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.