In September I decided
to take the Nauty to a couple of rallies.
I haven’t attended a proper rally for over ten years, probably because I
have never had a problem with getting my own sites and I prefer not to pay for my
pleasure. However, this year I wanted to
retry my rally experience and I chose two close to home that were being held
for charity.
The first (organised
by the Colchester Club) was held over three days, but I just attended one. The previous day the normal bits n bobs had
been found, but nothing spectacular. The
area looked good, being on the edge of an old village, but there was stubble
and lots of it, plus it was freshly cut. This meant you couldn’t push it down with the
coil and my hands were nicely scared at the end of the day! Despite the stubble there were a lot of
non-ferrous signals coming through, which in the main were scrap bits of lead
and copper alloy, which I took as an encouraging sign that something more
substantial might pop-up. By the end of
the morning I had a couple of pre decimal coppers and a bronze late medieval
spur terminal to show for my efforts.
After lunch and a bit
of a wander I decided to go back to the field where I was in the morning. This proved a good move because almost
straight away I had a nice positive signal and out came a cut short cross
halfpenny, my day was made, anything else now would be a bonus. The next signal was another silver coin, but
this time an Edward (VII!) – a florin.
In my book a silver coin is a silver coin and all are greatfully
accepted. I was pleased with how the
IIBa performed, the halfpenny was about 2” down, but there was a good 3” of
stubble between the coil and the ground.
I duly took my halfpenny to the pleasant FLO for recording.
Nothing else of note
was found, but I was happy with this rally experience. It was very well organised with the right
balance struck between numbers and facilities.
