Metal Detecting Ploughed Fields.

I started this amazing hobby around the middle of February 2020 and have been out detecting nearly every day since. I took a bit of a break for a few weeks between December and January to visit family and recharge. During this time heavy rains caused the sugarcane to grow extremely quickly leaving me with nowhere to swing my detector. I wandered around our property hoping to find items I had missed in the countless times I had swung over the same ground over the past year. Other than a shell of an old matchbox car I found nothing of significant interest.

I was getting a little depressed at the thought of having to cold call farmers in the middle of the second wave of Covid to ask permission to walk around on their property metal detecting. It just doesn't feel right at this time, even though over the past year I have never come into close contact with anyone and conversations always happen at a distance.  Then I spotted a glimmer of hope on the horizon, that field on the edge of our permission where we found the horse tackle serial numbers, had been ploughed. Those 2 tags and a button or two was all we had found on that otherwise quiet field, but a field is a field and I'll take what I can get.

After a bumpy drive on the old wagon road, I parked my Toyota Tazz4 and walked down to the field with my wife and daughter. (I call it a Tazz4, like a Rav4, because I take that little car on roads that should be reserved for 4x4s) My daughter wasn't interested in detecting that day so she was scanning the ground with her eyes looking for surface finds. The deep plough turns the soil over from about a meter down bringing deeper items to the surface and sending others out of range. Essentially resetting the field and renewing the hope of finding items that were previously too deep to detect. 

This nugget of information was passed on to me by other detectorists but I had not a chance to put it to the test. This field came highly recommended to us by the farmer as it is fairly flat and the wagon road runs along the side of it but our experience proved otherwise, making this the perfect place to test the theory. 

We hadn't been there very long when I heard shouts of excitement coming from behind me. "Dad! Dad! I found a horseshoe!" My daughter came running over to me. Our first horseshoe, something we have been searching for that has eluded us for nearly a year of detecting on the farm. I immediately dropped it on the ground and swung over it from different angles listening closely to the sound and checking the numbers on the display. 

We proceeded to walk around and then I got an iron tone that reminded me a lot of that horseshoe. I dug down to find... you guessed it, another horseshoe. Well, I can tick that off the list and there definitely was something to do with horses going on here. These days it is where the horse manure gets dumped but perhaps there was a paddock or something there back in the day for people who took the wagon road to rest their horses. 

We didn't pick up much else that day except for an old snuff tin my wife dug but I did notice the field had come alive with iron tones which gave me hope that there was more to find. The field next to where we parked the Tazz4 had also been ploughed as had the field above that. None of these fields had yielded anything significant prior to being ploughed so finding anything would substantiate the theory. 

There was a definite change to the fields. There were more iron tones and I came across the occasional piece of broken ceramic pottery and old broken bottles. A classic example of this is a piece of Chamberlains Cholic, Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy bottle I found on the surface. From what I can tell this is dated between 1885 and 1915. Thereafter the name changed to "Chamberlains Cholic and Diarrhoea Remedy", I guess they discovered it was not very effective in treating Cholera.

Example of an unbroken Chamberlains
Cholic, Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy
bottle. 

On one of the fields, we hit a hotspot of signals. Mostly iron but I managed to pick up a suspender buckle and another one of those cone-shaped buttons, I think that makes it 4 or 5 of those buttons to date. My daughter and I returned the next day to find the workers had been and smoothed over the soil and the field had gone a little quieter. As I was getting very few signals on the field I swung over the little road that runs alongside. I got a clean, crisp, high tone fairly close to the surface. Not wanting to mess with the road surface too much I took out my hand digger and used my pinpointer to make sure I recovered the target in the least intrusive manner. Even though the target was only 3-4 cm deep I really battled to get through the hard ground. I managed to chip out a small piece of clod and I could see the lovely green patina of something round showing through. I broke open the clod to reveal a 1900, Queen Victoria, Widow Head Penny in pretty good condition for a 120-year-old coin. This coin is tied 2nd place on my oldest coin list. 

My wife's new detector has been giving her some issues with false signals etc. I had a suspicion that the radio was actually set to be oversensitive to make up for the smaller 9" coil. On one of our trips, I found a quiet part of the field and buried a penny about 10 inches deep. I swung over it with my detector and to my surprise, I really battled to hear the penny. I tested with my wife's Quest X10 and it hit it no problem. I continued to drop the sensitivity down and found that it could hear the penny, fairly clearly, all the way down to about 40% power proving the machine is set extremely high, too much for that coil to handle. This little test did get me thinking, what have I been missing using the smaller (lighter) coil on my Simplex. I decided to put the bigger 11" stock coil back on and return to the field with the horse manure pile on it, and then things got interesting. 

Back when I originally swept this field I used the bigger coil so this would still suffice as a good test for the plough theory.  This field too had been smoothed over and on my first trip back there I found 2 buckles, a horse-tac serial number and 1905 King Edward the 7th Half Penny. 

Horse Tackle Serial Number

        

On a subsequent visit, I found a 1936 George the 5th, One Shilling, minted in the year that he died. My first silver coin for 2021, unfortunately by 1936 Britain had downgraded to using 50% silver but a good looking coin nonetheless. I love how silver seems to stand the test of time, even in a farm field. I wish I had pictures of what it looked like when it came out the ground. It had tiny stones and grit caked all over it and at first, I didn't even know it was a silver coin. All I knew is that I had never dug this particular coin before. 

Interestingly Great Britain had 3 kings in 1936. After George the 5th passed away,  Edward the 8th was crowned but abdicated the throne some 11 months later to marry a divorcee from America. He was succeeded by George the 6th in December 1936. 

Speaking of George the 6th, I found my second silver coin for 2021 a few days later. A George the 6th, South African sixpence from 1942 (80% silver). I found it about a meter from where I had just found a worse for wear, 1923 South African, George the 5th farthing (1/4 Penny). 

I'll take you through the process I have picked up from other detectorists for restoring silver coins. Here is the sixpence as it was when it came out the ground with some of the dirt lightly brushed off. 

Then we soak in a little lemon juice and water to get the stubborn dirt off.

The final step is to soak it in cloudy ammonia. Apparently, this doesn't harm the coin in any way any and you can leave them overnight if needed. This coin only took an hour or so to come out like this. 

There were a few buttons found during this time and an old "Natal Dog Badge" license tag. I saw the brown disc with a hole punched to the one side and I could just see the stamped numbers peeping through the dirt, I wondered if it was dog license and a little cleaning showed that to be the case.

Another first for me was half of an old cufflink from Victorian times. This was one of those times  I have dug something up and recognised it immediately as I have seen other detectorists on YouTube finding these. 

This is what it would have looked like if it was still intact. 

This is what my half looks like. 

Of the buttons I found, two were particularly interesting. One, because of the words stamped on it, "Our Own make" and the other because of the local history associated with it. I couldn't find any direct link to "Our Own Make"  manufacturer so it may have been better for them to have used their name on the button.  

The other button had Payne Bros Durban stamped on it. I'm always fascinated when I see local towns or cities names appearing on items I dig up so I just had to research it. Payne Brothers was a department store that was founded in 1869 by two brothers, George and John Payne. It was one of two big department stores in Durban at the time, the other being Greenacres. Payne Brothers was situated on the site where Edward Snell's house used to be in West Street. (Snell Parade was named after Edward Snell)  

At one point the escalator in this department store was the longest in the Southern Hemisphere. Around the turn of the century, the company had a fabric made for them in Yorkshire called Pyramid Serge. This was a very hardy fabric, so hardy that a Mr Larson could wear a suit made of it to the relaunch of the store in 1957. He had purchased the suit some 50 years earlier. I'm not sure what's more amazing, that a suit could last 50 years or that Mr Larson could still fit into it 50 years later. In 1969 the store celebrated it's 100 years and 50000 people visited the store that day. It was the first time a store was allowed to trade at night since WW2. The store is no more but I can see it was still trading in 1974 and by then had been run by 3 generations of Paynes.

I think all of these items prove that a ploughed field brings new possibilities. This makes me wonder when the Button Field or Amphitheatre are scheduled to be ploughed, you can be sure I'll be there swinging my detector uncovering more of this farm's amazing history. 

One of the freshly ploughed fields. The picture really doesn't show just how deep the plough goes.

The field at the edge of our permission where the farmland gives way to the rural townships. 

Metal Detecting the fields beyond nowhere.

Below the Hill of Giants is a field that runs up to the rural area that borders the farm. It's a steep descent and we had to be careful with our footing as the cut sugarcane leaves can turn the hillside into a slip 'n slide in an instant.

With all, new fields, there is a tension and excitement that builds from when you start swinging until you get your first signal and the process is repeated between signals, the end result is either invigorating or disappointing. 

This field was no different. I often wonder what the land might have looked like 160 years ago when the farm was first established. (calculate the year, it will come up again later.) I always start on sections of fields that appear conducive to camping or settling for a period of time. One would think nice flat areas would be best but it seems these flat sections may not have been hospitable back then. Perhaps they were covered in trees or rocks that have since been cleared to make a field. 

We had already covered a fair portion of the field before I got my first signal. It didn't sound that great and I called my daughter over to swing over it with her Nokta Makro Midi Hoard. "Iron," she said in a rather bored voice. I took another listen, There was something else there in the 40s to 50's mid-tone range, a very "iffy" signal but it had been a very quiet day so far so what did I have to lose. As I dug through the plug my daughter shouted: "It's a coin!" and out popped a coin around the size of a farthing. This was a very confusing find, the numbers were all wrong and a second sweep of the hole showed no further signs of anything iron. 

I found a few buckles in the surrounding area and there were quite a lot of iron signals. We would definitely have to return to this field. 

The coin was completely smooth and measured 22mm in diameter. I found there was a British Farthing that matched this size, dated between 1819 and 1860. "That's got to be it," I thought. I tried the conservative approaches of using a toothpick and a toothbrush but the smooth brown layer didn't budge. I put it aside for another day. 

On subsequent returns, I found more interesting items. A gold guilted brooch or is it a hair clip? Some suspender bits and a few buttons. I did a live-recorded dig of one of the button finds which I will include later. I also found a near perfect condition Martini-Henry bullet which I believe may have been dropped and the casing dislodged and disintegrated over the years. I also found a piece of a copper bracelet in the same design as I found on the button field and Amphitheatre. Interesting finds for such a remote field. 

Brooch or Hair Clip?

Some button pieces from the field. 

Suspender bits and bobs. 

Bullet pieces including Martini-Henry in the middle. 

Copper Bracelet Piece

Once again I find myself wondering why this isolated field in the middle of nowhere has this items buried. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to know what the coin was. If it was the farthing I thought it might be it would be of significance to the farmer as his wife's family came to the farm in 1860 and it would tie directly into this. I dropped the coin in lemon juice and left it overnight. In the morning I could see a large 6 D on the one side and some writing at the top and the bottom. I put the 6D in to google and there it was. A Durban Club Six Pence from 1860. One of the first "currency" ever to have been minted in South Africa and was only minted in that year. Predating the Zuidafrikaansche Republiek coins of Paul Kruger which only appeared circulation some 30 years later. Technically this is a token but an extremely rare one. A "Very Fine" rated token like this can reach up to $3500 US. Mine has been rendered almost worthless in terms of financial value due to the cleaning process. 

An example of how the token would have looked. 

The Durban Club Token I dug. 

Durban Club Token Closeup

Boy did I get a grilling on Facebook for cleaning it? My response was this, if I had not proceeded to clean it then it would have joined my collection of brown and green discs of nothingness to be forgotten in a cupboard somewhere. Now, at least I get the satisfaction of knowing I found one of the rarest South African artefacts that can be found metal detecting in South Africa today. I will be researching other methods of restoration for future finds, if I ever get the pleasure of topping this one. 

We did go back to that field a few times but nothing worth reporting was found. I have since come to think that this field may have been one of the first places the original family settled in, perhaps just passing through on their way to finding a place to build their home site. They probably visited the Durban Club after arriving in Durban by ship in 1860, before heading up to the farm I now have the privilege of detecting. This token ties in beautifully to that timeline. 

The field of giants has produced one more find, We had just made it up the steep hill and I started swinging around the base of the pylon. I don't normally do this because of the amount of aluminium cable, copper washers and other remnants from the assembly process that litter the ground near to these monstrosaties. I got a good high-tone an put my shovel in and popped out a little soil to reveal a coin on edge peeping through the wall of the hole. Unfortuantely I didn't live dig this one but here's a short clip showing the coin being recovered. 

1912 Penny shortly after being recovered from the ground.

1912 British Penny

Here's the live dig I did where I found a 2-hole button. Excuse the crunching of the dead sugarcane leaves, they do make quite a noise underfoot. 

We don't really have any fields available to dig at the moment so there may be a bit of a break before the next post. I wish you all a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. 

Here are some other pictures from those fields.

Looking up at the Field of Giants

A flush of small white mushrooms form a fairy garden in the field. 

A closeup of the fairy garden

Metal Detecting in the presence of giants.

We found more hotspots and once again my theories have been blown out the water. I had assumed these hotspots were due to people camping near the wagon road on their way through to Stanger but these latest fields are quite a distance from the wagon road. I've started marking them off in Google Earth to see if I can spot a pattern but have found nothing conclusive so far.  They do sort of form a line but there is no link in terms of elevation or directions the hillsides face. They are also about 2km's from our home and I did 15kms of walking this past Saturday alone. Nothing wrong with that!

I didn't have high expectations for these fields because they are not near any buildings or propper roads for that matter. We had to figure out how to get there and our first attempt resulted in us traversing a very muddy road on foot and it looked like even tractors had gotten stuck there. The hill is home to two steel giants, their outstretched arms effortlessly supporting the heavy weight of the high-voltage cables that pulse with anywhere up to 750 Kilovolts of electricity.  These giants overlook a flattish section of the field about halfway up to the top of a hill. As we got closer to the power lines the detectors started chattering with the electromagnetic interference, as if they were in conversation with the giants. This can be a little off putting when you are trying to listen closely to for those faint, deep, signals. If I recall correctly my first signal was a Victorian General Service button that looks like it got hit pretty hard by something as it has one flat section towards the bottom. I would love to know if this what resulted in it coming off or was it just the result of lying in a field that gets ploughed every few years. It turned out to have a beautiful green patina when I got the dirt off, I could clean it further but this way you can get a feel for how long it was lying in the soil. 

Victorian General Service Button - Smith and Wright Backmairk

The second was a mixed-signal that had a lot of iron in it, I guessed it would be a big chunk of iron but dug it to see if we were dealing with tractor parts or something old. Out came a piece of broken cast-iron pot. Experience has taught me to slow down my pace and spiral out when I find these. 

Piece of cast iron pot showing the tell-tale parallel horizontal lines. 

Less than a meter from the British button was a button I didn't recognise. I cleaned it up when I got home and was quite surprised to find it is an old American General Service button, dating between 1820 and 1850. The Great Seal buttons we usually find are from 1902 through to WW2 but this one is definitely older. It is quite similar in style to the Victorian button. 2 military buttons from different countries less than a meter apart and a piece of broken cast iron pot. Were these soldiers having a meal together or involved in an altercation? 

American General Service Button - Backmark Horstmann Philada

1800s General Service button compared with one from 1902

Not much else came up during that session but the interest had been ignited. It was extremely hot that morning and the family was tired, so we headed home for some lunch. 

After lunch, I returned to follow the rows of sprouting sugarcane in an attempt to see what else I could find. I found a few nice relics, some small buttons and some, as yet, unidentifiable objects. One looks like it may be part of some sort of paraffin lamp (Edit: This is apparently a cordite flash-unit from an old shell cartridge) and the other a type of bell. The bell reminds me of a desk call-bell type but it is made of rather thick (2mm) copper. 

Possible Copper Bell

Possible Cordite Cartridge Flash-Unit

The most interesting item was lying on the surface, under a pile of cut sugarcane leaves. I cleared the leaves in preparation to dig, and saw it just lying there. There lay a very small round object, 15mm in diameter. When I picked it up I could only just make out the lettering on it and initially, I thought I had a coin. It wasn't familiar in size or design and it took me quite a while before I could make out enough of the lettering to get a positive hit on my searches. The lettering read "L.CHR.LAUER*RECH-PFEN" and my search turned up that it is a german counter token minted from 1818-1873. It was minted at the L. Chr. Lauer mint in Nuremberg, Germany. The rech-pfen is the abbreviation for Rechenpfennig that google translates as "arithmetic penny". 

Counter tokens were used in the same way as an abacus. There would be a board with lines on, the tokens would be pushed across to the other side when counted. 

Before and Cleaning

Partially Cleaned

Fully Cleaned

Here are some of the other finds.

Fini Paris Button

Some of the old buttons from the field of giants. 

In the picture above the button on the bottom left is labelled  "J.S. Moss & Son Manchester." When I researched it I found this video from the streets of Manchester in 1901. You can see the tailor "Moss and Son" in the background. It's especially clear towards the end of the video. 

 

One of the chattery giants keeping careful watch as we dig up his field. 

Hmnn, I wonder what this could be?

On our next adventure we went down to the bottom of the hill and I found the rarest item I have ever found. It could even be the find of a lifetime.