Dowsing for detectorists - PART 1: THE L-ROD

The Penrith Hoard in the British Museum Copyright 2010 Ealdgyth and reused under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet 1:5 

I would imagine that all detectorists have an interest in improving the quality and quantity of their finds. Yet very few make use of a free technology that can bring spectacular results when employed alongside a metal detector. Dowsing probably hasn't caught on with detectorists because of common beliefs that either it doesn't work or it is impractical. My own experiences, however, have convinced me that dowsing does work and that it can be very easily put to practical use. 

Many years ago, having long had a casual interest in the so-called paranormal, I decided to give dowsing a try and bought a pair of L-rods. The instructions claimed that it was necessary to rest one end of each rod in the palm of each hand while supporting the rod loosely between the thumb and forefinger. I found this terribly uncomfortable; couldn't get them to work and didn't have a clue what to do with them if I did get them to work. I gave up on the idea of being able to dowse myself, and discarded the rods. There were two important points that I later learned from this experience: 

1. I had unwittingly fallen foul of one of the basic rules of dowsing - you need to be relaxed and comfortable with what you are doing. 

2. The fact that nobody really knows how dowsing works, tends to attract those with fanciful ideas on how you should or shouldn't dowse; there are no strict rules, you just dowse as you want. 

Sometime later, I asked accomplished dowser Jimmy Longton to dowse a map for me. (See post: To the Manor Drawn, February 22 2015). In addition to dowsing the map, Jimmy tried very hard to encourage me to learn his craft. I was still very sceptical, even though the British Society of Dowsers claim that: "Most of us can develop the art by practice and perseverance". When Jimmy told me of his find of a hoard of Viking silver brooches, I could see the improvements that dowsing might bring to my own finds. There appeared to be a more convincing alternative, however, the Long Range Locator. I bought an Electroscope and learned to use it with good results. 

About a year later, following a discussion on dowsing, my mother-in-law announced that she would like a pair of dowsing rods for her birthday. I thought she deserved a little more than two remodelled coat hangers so I splashed out on a pair of commercial rods. On her birthday she handed me the rods and asked me to show her how to use them. "They don't work for me" I explained, "But this is what you are supposed to do ..." With that, I threw a pound coin on the lawn in front of me and proceeded to walk towards it, rods in dowsing mode. To my surprise the rods crossed as I walked over the coin. Intrigued by my new-found ability, I experimented with L-rods and discovered that they responded to buried metal in much the same way as the Electroscope. I can only conclude that by using the Electroscope I had actually taught myself to dowse. 

There is no need to spend several hundreds of pounds just to learn to dowse. Jimmy Longton kindly allowed me to reproduce his rod design and dowsing work-out, so you can learn for nothing! If you already have a pair of L-rods, you can use them, if you like, or you can make excellent rods as follows: 

You will need 22 in. (56 cm) of round metal bar (brass is considered best) of diameter 1/16 in. (1.5 mm) to 3/16 in. (5mm) to make each rod. Unless you have easy access to round bar, I suggest you use two wire coat hangers (N.B. Measurements and angles do not need to be too precise to make a working rod): 

1. Invert the first hanger and measure 14 in. (36 cm.) from one side, along the horizontal bar then mark and cut through with a pair of pliers or a junior hacksaw, measure 22 in. (56 cm.) back from the first cut and make a second cut. Discard the hooked portion. (Fig. 1). 

2. Smooth the cut ends with a file or emery cloth. 

3. Using a pair of pliers or a vice, first straighten and then bend the shorter arm back to an angle of 135 degrees (Fig. 2). 

4. Measure 7 in. (18 cm.) along the shorter arm, from its end and bend this portion back until horizontal (Fig. 3), then turn the last 5.5 in. (14 cm.) up at right angles. Finally, turn the last 0.5 in. (1 cm.) of the upright inwards, at right angles (fig 4.). 

5. Lay the rod on a level surface and adjust it until it lies reasonably flat. 

6. Make a second rod from the other coat hanger. 

Health warning: The rods are perfectly harmless when used as described. If you wish to use them to play Conan the Barbarian, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe or act out any other fantasy, don't blame me if you puncture your eyeball or any other part of your body. I would suggest that children using the rods should be supervised by a responsible adult. The rods can be made extra safe by folding their tips back on themselves, wrapping their tips with insulating tape or applying a blob of resin such as Araldite. 

Take the short arm of a rod in each hand so that the long arm is on the opposite side to your thumbs. Clench your fists around them loosely and turn your wrists so that your thumbs are uppermost. Tuck your elbows into your body and keep your upper arms in line with your body. Hold your forearms straight out in front of you, the width of your body apart and at whatever angle necessary to keep the rods reasonably parallel to the ground. The rods should now be pointing forward like extensions of your forearms. You may need to adjust your grip so that the rods are just free to move but not sloppy. When you are happy with holding the rods we can move on to the exercises: 

1. Hold the rods in the normal dowsing position as just described. Ask the rods to turn left. (You have to treat them like pets; talk to them nicely at first but if they don't do as they are told, shout at them - it works, honest!) After they have moved, restart the rods pointing forward. The easy way to get the rods to point forward is to drop your forearms so that the rods point to the ground then raise your forearms back to the horizontal. Ask the rods to turn right. Restart. Ask the rods to cross. The rods will cross on your chest. Practice until the rods move easily. 

2. Place a coin on the floor then take a few paces back from it. Hold your rods in the normal dowsing position and walk slowly toward the coin saying, (out loud, preferably): "I am looking for a coin". The rods will either cross as you pass immediately over the coin or within a few paces past the coin. Keep practising until the rods cross at the coin. 

3. Place a copper coin, a silver coin and a brass coin some distance apart on the ground. Hold your rods in the normal dowsing position and walk slowly toward the coin saying: "I am looking for a copper coin". The rods will cross as you pass over the copper coin but not the other two. Repeat the exercise with the silver coin and then the brass. Keep practising until you can differentiate between various metals. 

4. Stand sideways to a distant building or other large object that you know the location of and ask the rods to show you where it is. Give the full name of the place, i.e. "Show me St. James' Church". Clear you mind of everything else and concentrate. Once you get this to work, try standing with your back to the "target" (as dowsers tend to call objects they are trying to find) and see what happens. 

5. When you have succeeded with exercise 4, take your rods to the gate of a field, which is available to you for searching. Hold the rods as normal and ask: "are there any coins buried in this field?" The rods will cross if there are. Ask the rods to point to the nearest coin, then walk slowly in the direction indicated by the rods, turning, as necessary, to keep the rods pointing straight out in front of you. On reaching the coin the rods will cross. If you want to search for other objects as well as coins, ask the rods to find treasure. 

Keep practising. Once you can obtain a response from the rods in all these exercises, you are basically ready to do anything. Even if you can't do it all at first, you should find that the rods will produce some useful results in the field and you will improve with time. 

You may have noticed that in exercise 5 you reached your first buried coin but how do you recover it, bearing in mind that you have no hands free to carry anything? Hopefully you will have brought someone else along who can, at least, carry your metal detector and extraction tool, if not do the detecting and digging for you. If you are the independent sort, you don't need to have a partner, it's very easy to both dowse and recover targets by yourself. I'll show you how next time.

First Published in The Searcher/ November 1997

In Search of King John’s Treasure (Part 2)

The only field that produced a good aura was the same field that had given the curious orbs with the camera on the AV setting. While not the recommended setting, it does indicate that other camera settings work – perhaps as good or better. We had photographed the field from different points on adjacent sides of the field and obtained auras in the same place from both points and with both lenses, so there is definitely a substantial quantity of metal buried here, which may be silver from the colours obtained in the photographs. I should perhaps mention that this is not the field that Garry Brooker indicated but it is close by.

We now needed to contact the landowner to discuss the possibility of undertaking a survey to try and establish what is buried there and at what depth. It has now become quite easy to use the Land Registry online: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry to establish ownership and in this case it only took a few minutes. Writing a letter to the landowner took somewhat longer and as yet we have received no reply. Still no news is good news, they say! Meanwhile Aquila is seeking Yamashita’s gold in the Philippines so I am awaiting his return before chasing this project up…

In Search of King John’s Treasure

A few months ago, out of the blue, an Australian, Garry Brooker, inventor of Rangertell, long range metal locators, gave me GPS co-ordinates, which he claimed to be the possible location of King John’s treasure. He didn’t tell me how he obtained this precise location, just that he and some American friends have become very accurate at locating various hidden metals using Google Earth.

I had only just thanked Garry for the information, when my friend, Aquila Chrysaetos, an accomplished dowser and author, contacted me to discuss King John’s treasure to include as a chapter in his second book, Dowsed Treasure Locations Around The World.

We thought it would be worthwhile to go and check the site out, so we pooled our dowsing and research resources and headed off for sunny Lincolnshire. Aquila had dowsed a number of targets in the area, including several quite close to Garry’s co-ordinates. We had been fortunate to get accommodation within walking distance of the fields, so after a hearty breakfast we set out photographing fields. The fields were under crop, so we could only photograph from the public roads and tracks running alongside.

I use both the Canon 18-55mm lens and the Sigma 105mm lens so I get two different takes on any target and I need to get a good aura with both to confirm a good target. So it was a matter of taking  enough shots with one lens to cover the field and then changing lenses and repeating the shots, plus one shot without the filter to identify the field later.

When photographing the second field I noticed this unusual orb formation on the camera backscreen.

It was only when photographing the third field that Aquila commented on how slow the camera shutter was operating that I looked at the setting and realized that I had the selector on AV, which is the setting I use when photographing finds, to get the necessary depth of field. So, moving the selector to the correct Auto-No Flash setting, we had to retrace our steps and take the shots of the three fields again. As it happens, we are both a bit overweight and undoubtedly benefited from the additional exercise!

Rule 1; always check the camera settings before taking photos!

To be continued…

Magical Treasure Hunting

This is a history of treasure hunting from the middle ages to the present day, rather than a how to book. Nevertheless, it is well researched and despite being written by a university senior lecturer, is quite entertaining, although biased towards Europe, as medieval North America is largely undocumented. The study leads to the conclusion that treasure hunting in the medieval period was all about dealing with treasure-guarding angels, fairies and ghosts, where wizards were willing to face demons in order to get rich quick and resourceful tricksters exploited greed and stupidity, all watched by profit-seeking authorities. Generally speaking, most authorities regarded treasure hunting as benign and not evil like witchcraft. In the modern period treasure hunting evolved through searching for saintly relics to today’s method’s of researching, gathering and interpreting historical clues to find the treasure.

 

Interestingly, dowsing or divining has been used throughout the history of treasure hunting and another finding I picked-up on, was that flames, particularly blue flames were claimed to appear above buried treasures. Compare this with Louis Matacia, writing in Finding Treasure Auras, (1996). “When the full moon is highest in the night sky, the Indians would see a bluish-green flame glowing above the ground in the mountain. The glowing flame appeared to grow very slowly, reaching an impressive height and then retreating to the earth from whence it came…And this is where they found the silver and gold.” It seems the phenomenon of treasure auras existed well before the invention of the camera.

 

Going back to the book, I read it from cover to cover and found it a good read. First printed in hardback in 2011 and paperback 2012. The drawback, as with academic books in general, is the eye-wateringly high price. Even the E-book is priced at over £20.00 GB Pounds. You can always try and borrow the book from your local public library though.

Book Review – Dowsed Treasure Locations Around the World

I must confess to knowing Aquila personally; however I do think that the concept here is brilliant. The author has used his expert research and dowsing skills, honed in searching for Yamashita’s gold, to investigate and pin-point the location of many of the lost treasures around the World. Some of the fabulous treasures featured include Nazi war loot and King John’s crown jewels in Europe; the burial place of Mongol leader Genghis Khan with his vast riches; Oak Island Money Pit in Canada and the lost Dutchman Gold Mine in Arizona, USA. Each account makes fascinating reading in its own right. And with over 30 treasure locations, in almost 20 countries, identified and documented with GPS co-ordinates, it will give a head start in recovering a king’s ransom in gold, jewels and artifacts! A must read book for every treasure hunter!

CONTENTS INCLUDE:

 Your Plan of Action for A Successful Treasure Recovery, Finding Buried Treasure,           

European Treasures:

Lake Toplitz; Lake Lünersee; Alt Aussee, Austria                                                                                       

Waltham Abbey; King John; Capt. Avery and Merchant Royal Wreck, Cornwall, England

Loch Arkaig; Largo Law, Scotland                                                                                   

The Royal Charter Wreck, Anglesey, Wales

Rennes-le-Château, France

Deutschneudorf, Germany

HMS Frigate Lutine, Holland

Monte Sorrate, Italy

Adolf Hilter’s Wolf’s Liar, Poland

Zbiroh Castle, Czech Republic

North American Treasures:
Superstitions Mountains Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, Arizona; Spanish Fleet in the Great Hurricane of 1553 and The Alamo Mission, San Antonio, Texas; Atocha & Margarita Wreck Sites, Key West, Florida; Poverty Island, Lake Michigan, USA                                                

Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

Asian Treasures:

Yamashita; The Awa Maru, The Philippines

Flor Do Mar Ship, Malacca Straights, Malaysia                                                          

 “The Dolphin Wreck”, Sri Lanka

Genghis Khan, Mongolia  

Egyptian Treasures:                           

Red Sea Ship Wrecks; the Ancient City of Tanis

Other Treasures:

Cocos Island

Spanish Fleet Wrecks, Island Of Dominica


The book is available on Amazon http://amzn.to/2ramTT3  links to Amazon.co.uk, price £14.99. Also available on Amazon.com price $19.99                                   

DOWSING for TREASURE: THE NEW SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL

DOWSING for TREASURE: THE NEW SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL reveals secrets known only to a few amazingly successful treasure hunters.

If you want to find all the treasure you can handle — gold, silver, coins, jewels or anything else you call treasure — real fast. And if you want to find all this treasure without spending a fortune on expensive equipment or books and courses, using up all your free time studying and trying to put complicated rituals into practice in the field, then this essential manual was written for you! Expert metal detectorist, treasure hunter and internationally acclaimed author, David Villanueva, draws on his many years of experience at successfully dowsing for treasure to reveal ALL in this fact-packed manual. This completely revised and updated edition of the original SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL incorporating FAITHFUL ATTRACTION, is a revolutionary new guide to finding treasure, which shows how anyone — beginner or seasoned professional — can easily use the skills they probably never realized they had, to locate treasure — wherever it lies hidden. And, just as importantly, how to pinpoint and recover that treasure fast. Please note: This book is based on the two previous E-books mentioned above, which have been combined, revised and updated with some material subtracted and some new material added. If you have either of the previous E-books then this book will be an excellent companion volume; if you have both previous E-books, then you have the main issues covered.

Contents include:

1 Introduction 2 A Brief History Of Dowsing 3 How Does Dowsing Work? 4 Why Not Just Use A Metal Detector? 5 Finding And Using A Dowser 6 The Pendulum 7 Map Dowsing 8 The L-Rod 9 To Bait Or Not To Bait 10 Building A Better Gold Trap 11 To Look For Or To Unlook For 12 Buying A Better Gold Trap 13 All That Glitters 14 Metal Detectors And Search Heads 15 Photographing Treasure Auras 16 Research 17 Putting It All Together 18 Treasure Hunting Basics 19 Search Agreements 20 Bibliography

 

Infrared photo enhancing

I use Arcsoft Photostudio 5.5, as originally supplied with the Canon camera, for enhancing my aura photos. I have managed to keep this running on PCs up to and including Windows 7, although it does flash up a compatibility issue message at start-up. I haven’t found that to be a problem as long as I don’t use the browser function on Photostudio’s toolbar. In the past I had been told that version 6.0 did not work but I was recently told that a newer version 6.x did work. We did a few tests and sure enough I could not tell the difference between enhancing performed on 5.5 and that on the newer version, which can be downloaded free from: http://arcsoft-photostudio.en.softonic.com/

Does anyone know how these treasure finding devices are used?

Victor Lewandowski writes: “I am having trouble finding information about the two treasure finding devices I have. I got them from my grandfather who used them probably sometime between 1900 and 1940 in Virginia USA.

They are 2 wood cylinders joined with brass chain. I was told they may contain mercury. From the picture you can see the end was drilled and filled with a heavy substance. I can't find much on these devices. They seem to be a combination of dowsing and pendulum

I tested with one pair in each hand over a sterling silver ring, there was no reaction/crossing. I think each pair may be a separate device. They look like they were constructed by the same craftsman.

I weighed both pair of devices. The wooden filled cylinder of each pair weighed the same. One pair had a weight of 2.4oz. for each cylinder; the other pair had a weight of 2.6oz. Another observation is that the cylinders of one pair had the same lengths but there was a difference of 0.5cm between the other pair of cylinders (they were the same weight though). The chain of one device is 11.5in. in length and the second is 15in.

I did some more examination of the devices. I used a Minelab metal detecting pinpointer to check if there is a metal substance in the wood cylinders. The pinpointer detected a metal substance in each of the four cylinders. A volume of mercury can be detected as a metal.

"Like all metal targets mercury will read lower or higher depending on the size of the puddle of mercury. Mercury is only a fair conductor of electricity and so will read lower than similar size masses of silver or copper. For all intents it can be treated as a gold range target." Steve Herschbach

The reasoning for the mercury in the cylinders was that there is a great affinity between gold and mercury. Historically mercury was used in mining to capture fine gold by forming an amalgam. Therefore I conclude that the builder of these devices thought that the mercury would move the cylinders towards a gold deposit. How to properly use the devices is baffling. Any help would be appreciated.”

I would add that a treasure hunting friend advised me to use mercury in an Earth Field Generator for locating gold. If anyone has any ideas at all on how these devices are or might be used, please email me and I will pass the information on to Victor.

King John's Treasure

Continuing Jimmy Longton's search for treasure... In 1216 King John's court - contained in several large wagons laden with royal regalia - was crossing the River Wellstream, now part of the Wash, East Anglia. They got caught by the tide and went down in the quicksand. Legend says the remains are still there - somewhere, beyond the range of metal detectors and ground penetrating radar. Another method is needed. Here two enterprising entrepreneurs, seeking to restore ancient English heritage, ask Jimmy to find the spot. Enjoy the three videos:

​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmew8Pg1ag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iIrk9JqOrY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99lJRXDqd2c

Jimmy Longton

It is my sad duty to report that my good friend, Britain’s foremost treasure dowser, James (Jimmy) Longton, passed away suddenly on 02 May 2015 at the age of 84 years. He was buried in the churchyard of his home village of Euxton, (pronounced Exton) Lancashire, UK, on 15 May 2015 following a service at Euxton Parish Church attended by around 200 family and friends, myself included. Rest in Peace, Jimmy.

I could relate many tales of Jimmy’s exploits but I’ll just stick to his main achievements in treasure dowsing for now. Jimmy’s major claim to fame is his part in the finding of the Viking (c. 930 AD) silver brooch hoard near Penrith, Cumbria, in 1989. The two largest (i.e. longest) thistle brooches in the picture were found in 1785 and 1830 (largest) in a field called silver field. Jimmy and his friend Gerald Carter located and investigated the field in 1989 and recovered five more brooches, which were subsequently declared Treasure Trove. The award was more than £40,000 GB Pounds ($60,000 US Dollars)...

The Penrith Hoard in the British Museum Copyright 2010 Ealdgyth and reused under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Orbs of Light

I get asked many questions about circles (spheres) of light or orbs some of which I can answer and some I can’t. While orbs have been seen on traditional emulsion film photographs they are mainly a phenomenon of digital photography. A digital camera has an internal ‘hot mirror’ or blocking filter to stop infrared radiation reaching the sensor and blurring the conventional photograph, as infrared focuses differently to visible light. I believe that on some (weaker) lenses the infrared is reflected back off the hot mirror onto the back of the lens and is photographed as an orb. Depending on the intensity of the infrared radiation, the reflection can bounce back and forth a number of times forming several orbs. The photo above was taken of a large target with a Canon EOS350D with standard lens and 720nm filter.

 In comparison the same target was photographed above with the Sigma 105mm macro lens, which tends not to produce orbs, possibly because of the greater length of the lens.

 Both photographs were taken during the investigation of a suspected treasure site. Unfortunately the landowners will only allow excavation by archaeologists. To go ahead in this manner would result in the finds effectively being confiscated and no reward payable.

There are other reasons for the formation of orbs other than buried metal and several books have been written about orbs claiming them to be manifestations from the spirit world. Two I have are The Orb Project and Orbs Their Mission and Messages of Hope, both co-authored by Klaus Heinemann, who is a doctor of physics. And here is a link to a website: http://paranormalresearchforum.net/2011/04/26/orbs/ There are many photos of orbs in the books, a few of which I can explain without reference to the spirit world. Apart from buried metal, there are a number of common generators of infrared, which can result in orbs such as light sources (sky), metal structures, animals and people. When taking photographs of potential treasure targets we should always avoid including any of these in the camera frame.

Here is an example. I took these evening pictures of the cable car across the river Thames in London , England , built for the 2012 Olympics and called Emirates Airline. I was using the Canon camera with standard lens but no filter or flash. I didn’t realize at the time that I had the tops of some street lamps in the frame. Now Klaus Heinemann would probably claim the orbs in the pictures are spirits joining in the fun of the cable car ride but I am convinced they are caused mainly by those street lamps and possibly some of the other lights in the picture.

To the Manor Drawn (part 2)

THERE was to be a five month wait until the trees were stripped of apples by the pickers, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on the previous search of the manor house site. After a battle with silver paper, a battle with the trees and about one hundred hours detecting I had wrestled out of the ground about twenty worthwhile finds. Pleased as I was with four hammered silver coins, three Roman bronzes and some nice artefacts, one find for every five hours of searching didn't seem to be an awful lot to me. Was there a way of speeding things up, I wondered?

It was during this time that I read of a detectorist making a number of good finds by employing a map dowser to identify the find spots prior to searching. Now this was food for thought! If I could know for sure where the good finds were before I even switched on my machine, my finds rate ought to go sky high!

The first problem was where to find a map dowser, for the dowser I had read about had very inconveniently passed away. The solution soon came from an advertisement in The Searcher: "I will dowse your maps for you ...Ring J. Longton".

Nothing ventured, nothing gained; having no idea what to expect, I rang Mr. Longton. Jimmy turned out to be a very friendly, likeable soul who had retired from the wrestling ring and developed a passion for dowsing. His major claim to fame in metal detecting circles was the locating of a hoard of Viking silver brooches which earned him a share of a £43,000 Treasure Trove award. What might he do for me, I wondered?

"What sort of area do you want dowsed?" Jimmy asked. Rather naively I replied: "Could you do the entire farm? - It's 300 acres." "I could dowse a map of the entire country but you would be lucky if you recovered anything, because I would only be able to pinpoint large objects to within a few square miles. If you want to find coins and the like, I'll need an A4 size map of a small area — a few acres at most." I made a photocopy of the plan of manor site and its immediate surrounds — about 30 acres in all and sent it off with the £10 fee requested.

A few days later the phone rang about 10 p.m. Trouble at work, I thought. Happily, it wasn't. It was Jimmy who very excitedly told me that he had just been dowsing my map and had been getting gold and silver signals all over the place. "That's some site you've got there!" he said. I bet he says that to everyone, I thought.

When the map arrived, I eagerly scanned it to see what jimmy had made of it. The first thing that struck me was that nearly all Jimmy's markers (over 80%) lay within the boundaries of the wood that had surrounded the manor house (a random distribution would have been 50%). The next thing I noticed was a row of ferrous markers which I knew immediately corresponded with a series of large iron stakes on the site. This was quite impressive especially as Jimmy lived 300 miles away and I had been very careful to reveal as little as possible about the site!

I noticed also that quite a few non-ferrous crosses were on the part of the site that I thought I had searched thoroughly. This reminded me of a conversation we had, where Jimmy had said that owing to various "technical" difficulties such as dowsing going deeper than metal detectors, I could have problems in finding the targets that he had marked. You really should learn to dowse, he told me. I had little faith in my ability to dowse traditionally even though Jimmy had sent me instructions on how to make and use dowsing rods. Years ago I had taken an interest, bought a pair of L-rods, found they didn't work and discarded them!

Coincidentally there was, at this time, a flurry of advertising and dialogue concerning a machine from the States that could find gold and silver, find it fast and find it from a mile away. They called it a long range locator. Now this did sound much better than a pair of modified coat hangers! The major snag, apart from it being by no means clear as to whether these machines actually worked or not, was its hefty price tag. I sent for the literature and convinced myself that, as litigation was America ’s national sport, the manufacturer would have been sued out of existence if their claims weren’t at least substantially true. What’s more, all my detection equipment to date had paid for itself so my hobby owed me nothing. I bought an Electroscope Model 20.

If you haven’t seen an Electroscope, it consists of a more or less rectangular box (similar to a detector control box) with three adjustable antennae protruding from one end. Underneath, the box is joined to a pistol grip handle via a gimbal which allows the box to pivot in the horizontal plane. The general idea is that you keep the 'Scope balanced, wave it from side to side to determine if there is anything worth finding out in front of you and when the machine indicates that there is something, the antennae lock on to the target and you follow in for the kill with your metal detector. Simple!

Reality was somewhat different. The machine was easy enough to handle but most perplexing in what it seemed to be locating. The first field test yielded a broken bicycle spanner. The second had two of us digging a hole three feet deep only to uncover the farmer's water supply flowing through an iron pipe! Further tests produced bits and pieces of mainly non-ferrous scrap but none of this gold and silver the 'Scope was supposed to find. Yet metal objects were turning up which at least showed the machine was doing more than just keeping me amused until the autumn.

I arrived back at the manor site, just as the last box of apples was leaving, clutching the dowsed map, a 30 metre surveyor's tape and my detector of course. The corners of the field were the obvious places to measure from and there were only three of them as the field was triangular. I ran out the tape to the centre of the first cross and started searching with my metal detector. There was no hint of a signal. I carried on searching, carefully working out from the cross until eventually about 20 metres away I received a good signal and dug up a dinner fork, 20th century silver plated. I don't know if that was the object that had caused Jimmy's pendulum to gyrate but it did contain a very small amount of silver and I didn't find anything else in the vicinity.

I moved inwards to the next cross. It quickly became apparent that the further into the orchard I went the more the trees got in the way and the more difficult it was was to translate the crosses on paper into a search area on the ground. I didn't find anything anywhere around this second cross. I searched around the nearest crosses to the other two corners of the field and drew a blank there too; perhaps not surprisingly as I had thoroughly searched that end of the site last season. Back to the drawing board!

The following weekend I took the Electroscope with me. I didn't find much other than four pence in old money but I did discover that the Electroscope could be used just like a dowsing rod — I could simply walk around with it and it would indicate the location of metal objects to the left or the right of me within a few square metres. All I then had to do was to search the defined area with my metal detector. Using the 'Scope like this it wasn't long before I was holding my first decent find of the season — a well-preserved large rumbler bell with a blacksmith's hammer in shield motif.

Having now developed a working method, I started searching at the opposite end of the orchard to where I had worked the previous season, systematically working along each row. Not far in, from a depth of eight inches a Roman dupondius surfaced. A lump of bronze I uncovered became recognisable as part of a medieval pot-leg when I later dug out a complete one from a depth of 12 inches. From out of another seemingly bottomless hole came one of the nicest small crotal bells I have seen. This one is pewter with a bleeding heart motif, in perfect condition and good working order.

Just before I reached the point where I had finished searching last season I found an 18th century silver cufflink stud engraved with an abstract flower design. In the very next row I unearthed a similar silver cufflink stud engraved with the letter "T".

I was now going over old ground, as they say, searching the area that I had "thoroughly" done previously. I was amazed at what I had missed, although it was mainly junk. Two good finds did turn up, however. The first was a penny of Edward IV, very unfortunately clipped as it was a scarce Bristol mint issue. This was the smallest hammered coin I had ever found for two weeks until a cut farthing of Henry III put paid to that particular record. With that, I had completed the search of the main site in half the time that it had taken me to search a third of it conventionally.

According to the dowser there were still four treasures waiting to be found outside the main site, one at the west end and three at the east. I tried the west first and almost immediately found an As of Vespasian in quite presentable condition. At 69-79 AD this was the oldest datable metal object I had ever found and that record stood for a very long time. Further searches in the West produced nothing of note so I turned to the east.

At the eastern end of the main site lay another former wood of four acres. I decided to systematically search the lot rather than just go for the three dowsed targets which were close together in almost a straight line. The first find of note was a small rumbler bell, damaged and minus its ball. The second was an old style petrol can top proudly displaying the legend: PRATTS. The third find was a penny of Edward I, in good order and on the same day this was followed by two signals that produced most of a Henry III long cross penny. The following weekend brought the four acre search to an end with one final find — a half groat of Henry VIII. When I plotted the find-spots onto the map, the position of the three hammered coins coincided almost exactly with Jimmy's crosses!

What I didn't know, of course, was how thorough my searching was or how reliable was Jimmy's dowsing. I therefore used the couple of months I had left of this season and part of the next, to conventionally detect some of the area again and to see if I could find anything to the north or south of the main site. In terms of finds it was a complete waste of time but it did convince me that I had recovered everything worthwhile from the site — a total of forty good finds (including nine hammered silver coins) covering 1900 years!
​

​From The Searcher March 1997

On the Third Day of Christmas…

…I dug up what you see.

Using the Anderson rod to guide my Detech EDS metal detector, I was delighted to find this third or fourth century gold Roman child’s finger ring. The engraving on the bezel is of a palm leaf or branch, having the possible intention of protecting the wearer from disease. These rings are said to be rare in Britain but common in the eastern Roman Empire.

The bottom of the hoop has been flattened and this is so regularly executed that I believe this wasn’t accidental. As the child grew up, they would be unable to wear the ring on a finger and I wonder if it was flattened to wear, or possibly as a result of wearing, on a wrist strap. Under the British Treasure Act I have reported the find to the coroner and Finds Liaison Officer and we’ll see what comments the experts have.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope you make some great finds in 2015.

Detecting with the Anderson Rod

Using the Anderson rod in one hand and my detector in the other worked surprisingly well. I had absolutely no issues balancing the Anderson, I suspect its weight keeps it stable. I did initially have a bit of a problem storing the Anderson when I needed to dig. I started by carrying a cloth to lay the Anderson on, when I put it on the ground, but that became a bit of a chore. Then I discovered that the Anderson could be rested across the handle and against the control box of my Detech EDS detector and would sit there quite happily when I was still holding my detector while digging. I do keep my hand on it though, as should it fall it may damage the antenna. The antenna is replaceable but why have the hassle of buying and importing a new one from the manufacturer? If the digging gets a bit tough I need to lie my detector down and I found that the Anderson will rest in the detector’s arm cup.

 

So I started by baiting the Anderson with silver and that seemed to work well in that I found silver coins and silver plated objects as well as copper-alloy (the Anderson is constructed of brass, I believe) and lead (old lead tends to contain silver as an impurity). So far so good!

 

I then baited the Anderson with gold, which I expected to turn up gold coins but that did not happen. Over the past 200 years many fields in the south of England have been fertilized with rag waste, which was contaminated with buttons and other metal objects associated with clothing.  The Anderson took a great liking to gold plated buttons (as in picture) and the like as well as copper-alloys. I guess this is because I was using almost pure gold bait and gold plating generally consists of high karat gold so to the Anderson it is a perfect match.

 

Now I was hoping to find Iron Age gold stater coins which have a variable mix of gold (70-80%), silver (10-20%) and copper (5-10%). This is a moving target effectively so even using a gold coin as bait there would be no guarantee that the coins buried scattered in the field would be a match. I could persevere with the gold bait or on the basis that all man-made gold objects contain either silver or copper or both I could switch back to silver bait…