I started planning my first trip to England 3-4 years ago. I told Tim (IllDigger) when I retire from the Fire Department I’m treating myself to a metal Detecting trip to England. I told Tim that he should join me or at least start thinking about it. Well I retired in March of 2017 and less than a year later we were on a flight to London for the first leg of our 10 day journey. We looked at all our options and chose to go on a guided tour with the Colchester Metal Detecting club. I’m happy we went the route we did, everything but a few days of the weather was perfect. Our guide Mindy was very knowledgeable and a pleasure to be around. In fact our whole group was a great bunch of Detectorist.
The area we were detecting in was Colchester, Essex County, England. It is a couple hours outside of London and one of the oldest Roman occupied areas in the country. There is 1000’s of years of history in the ground from the Celts, Romans & the English Middle Ages.
The club had thousands of exclusive acres secured for detecting. Some of these fields were huge and it was kind of overwhelming when you first arrived at a field. You just did not know where to start. We soon found out that you could put your coil just about anywhere over there and start finding cool old finds.
I had several find goals before I left. Number one was a gold coin. I did not find one but I got to live the feeling through Tim when he found his Celtic gold coin. I did manage a small gold pin so I wasn’t skunked with no gold.
Goal number 2 was a Roman coin. I surpassed that with 9 Roman coins and one was the find of a lifetime for me, a silver Roman.
Here is a description of the coin from an expert.
4thC Roman silver coin sent for ID
“This is a silique of Arcadius, 383-408 AD. It’s from the mint of Milan, 397-402 AD.
D N ARCADIVS P F AVG -- VOT / X / MVLT XV // MDPS
This is quite a decent piece”
Goal number 3 was a hammered silver coin, I found 2, one full and one cut half, and both were on the second day. Here is the ID ofthe full hammered.
1216 Henry III hammered silver short cross pennyObv SREX***Rev .ON. LV - London mintIt was a big relief to find them because I did not want to be the guy that did not find a hammered silver.
Lastly I wanted to find some cool old relics. I managed a variety but nothing that really stood out. I did find a handful of bale seals, couple clothing seals, a couple musket balls and one 3 ringer. Tim on the other hand, was the relic master with 3 or 4 nice relics.
One other notable coin was my only milled silver. It was an 1841 Two Annas which is from India. I also can’t forget the coppers. I found over 20 coppers, at least one is a King George, one is what they call a cart wheel, a big old copper. I’ll have do do some closer shots once I get them back and cleaned up a little.
It would not be right to not mention the last group of finds, THE BUTTONS!! Holy cow were there the buttons in the ground. I think I found between 150-200 with 6 or so unique ones.
Overall I was extremely pleased with my first experience detecting in England. I’m hooked big time and will definitely be going back in the next couple of years. I’m also very spoiled and don’t know how long it will take to get back to the Midwest mindset of metal Detecting 150-200 year old coins and relics.
A BIG thank you to Tim for coming along with me on this bucket list trip.
The Video Link https://youtu.be/1UcdITMoMa0
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And your first hammy, the Henry III....is sweet! It's all there, no chips , no bends , no cracks its not taco'd! The reverse is crisp! And very little wear on the obverse side! 
It just sucks that you got shorted out of 2 days of detecting. But like you said in your video, you didn't miss much on the second to last day but a little bit of wind burn and cold phalanges. 
I can't wait till the next time we go! Thanks brother ! 
You must have been digging non-stop holes while you were there. Experience any of that coke we hear about?
Originally Posted by aloldstuff
