tuatara
Hero Member
A trayful of silvers on Crazy Ian's property
My little brother told about our hobby at his work, and immediately we received an invitation from his young colleague to detect on her late great uncle’s property. It’s a small farm, one of the few that still remain within the city boundaries. The house is modern but it was built on the older site that dates back to the 1880’s. Everything sounded promising until the girl mentioned that her great uncle Ian who died several months ago was a detectorist. Surprise, surprise. Our hopes did not run high when we arranged to meet her on Sunday morning. All the way to the farm, the lovely girl kept chattering about her great uncle or Crazy Ian as she called him. According to her he had always been a weirdo but after his third divorce he took heavily to booze and beeping. He would talk to his machine and call the thing ‘Lucy’. Crazy Ian wasn’t exactly getting on with his relatives, hence, his nickname. He boasted to the family that he had some seriously valuable gold and silver coins (American, English and Australian) in his hoard. The girl does not understand much in numismatics and neither is she able to say specifically what coins her great uncle used to have. The last month of his life Crazy Ian spent at the hospital. The relatives searched the house for treasure but did not find anything and he would not tell them about its whereabouts, just hinted that he buried his coins in several very rare Australian pictorial jars on his property. So the things have become far more interesting than me and my little brother bargained for. There were no signs of detector holes near the house. However, the grounds were as quiet as they could be. We moved further in the direction of a big billabong (pond) where we saw an outline of some small structure, probably, an old pump house or a fishing shed. There, on the bank, we dug out one by one 6 sterling silver coins: 3 pence of 1918, 3 pence of 1920, 6 pence of 1920, 1 florin of 1916, 1 shilling of 1912 and 3 pence of 1926. We also found several coppers and our first farthing (it’s still soaking). Prior to this detecting trip we had 3 old silver half-crowns but not a single little cr%ppy farthing. None of the coins we recovered are rare. Only a shilling is slightly scarce. Nevertheless, Crazy Ian’s niece got very excited. Now she believes that her mentally deranged great uncle dumped his treasured possessions into the billabong and she has a plan to drain it. I don’t want to give her false hopes. Ole dear Crazy Ian could plainly have sold everything on e-bay and bought some serious booze on the dough. We were diligently digging big signals and unearthed a whole ashtray, an ornate brass wall plaque and a crazed ceramic doorknob. Of older things we found a button ca. the 19c and a round bronze lid with Q.Victoria’s crown on it. There is a thread and a seal inside the thingy which makes me think that it was once screwed to something, like a flask. Anyway, it was a thrilling day with good potential of getting back and, moreover, we were allowed to keep all our finds. People are usually kind to their managers.
My little brother told about our hobby at his work, and immediately we received an invitation from his young colleague to detect on her late great uncle’s property. It’s a small farm, one of the few that still remain within the city boundaries. The house is modern but it was built on the older site that dates back to the 1880’s. Everything sounded promising until the girl mentioned that her great uncle Ian who died several months ago was a detectorist. Surprise, surprise. Our hopes did not run high when we arranged to meet her on Sunday morning. All the way to the farm, the lovely girl kept chattering about her great uncle or Crazy Ian as she called him. According to her he had always been a weirdo but after his third divorce he took heavily to booze and beeping. He would talk to his machine and call the thing ‘Lucy’. Crazy Ian wasn’t exactly getting on with his relatives, hence, his nickname. He boasted to the family that he had some seriously valuable gold and silver coins (American, English and Australian) in his hoard. The girl does not understand much in numismatics and neither is she able to say specifically what coins her great uncle used to have. The last month of his life Crazy Ian spent at the hospital. The relatives searched the house for treasure but did not find anything and he would not tell them about its whereabouts, just hinted that he buried his coins in several very rare Australian pictorial jars on his property. So the things have become far more interesting than me and my little brother bargained for. There were no signs of detector holes near the house. However, the grounds were as quiet as they could be. We moved further in the direction of a big billabong (pond) where we saw an outline of some small structure, probably, an old pump house or a fishing shed. There, on the bank, we dug out one by one 6 sterling silver coins: 3 pence of 1918, 3 pence of 1920, 6 pence of 1920, 1 florin of 1916, 1 shilling of 1912 and 3 pence of 1926. We also found several coppers and our first farthing (it’s still soaking). Prior to this detecting trip we had 3 old silver half-crowns but not a single little cr%ppy farthing. None of the coins we recovered are rare. Only a shilling is slightly scarce. Nevertheless, Crazy Ian’s niece got very excited. Now she believes that her mentally deranged great uncle dumped his treasured possessions into the billabong and she has a plan to drain it. I don’t want to give her false hopes. Ole dear Crazy Ian could plainly have sold everything on e-bay and bought some serious booze on the dough. We were diligently digging big signals and unearthed a whole ashtray, an ornate brass wall plaque and a crazed ceramic doorknob. Of older things we found a button ca. the 19c and a round bronze lid with Q.Victoria’s crown on it. There is a thread and a seal inside the thingy which makes me think that it was once screwed to something, like a flask. Anyway, it was a thrilling day with good potential of getting back and, moreover, we were allowed to keep all our finds. People are usually kind to their managers.
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). I have an uncanny feeling there was some message hidden, probably inside the detector. But we're having a lot of fun looking for treasure.
