Good bye Blue Field (for now) hello Red Field.

If I have been a little quiet recently it's because I finally finished with the Blue Field. The farm owner was going to send me a map of the farm so I don't go digging where I don't have permission but he has been exceptionally busy recently and understandably hadn't gotten round to it . Rule #1 of metal detecting, always get permission. I found some rezoning maps online that had the farm name on so I sent them to him for confirmation. Unfortunately, they were out of date but he replied the following morning  screenshot of a Google Earth Pro map of the farm reaffirming that I have permission to go anywhere within the marked borders. The map has exceeded my expectations, not only is it much bigger than I previously thought, but it also covers some areas I have been eyeing out from a distance for quite some time now. How big you might ask, approximately 240 hectares big. I've been mapping my progress on Google Earth and so far I've detected roughly about 4 hectares so I only have about 236 hectares to go.😊

OK so here's a rough inventory of what I found on, or should I rather say, in the Blue Field. 

3 x Martini-Henry Bullets

1 x Victorian Era British Rifle Regiment Button

1 x Transvaal State Artillery Button

1 x 1926, South African Silver 3 Pence

1 x 1963, Large Format 1/2 Cent. 

3 -4 x 1 and 2 cent coins from the 70s and 80s. 

1 x 1977, 5 cent coin.

1 x 1984, 20 cents

2 x Harmonica Reeds

Well if I tally it up it doesn't look all that bad, although I did spend around 20 solid hours, if not more in that field.

Let's all welcome the Red Field.

So we have named it the red field, not because it has a red marker but because I chose to mark it in red on Google Earth. I detected there on Tuesday for about 30 mins, then yesterday for about 2 hours...nothing. Well not absolutely nothing, I did find an iron loop for a chain they use to load sugarcane onto the trucks with but other than that, nothing. I started thinking I wasn't going to find anything in this extremely quiet field. Was it perhaps too far from any yards or thoroughfares? Anyway, I got up this morning before sunrise to head out, determined to at the very least tick it off the list and move on to another field.

I had detected one lane and was working my way back when I got a solid high tone signal, right next to an old hare's warren. (Food for thought: Do hares have warrens and if so is it still called a warren?) I nearly jumped over the hole and skipped it altogether. At last, "please don't be another random sheet of copper", I said, possibly out loud. 3 inches deep my Bounty Hunter Land Ranger Pro confidently displayed. 

Another Button!!!   

Unfortunately, the shank broke off when I removed it from the sand clod.  "The Red Field is on the board!", I may have also said out loud, with headphones on, who knows. I was super stoked, there may be something to find here after all. 

The button before the cleaning process began

The cleaning begins to reveal...

Another American Great Seal button.

Unfortunately, I dropped it during the cleaning process and the heavily rusted back completely shattered. I had not as yet managed to get the back-mark off it so that disappointed me. The back-mark would have given us the date of manufacture and when it was in use. It does look slightly different from the previous one in that it's not as convex.   

Back to the field for our lunch break, this time with the family. Halfway through the first lane, a 50s to 60s signal, mostly 50s. I guess, "Another Button!", my daughter guesses, "a bullet!". the winner...my daughter.

American buttons and British bullets. All the South African detectorists I know all say the same thing, this is an Anglo-Boer War site. If only I can find some link to this area in the history books.

Map showing the button locations.

Perhaps you too could join in the guessing game of "Bullet, Button, Coin or Spear". What do you think we'll dig up next?