure law – how to keep or get paid for what you find

a written agreement to avoid disputes with the landowner

how to test your own digital camera before you spend money on a camera you don't need

The digital solution

The digital camera works brilliantly. Auras can be obtained on gold down to a quarter of an ounce or less – that's a single coin or nugget! The camera can even discriminate between different metals – all from a distance (up to 100s of yards depending on target size) and can be used anytime during daylight hours. By definition, instruments that can reveal hidden treasure from a distance are long-range locators. But this is not long-range location as we know it that can be like searching a coal-bunker, in the middle of the night, trying to find a black cat that isn't there! This is long-range location at its best – showing you precisely where treasure is hidden. You really can see the color of the money (providing it is metallic or contained in metal) and what's more you can get started for much less than the cost of a commercial long-range locator – you may even already have most everything you need!

If you can take a photo, you can capture treasure auras

Treasure auras are simply the appliance of science so you don't need any special gift to use these cameras – there is none of this hairy-fairy stuff about ordinary instruments producing extraordinary results in the hands of someone with psychic awareness. Hands-on is not even needed – hands-off is actually better! And, clearly, you have absolute discretion with this approach – you can take a camera almost anywhere and no one will have any idea that you are not just taking snapshots. Of course, you are not going to be able to buy a camera off the shelf and start taking photographs of treasure auras – if cameras naturally photographed auras, most folks would take them back to the store complaining about the photo quality. So you are going to need to do a few modifications. But don't worry, it's not rocket science – everything you need either plugs in, screws in or sticks on, without damaging the camera, and all will be clearly explained. So for your very modest investment in this manual and possibly some reasonable expenditure on equipment you will have the finest opportunity to find millions in buried and hidden wealth!

Unique information

No one else on the Planet will tell you how to turn a digital camera into a powerful treasure-hunting tool – at any price! But THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL gives you all the information you need to quickly and easily enable modern cameras to see buried treasure from a distance so you can find treasure in no time.

**THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL: Discovering Treasure Auras in the Digital Age** , Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 68 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2009) ISBN 978 0 9550325 5 4

(Also an E-Book under the title: **THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL: How to Use Modern Cameras to Locate Buried Metals, Gold, Silver, Coins, Caches...** )

SEE THE VIDEO: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4JOjqYQZVY>

http://www.truetreasurebooks.net
METAL DETECTING AND FAMILY HISTORY

I have two great hobbies: Metal Detecting and Family History. You may think there is little connection between the two since you would have great difficulty in finding any metal objects relating to your own family with a metal detector unless you happened to know where something had been lost. Other detectorists however, are regularly finding personalised metal artefacts as I call them, which would be of considerable interest to anyone researching the families to which they relate. There is an army of family historians throughout the world eagerly searching for any scrap of information about their ancestors, especially the tangible proof of their existence that artefacts can provide. For us detectorists this can bring interesting stories about the individuals associated with our finds; a possible market for finds, some of which are being consigned to the scrap box and potentially another sector of the public looking on our hobby in a favourable light.

From the family historian's point of view there is considerable difficulty in discovering what artefacts even existed let alone what has been lost or discarded and where. For instance I only know of one missing metal artefact from my family and that is my grandfather's long service award gold wristwatch, inscribed to Frank Jones, which was stolen from his Birmingham home some 40 years ago. What has happened to it since is anyone's guess. Clearly there are difficulties on both sides of the fence since generally the family historian doesn't know what's been found and by whom and the detectorist doesn't know who may be interested in his or her finds. But before we try and resolve that one, let's take a look at the sort of objects we're finding that have family history connections, and some of the publications which can help trace their origins.

**Military Medals**. From at least the time of the Napoleonic Wars, military medals have been inscribed with the name of the recipient and usually other details such as rank, regiment and number. The medals that turn up are usually from the First World War but I do know of at least one Falklands War medal found. Also presented to the next of kin of men and women killed in active service during WWI were the almost five-inch diameter bronze plaques often dubbed 'death or dead men's pennies' which were sometimes thrown away in disgust. These plaques have a design on one side only, which shows Britannia standing with a lion, the deceased's name in a tablet and the legend: 'He (or she) died for freedom and honour'. Plaques inscribed with women's names are very rare.

**Civilian Medals**. Medals have been issued for all sorts of reasons and events of which sport undoubtedly accounts for a large proportion. Among perhaps the less energetic pursuits, which attracted awards in the past, was school attendance. I have inherited a bronze medal awarded to my grandmother for four years excellent attendance when she was 11 years old, inscribed Hilda Brotherton 1908 around the edge and I found a similar Sunday School attendance medal in Devon, although this unfortunately had no legible inscription. An interesting gilded silver medal I found in Kent was awarded to J M WARDEN in 1929 for services to Esperanto, the universal language invented by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof in 1898. This medal also shows maker's details: ANDRIEU FECIT DE PUYMAURIN DI, which also may be of some interest to a family historian.

**Buttons**. Buttons are probably the most common metal detecting find largely as a result of the former use of old clothing, from rag merchants, paper, shoddy and mungo mills, which was used as agricultural mulch and eventually was ploughed into the land. Buttons can provide a wealth of information in three main areas. The first is that on most of the more elaborate buttons, the maker put his name and often his address. A List of button makers can be found in Alan and Gillian Meredith, Michael J Cuddeford, **Identifying Buttons** , (Mount Publications, 1997) but this list is far from complete. Secondly and particularly interesting among buttons are 18th- 20th century livery buttons which are usually large (about 25mm diameter) and embossed with a family crest. These would generally have been sewn onto the uniforms of staff and servants of the family whose crest is displayed. James Fairburn, **Fairburn's Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland** , (London, 1986) is the standard and very comprehensive work on family crests. Finally there is the much scorned group of buttons, which nevertheless have great potential for family historians, colloquially known as fly buttons from one of their uses on men's trousers during the 19th century up until about 50 years ago. I have to confess to being old enough to remember trousers with buttons and know such buttons were also used to fasten braces and adjust waistbands, I suspect they were also used on undergarments as well as overalls. It was only recently that my detecting friend, Brian, handed me one of these buttons and asked if I'd seen one like it before. "Hundreds!" Was my immediate answer until prompted to take a closer look when I read Oliver Gold Chilham embossed on the front of the button. Knowing Chilham to be a small Kent village not likely to support button making, I was puzzled and went off to look Oliver up on the 1881 census, which is freely available in most libraries and record offices. It turns out he was the village tailor and must have had his details stamped on the buttons he used as a form of advertising. Brian and I went through some of our buttons found in Kent and around 10% carried tailors' inscriptions from places near and far.

I haven't discovered any tailors, button makers or British aristocrats in my own ancestry but I have a link to Dent's, the glove manufacturers, who also used metal buttons, for, in 1837, my great-great grand aunt Sarah Davis Bennett (nee Northwood) married Jeremiah Macklin Allcroft, one of the firm's partners.

Bachelor brothers, John and William Dent, founded the firm known then as J & W Dent & Co. in Worcester in 1777, soon gaining additional premises in London. In 1801 Jeremiah Macklin Allcroft was apprenticed to John Dent and by 1822 had become a partner in the firm which became known as Dent, Allcroft & Co. in 1855. By this time Jeremiah and the Dent brothers had retired and John Derby Allcroft, Jeremiah's son by his first wife, was running the show. Under John Derby's management, annual production quadrupled to over 12 million pairs in 1884 and Dents became the premier glove producer in the world. Over a hundred years later Dents are still very much in business based in Warminster, Wiltshire; the London and Worcester factories having closed.

It's not often that you come face to face with your own family history out in the field but about once every thirty years it seems to happen. I was taking part in a local metal detecting rally when out of the blue a stranger showed me the female half of a press-stud engraved with the words 'DENT'S MAKE' he had dug up, asking me if I knew what it was. Why he asked me, I don't know, although he probably wished he hadn't by the time I'd related the complete history of Dent's the glove-makers. The enquirer escaped before I had chance to make an offer for the best find of the rally as far as I was concerned and I thought I would have to try and corner the guy later. As it happened I didn't need to, for about an hour later I found a complete Dent's glove button myself. Both the button, which quite recently went out of use, and the press-stud, still in use today, were used for fastening leather gloves at the wrist, by the way.

**Maker's Plates and Marks.** There are a considerable variety of manufactured items, which bear some details of their maker. In the case of jewellery, watches, cutlery and bells the makers' mark was stamped somewhere on the metal object itself. Other larger and less metallic items, such as saddles often had a metal plate attached, carrying the makers' name. There are a few books around which can help trace some of these manufacturers. Most books on hallmarks, for example, Judith Banister, Ed, **English Silver Hall-marks** , (Foulsham, 1983) contain a list of precious metal workers and their marks. E R Matheau-Raven, **The Identification and Dating of Sheffield Electroplated Wares 1843-1943** , (Foulsham, 1977) lists 700 makers of Sheffield plate and there is a list of bell founders in Gordon Bailey, **Detector Finds** , (Greenlight Publishing, 1992). A further point concerning some items such as watches, jewellery and cutlery is they may be further personalised with their owner's name or initials.

**Tokens**. Since medieval times, substitutes for the coin of the realm have been produced to either satisfy a shortage of small change or provide for a more specific and often local function. Today the token still exists in a fairly uninspired form mainly to feed slot machines of various types but in the past there were two major periods of trade token issuing in response to severe shortages of regal currency. The most recent, during the late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century, was started in 1787 by Thomas Williams, owner of the Parys Mines Company in Anglesey who produced the well-known druid's head copper halfpennies and pennies on coin presses, he also owned, in Birmingham. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker followed suit issuing tokens spasmodically until after the Napoleonic wars which were partly the reason for shortages of coin. The standard reference works are: R Dalton & S Hamer, **The Provincial Token-Coinage of the 18th Century** , (1910-1918, 1977, 1990, 1996); W J Davis, **The Nineteenth Century Token Coinage of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man** , (London, 1904, 1969) and Michael Mitchiner, **Jetons, Medalets and Tokens, Volume 3, British Isles** , (London, 1998). Other more general but nevertheless useful books are: Peter Seaby and Monica Busssell, **British Tokens and Their Values,** (London, 1970 & 1984); Edward Fletcher, **Tokens & Tallies Through the Ages**, (Greenlight Publishing, 2003) and **Tokens & Tallies 1850-1950**, (Greenlight Publishing, 2004)

More than a century earlier the civil war had produced a currency crisis, which started the issuing of base metal trade tokens in mainly farthing and halfpenny denominations. The typical token displays forename, surname, place of occupation and trade of the issuer; initial letter of spouse's forename and an image, commonly a shield, related to the trade or the family. For example a token I have is inscribed 'Edward Crayford in: Canterbury Grocer', one side shows a black boy smoking; the other has the initials E C B which stand for Edward Crayford and his wife who was probably named Bess. The first catalogue of 17th century tokens was compiled by William Boyne, **Tokens Issued in the Seventeenth Century in England, Wales and Ireland by Corporations, Merchants, tradesmen Etc**., (London, 1858) and subsequently revised by George C. Williamson (1967) and Michael Dickinson, **Seventeenth Century Tokens Of The British Isles And Their Values** , (London, 2004).

**Heraldic Mounts and Pendants**. During the 13th to 15th centuries heraldic mounts were popularly fitted to portable equipment as a means of identification and pendants were suspended from horse harnesses by way of decoration. These pieces only relate to ancestors who bore arms and there are often difficulties in interpreting them because the enamels used tend to disappear or change colour in the ground and the heraldry itself may be less than accurate. I have, for instance, a mount found on the site of Shillingheld manor in Kent, which depicts arms so similar to Shillingheld that it is highly unlikely to be from a different family, however the facing and the extent of the beasts portrayed is incorrect. Details of some of these mounts and pendants have been published in a number of places but there is no catalogue as such, however, Joseph Foster, **The Dictionary of Heraldry** (London 1989) is very useful for identifying what arms were awarded to whom.

**Seal Matrices**. The device that makes the impression, usually in molten wax, is called a seal matrix and these matrices were in use from the twelfth century until largely replaced by the rubber stamp in recent times. Illiteracy was rife until the twentieth century so, for those who could afford it, the sealing of documents was an effective way of distinguishing between signatories and consequently seal matrices were produced in considerable numbers in either 'stock' or personally commissioned designs. The personalised matrices will be of particular interest although attribution to a particular person is often difficult for a number of reasons. The earliest designs, usually made in lead tended to be typically inscribed in Latin: 'Seal of Forename son/daughter of Forename' so, unless you can find a document with the very same seal applied it is very difficult to identify the former owner. Similarly later designs, usually made in bronze, often take the form: 'Seal of Forename of Place Name' and even matrices bearing a surname are often misspelled or contracted. Despite the difficulties an ancestral seal matrix would make a wonderful family treasure. Although there are sections on seal matrices in several of the general metal detecting finds publications, the only comprehensive works I have come across are: P D A Harvey & Andrew McGuinness, **A Guide to British Medieval Seals** (London, 1996) and Bryon Pateman, **An illustrated guide to Collecting Seals** (London, 2008).

**Contacting Family Historians**. With the ever increasing popularity of both Family History and Metal Detecting hobbies it probably won't be long before someone starts an index of personalised metal objects with the aim of bringing finds and families together. Meanwhile there are several monthly magazines: **Family Tree Magazine** published by ABM Publishing, 61 Great Whyte, Ramsey, Huntingdon, PE26 1HJ (<http://www.family-tree.co.uk/>); **Your Family Tree** (<http://www.yourfamilytreemag.co.uk/>), **Who Do You Think You Are Magazine** (<http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/home>), **Ancestors** , (online only) published by the National Archives (<http://www.ancestorsmagazine.co.uk/>) and **Discover Your History** (online only) (<http://www.history-hub.com/dyh>). **Family Tree Magazine** would be my choice for trying to make contact with relevant families through their reader's letters, interests or small ads pages. Alternatively or additionally, as there is a network of family history societies covering all counties, you could contact individual societies in the area where your find originated. **The Federation of Family History Societies** , PO Box 8857, Lutterworth, LE17 9BJ. Tel: 01455 203133 (<http://www.ffhs.org.uk/>) will be able to direct you to the appropriate society.

**The DIY Route**. Family history research is a vast subject and, although it is quite an easy task to carry out, it would require a complete chapter or two just to outline the basics. If you want to try your hand at researching people associated with your finds or your own family history for that matter, the best advice I can give you, other than to check out your local library, is to contact The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (<http://www.familysearch.org/>). Members of the LDS Church are encouraged to trace their ancestors and Family History Centres have been set up in most major towns. As a gesture of goodwill these excellent research facilities are open to the general public for free and with absolutely no expectation or pressure for you to join their congregation.
MY ANCESTOR LEFT AN HEIRLOOM

**Did your ancestor leave an heirloom?**

In the British Isles, for well over one thousand years many people from all walks of life have been putting their names and other personal details on a variety of metal objects. Initially there was a need to identify or be identified and from around the seventeenth century an increasing need to advertise trades or professions. In addition the crown, the armed forces and civilian institutions increasingly awarded medals and badges for service and merit. The result is that there are thousands upon thousands of metal objects around engraved with personal details, any of which your ancestor, regardless of how humble, may have made, used or been awarded.

In the United Kingdom (UK), there are some 30,000 metal detectorists busily unearthing this ancestral metalwork, which is not only bringing to light countless thousands of lost or discarded items but spawning studious research and volumes of new and revised literature on the history and ancestry behind these metal objects. So, often with little more effort than a visit to you local library, you can get your hands on extensive catalogues of detailed information revealing potential ancestors and more genealogical and family history information than you will generally find in church records. And remember these metal records date back as far as 750 years before parish records began.

If you are researching family history, this book will not only guide you swiftly to sources that may take your ancestry back into the mists of time but also describe a number of ways that you can get your hands on the objects themselves, whether they have been lost, discarded or sold and often at little or no cost. If you have ever handled an object your ancestor made, used or was awarded, you will know what a thrill it is. You will be in direct contact with REAL family history, not just a scribbled note in a document.

**This book will guide you every step of the way to discover:**

*The types of metal objects people in the past have made, used or been awarded.

*Extensive sources of information on these artefacts and the people associated with them, many of which will be found by simply visiting your local library.

*New lines of enquiry that can take family history research back into the mists of time.

*How and where you may locate real antique items connected with your ancestors and experience the joy of owning and displaying tangible family history.

*How to safely store metal objects so your heirlooms will survive for generations to come.

*How to research family history in Britain.

**MY ANCESTOR LEFT AN HEIRLOOM: Discovering Heirlooms and Ancestors Through the Metalwork They Left Behind** , Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 84 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2011) ISBN 978 0 9550325 6 1

(Also an E-Book under the title: **MY ANCESTOR LEFT AN HEIRLOOM: Hunting Family History and Genealogy Treasure Through Metal Detecting Finds** )

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>
FINDS IDENTIFICATION

The nature of the hobby is that most finds are recovered in a pretty dirty state. Before you start any form of cleaning you really need to try and identify the object and have some idea of its historic and monetary value. Coin collectors & dealers will probably tell you that a coin can be reduced to a tenth of its monetary value by cleaning, although you rarely see coins for sale covered in muck and corrosion unless they are being sold specifically as uncleaned. Sometimes it can be a Catch 22 situation where an object has little value because it cannot be identified for lack of cleaning but cleaning reduces the value to a fraction of what it would have been, if it hadn't been cleaned in the first place. However, it is a good idea to try and identify and value everything before you start cleaning and you'll know what you stand to lose if it goes wrong or whether it is worthwhile paying for a professional conservator to carry out the task. Potential treasure objects are not a problem, do not clean them, just report them and hand them in and if they are disclaimed and returned to you, you can deal with them then with the benefit of a clear identification.

Coins are fairly easy to identify and value from catalogues, even an old catalogue is useful and will give a relative value. **Coins of England & the United Kingdom**, (Spink, published annually), is the main British catalogue. There are World Coin Catalogues and catalogues covering many foreign countries providing you can identify which country issued the coin in the first place.

I only know one general catalogue of artefacts which is **Benet's Artefacts of England & the United Kingdom**, (Greenlight Publishing, 2003), this is beautifully illustrated with colour photographs of high quality artefacts. If your find is in Benet's then you will know you have arrived! You will also know the value and can proceed accordingly. Greenlight Publishing produce a wide range of books on identifying finds, many with valuations. Many detectorists build their own library of reference books for identification but if you are just starting out you could try the public library.

Your Finds Liason Officer or local museum curator can usually assist in finds identification and relative scarcity rather than valuation but they won't be expert in all types of metal object, although they can usually find a specialist in the type of object you show them. Most FLOs hold finds identification days.

The British metal detecting magazine, **The Searcher** , has a finds identification and valuation services.

**The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS)** http://www.finds.org.uk has a large database of finds, nearly a million objects recorded at time of writing; which will help with identification although not valuation. (<http://finds.org.uk/database>) There is a facility however to search the Treasure Annual Reports, which record values where the objects have been declared treasure and the treasure annual reports themselves can be downloaded as PDF files (Adobe Acrobat) from the site. (<http://finds.org.uk/treasure>).

**The UK Detector Finds Database** can be searched at http://www.ukdfd.co.uk although again there are no valuations. UK Detector Net http://www.forumukdetectornet.co.uk hosts the largest British metal detecting forum on the internet, which also has a finds identifying section and you should be able to obtain a valuation too.

Many small metal objects are offered for sale on **Ebay** http://www.ebay.co.uk so you can search completed listings to see what prices were achieved and if you know what an object basically is you can search for information in a search engine such as **Google** http://www.google.co.uk
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO OLD, ANTIQUE AND ANCIENT METAL SPOONS

"It is not very long since books on typical metal detecting finds were few and far between. In most cases this was because Roman, Saxon and later medieval artifacts were still quite scarce. Therefore it was difficult to bring together enough material to research into and illustrate in reference works. The situation today is very different, as detectorists have unearthed a whole host of new material over the last few decades. This has enabled researchers to produce a range of books, some covering specific finds — such as buckles and buttons — while others include general listings of finds often or rarely found by metal detectorists.

Having said that a good range of books is now available, very few include spoons and those that do cover them only briefly. Of the works that specifically focus on spoons most cover only examples made of silver and ignore the numerous types and varieties made of base metal.

Detectorists unearth spoons of just about every age, shape, size and description but due to the lack of general reference works they have in the past often had difficulty in identifying their finds. Realising this, David Villanueva decided to produce an illustrated guide to spoons from the earliest times up to the 19th century.

The guide starts with a section entitled 'The Development of the Spoon', which traces the history of an item we all use on a daily basis, from ancient Egypt up to the Victorian period. Following on from this is the main section of the guide, which lists various types and varieties of spoons. Starting with cones and finials, we then move on to several different types of knops and ends, all of which are illustrated. A date range is provided and there is a good deal of information on makers' marks found on spoons. At the end is a short section on Continental base metal spoons and rounding off the guide is a short bibliography. The illustrations, mostly reproduced from photographs but including some line drawings, are all clear enough to he used for identification purposes.

To have brought together so much information into a guide only 88 pages long is no mean achievement and for managing to do this David Villanueva should be heartily congratulated. An even greater achievement is to have kept the retail price below £5. This guide represents absolutely remarkable value for money and is highly recommended." P D Spencer in The Searcher (http://www.thesearcher.co.uk), November 2008. Reproduced with kind permission.

Since recreational metal detecting began some 40 years ago, vast quantities of interesting artefacts have been uncovered. Old or even ancient cutlery are fairly frequent finds by metal detectorists, so it came as no surprise that my friend Simon found a complete old base metal spoon on a beach with his metal detector. The real surprise was that we struggled to find any information to identify it and clearly others had met the same problem for I spotted an old base metal spoon, wrongly identified at an exhibition.

Around a hundred years ago, C J Jackson wrote The Spoon and its history, a paper covering mainly silver spoons from ancient times until the nineteenth century and F G Hilton Price wrote Old Base Metal Spoons, covering base metal spoons between the 14th and 18th centuries. Although there have been a number of books covering eighteenth and nineteenth century spoons since, there seems to have been very little coverage of earlier spoons. This is understandable to some extent as earlier spoons are not readily available to most collectors. The silver varieties are scarce and command very high prices, while almost all the base metal varieties have been lost or melted down and generally the only examples around have been excavated.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be worthwhile to produce this illustrated guide to spoons for finders, collectors, family historians and anyone interested in spoons from earliest times to the nineteenth century. I have basically divided the book into three sections: the first covers the development of spoons, particularly silver, from earliest times; the second covers old base metal spoons and the third, some continental spoons, many of which have been found in Britain. So whatever information you need on old, antique or ancient spoons or makers marks you should find it in this absolutely remarkable value for money book.

CONTENTS: INTRODUCTION, THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPOON, OLD BASE METAL SPOONS: CONES, FINIALS, ACORN KNOPS, HORNED HEAD DRESS KNOP, DIAMOND POINT, MAIDENHEAD KNOP, MONKS HEAD KNOP, SITTING LION KNOP, WRITHEN KNOPS, MELON OR LOBED KNOP, HEXAGONAL OR SIX-SQUARED KNOP, APOSTLE KNOPS, HORSEHOOF KNOP, STUMP END, BALUSTER KNOPS, SEAL TOPS, STRAWBERY KNOP, SLIPPED IN THE STALKS, PURITAN SPOONS, SPLIT ENDS OR PIED DE BICHE, SHIELD END OR WAVY END SPOONS, ROUNDED ENDS, FANCY KNOPPED SPOONS: STAG'S HEAD KNOP, COCKEREL KNOP, GLOBE KNOP, FLATTENED CONE KNOP, MAN'S HEAD KNOP, SMALL BRASS SPOONS, PASTRY CUTTER OR COOK'S SPOON, SOME CONTINENTAL BASE METAL SPOONS, BIBLIOGRAPHY

( **THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO OLD, ANTIQUE AND ANCIENT METAL SPOONS** , Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 88 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2008) ISBN 978 0 9550325 4 7 (Also an E-Book)

<http://www.truetreasurebooks.net/>
TURNING TRASH INTO CASH

What do you do with the scrap metal you find? Throw it in the hedge or down rabbit holes? You've taken the time and trouble to dig it up so why not collect it and sell it to your local scrap metal merchant, who you'll find in the classified telephone directory?

And metal prices are increasing. There are two other reasons for not throwing scrap away:

* You might throw something historically or intrinsically valuable away - gold torcs have been mistaken for bits of brass bedsteads and thrown in hedges.

* You might end up having to dig it all up again.

Here are 2014 prices for some scrap metals we find:

Aluminium: - £0.65/Kg

Brass, mixed: - £2.10/Kg

Copper - £3.20/Kg

Iron - £0.10/Kg

Lead - £0.95/Kg

Stainless Steel \- £0.85/Kg

Zinc: - £0.50/Kg

In know the above prices pale into insignificance compared to gold at £24500.00/Kg and even silver at £388.40/Kg but nevertheless, if you add up what you find in a year it comes to many kilograms and will produce a useful sum of money.

A couple of detectorist friends found a scattered hoard of gold Staters and asked me to go with them and see if we could locate more. There was a hedge-bank a few yards from where the coins were found and I suggested we ought to search there as earth banks were one of the favourite hiding places in the past - the origin of BANKING in fact. They looked at me a bit sheepish. When I started searching the bank it was full of metallic rubbish for they had thrown all their scrap there.

Keep anything that might turn out be something worthwhile – any man-made shape but also bronze lumps. The British Museum are now analysing such lumps to see how they relate to axes etc.

Basically you can sort scrap into Aluminium, Mixed Brass and Lead. You might also want to do copper and nickel coin (an old penny is now worth several times its face value in scrap), stainless steel, pewter and zinc although you will find much smaller quantities.

Wash it as you collect it or collect it dirty and wash the lot before you take it to the scrap yard. I find the best way to wash the scrap is to put it in a plastic garden riddle and douse it with water. Keep removing the clean metal and washing the remaining dirty metal.

If you want to mechanise the operation put the dirty scrap in a cement mixer with a bucket of water and a couple of kilos of sharp sand and run for about 10 minutes.
CLEANING COINS & ARTEFACTS

CONSERVATION * RESTORATION * PRESENTATION

"This new Greenlight Publishing book titled Cleaning Coins & Artefacts by David Villanueva (the celebrated author of many detecting related titles) really is yet another "must have" literary mine of information. In fact one might say the title is a little bit of a misnomer as in truth the book is stuffed full of not just this, but also many closely associated topics as well.

As most detectorists realise, we are only the custodians of our finds for a relatively short time. This book ensures that once having found these historical coins and artefacts every reader will be made aware of the precise varieties of cleaning and conservation that are available to them. Some people argue that such conservation methods should only ever be undertaken by qualified experts. Well, reading this book could make you into that qualified expert!

One thing I particularly liked was the section on display - covering a wide variety of options and styles. This can be a much neglected section of our hobby. If you are intent on keeping your finds, care and display are both vital and the latter also has many educational advantages.

There are still some detectorists out there who go out, recover items and then store in an un-cleaned condition in plastic bags scattered all over the house. In my book these finds are only marginally better off than if they had never been recovered.

This book is so useful, that I don't think that I have ever met a fellow detectorist who knows so much about cleaning, restoration and conservation procedures. Many people know about rubbing a silver coin in tin foil etc, but this book educates us all to some degree and serves to destroy some of the myths.

Its clear precise layout and information will hopefully avoid things like part truths such as "wrap a discoloured denarius in tin foil and leave by a heat source such as an open fire grate until glowing" a friend once did this resulting in the denarius exploding; sadly bits of a smoking coin of Vitellius adorned the living room floor.

The trouble is there are often many half truths to certain cleaning rumours; however Cleaning Coin & Artefacts eliminates all the potential damage to finds through dealing only in established successful methods.

This book is very well illustrated with plenty of full colour images, particularly useful are the "Before and After" photographs, allowing the possible and potential results to be seen. It is packed full of good tried and tested procedures, highlighting pitfalls, possible variations in results and the "should never do".

In essence this publication will be a leader in the responsibilities of preserving for tomorrow the history of yesterday that is unearthed today.

It may be a small format book but along with all the identification guides etc, it will rank as one of the biggest and most important detecting publications on your bookshelf.

The reader will find sections on Probe Usage, GPS Recording, Map Reading, Safe Storage in the Field, Mechanical Cleaning, Corrosion of Metals, Ultrasonic Cleaners, Barrelling Machines, Electrolysis, Chemical Cleaning, Photography, Display, Replication and so much more.

The section on Replication is little short of brilliant in its own right. How to make and where to get copies made is fully covered, and how to make cast copies of your finds is fascinating and expertly described.

It really only has one remaining category in relation to being bought by a detectorist or for one and that's "essential'.

Credit to all involved in bringing this book to the detecting world, I'm sure it will be recommended world-wide." Julian Evan-Hart in **Treasure Hunting** (http://www.treasurehunting.co.uk) January 2009. Reproduced with kind permission.

HOW TO CLEAN, CONSERVE, REPAIR, RESTORE, REPLICATE, STORE AND PRESENT METALLIC SMALL FINDS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

You've worked hard to recover your finds, the last thing you want to do is to throw them in a box and leave them to corrode to dust, for if you don't take a few basic precautions that is what is likely to happen. I know the problem, I searched high and low for simple practical information on cleaning and conserving coins and artefacts and kept being told to take them to a conservator. That's great advice if the find is rare, valuable or historically important but most finds are worth little more than scrap value and who is willing to spend tens of pounds to save a pound? Now you don't have to! You can quickly and easily learn simple, low cost techniques to turn your sow's ear finds into silk purses – stable and great-looking finds you can proudly display and so much more...

My financial advisor is one smart cookie, he buys uncleaned Roman coins for £1 each and using some of the simple treatments in Cleaning Coins and Artefacts, spruces them up and sells them for 10 times that amount.

I shouldn't tell you this but I get great bargains on Ebay by bidding on items with lousy pictures. Close-up photography of small objects is the most difficult to master...unless you have Cleaning Coins & Artefacts to guide you every step of the way. As well as raising a good price if you do sell your finds, you can profit while keeping your finds by selling the photographs to magazines as part of an article, for example.

Another way of keeping your finds and sharing them or selling them is to make replicas. Replica parts can also be made to replace missing pieces of finds. There are several replicators, including at least one detectorist, who make good money replicating finds and selling them to museums and collectors. I paid more than the price of Cleaning Coins & Artefacts, several years ago, just to get this valuable information on replication. I tested it out and couldn't believe how easy it is. Now you can reap the benefit.

I've seen very experienced detectorists get in a real muddle over displaying finds vertically as until now, no one has been able or prepared to suggest a suitable adhesive or simple alternative method. One dyed-in-the-wool detectorist, in frustration, suggested using aquarium sealer as it didn't harm fish. I admire the logic but unfortunately it is flawed for not even goldfish are made of metal. When you read Cleaning Coins & Artefacts you won't believe how simple it is to make great low-cost vertical displays for your own pleasure or as a gift that really keeps landowners happy.

Corrosion waits for no man (or woman) so don't delay; get your copy of Cleaning Coins & Artefacts today. The book your finds would want you to have and some great opportunities for profit too.

**CLEANING COINS & ARTEFACTS: Conservation * Restoration * Presentation**, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 110 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2008) ISBN 978 1 897738 337

(Also an E-Book under the title: **THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL COIN AND RELIC MANAGER: How to Clean, Conserve, Display, Photograph, Repair, Restore, Replicate and Store Metal Detecting Finds** )

http://www.truetreasurebooks.net
FURTHER INFORMATION

Metal Detecting Organisations

The National Council For Metal Detecting

Website: http://www.ncmd.co.uk

The Federation of Independent Detectorists

Richard and Gill Evans,

CSFID 27,

Webb Road

RAUNDS

Wellingborough

Northants

NN9 6H

Email: fid.cs@virginmedia.com

Website: http://www.detectorists.net

True Treasure Books

43 Sandpiper Road,

Whitstable,

Kent,

CT5 4DP

Email: david@truetreasurebooks.net

http://www.truetreasurebooks.net

Magazines

The Searcher

Searcher Publications

17 Down Road

Merrow

Guildford

Surrey GU1 2PX

Tel: 01483 830133

Email: info@thesearcher.co.uk

Website: http://www.thesearcher.co.uk

Treasure Hunting

Greenlight Publishing

The Publishing House

119 Newland Street

Witham

Essex CM8 1WF

Tel: 01376 521900

Email: info@treasurehunting.co.uk

Website: http://www.treasurehunting.co.uk

**The Treasure Act 1996, Code of Practice** (Revised), (England and Wales) Published 2002 by Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London SW1Y 5DH
GREAT BOOKS IN PRINT FROM THE SAME AUTHOR

THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL: Discovering Treasure Auras in the Digital Age Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, (8.25 x 5.75 inches) 68 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2009) ISBN 978 0 9550325 5 4

(Also an E-Book under the title: THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S SECRET MANUAL: How to Use Modern Cameras to Locate Buried Metals, Gold, Silver, Coins, Caches...)

CLEANING COINS & ARTEFACTS: Conservation * Restoration * Presentation, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, (8.25 x 5.75 inches) 110 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2008) ISBN 978 1 897738 337

(Also an E-Book under the title: THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL COIN AND RELIC MANAGER: How to Clean, Conserve, Display, Photograph, Repair, Restore, Replicate and Store Metal Detecting Finds)

PERMISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Metal Detecting Search Permission Made Easy, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, (8.25 x 5.75 inches) 52 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2007) ISBN 978 0 9550325 3 0 (Also an E-Book)

SITE RESEARCH FOR DETECTORISTS, FIELDWALKERS & ARCHAEOLOGISTS, Soft Cover, 250mm x 190mm, (9.75 x 7.5 inches) 160 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2006) ISBN 1 897738 285

SUCCESSFUL DETECTING SITES: Locate 1000s of Superb Sites and Make More Finds, Soft Cover, 250mm x 190mm, (9.75 x 7.5 inches) 238 pages, (Greenlight Publishing, 2007) ISBN 978 1 897738 306

THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL SITE RESEARCH MANUAL: How to Find Productive Metal Detecting Sites, (E-Book)

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO OLD, ANTIQUE AND ANCIENT METAL SPOONS, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, 88 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2008) ISBN 978 0 9550325 4 7 (Also an E-Book)

THE SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL: How to Easily Develop Your Latent Skills to Locate Gold, Silver, Coins, Caches... (E-Book)

FAITHFUL ATTRACTION: How to Drive Your Metal Detector to Find Treasure (E-Book)

DOWSING FOR TREASURE: The New Successful Treasure Hunter's Essential Dowsing Manual, Soft Cover, 230mm x 152mm, (9 x 6 inches) 96 pages, (CreateSpace, 2016) ISBN 97815187666060. (Also an E-Book)

MY ANCESTOR LEFT AN HEIRLOOM: Discovering Heirlooms and Ancestors Through the Metalwork They Left Behind, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, (8.25 x 5.75 inches) 84 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2011) ISBN 978 0 9550325 6 1

(Also an E-Book under the title: MY ANCESTOR LEFT AN HEIRLOOM: Hunting Family History and Genealogy Treasure Through Metal Detecting Finds)

METAL DETECTING MADE EASY: A Guide for Beginners and Reference for All, Soft Cover, 210mm x 146mm, (8.25 x 5.75 inches) 128 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2014) ISBN 978 0 9550325 7 8 (Also an E-Book)

TOKENS & TRADERS OF KENT in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries, Soft Cover, 215mm x 140mm, (8.5 x 5.5 inches) 112 pages, (True Treasure Books, 2015) ISBN 978 0 9550325 8 5 (Also an E-Book)

All books are available from True Treasure Books online at http://www.truetreasurebooks.net

Also at many online and offline retailers.

All E-books are available in formats to suit all major E-readers at <http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/TrueTreasureBooks>

CONNECT WITH ME ONLINE:

http://www.metaldetectingworld.blogspot.com

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CONCLUSION

Thank you for reading this book. I am sure you will find this book invaluable for improving your success at treasure hunting.

If you have any additions, corrections or comments I would pleased to hear from you. You can contact me at David@truetreasurebooks.net

If you enjoyed this book, you may like to join my mailing list and get:

FREE DOWNLOAD!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Villanueva was born in Birmingham, England in 1951. In 1972 his mother bought him Ted Fletcher's book, A Fortune Under Your Feet, which inspired him to buy a BFO metal detector. The performance was poor by current standards but it found coins and David became hooked.

In 1985, a move to Kent, England saw David searching beaches with an old Pulse Induction detector. The machine's sensitivity to iron and zero discrimination did not suit local conditions, so he bought a new Induction Balance detector, which worked well on the dry beaches and encouraged him to try inland sites. He joined a metal detecting club and gained permission to search a small farm, making all manner of old and interesting finds. Having a keen interest in history, David researched his locality, which led to more productive sites to search and write about in a dozen books and the two British metal detecting magazines – Treasure Hunting and The Searcher – which have published more than two dozens of David's articles.

But it was a chance encounter with Britain's best treasure dowser, Jimmy Longton that supercharged David's treasure hunting. Jimmy, who had dowsed his way to a $60,000 Viking silver hoard, taught David how to dowse for treasure with remarkable results. David suddenly found himself reporting real treasures in the form of caches of ancient tools and gold coins as well as Roman, Saxon and medieval gold and silver jewelry. David has recorded many finds under the Treasure Act and continually holds trophies won at the Swale Search and Recovery Club.

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