Coins

Hi! Welcome to the metal detecting show Episode number 19. My name is Ciaran and this week I start my series about the History of Coins and We have our regular tech time out where this week i chat about how and where to Research and of course some updates from my adventures in metal detecting. So lets get On with the Show. 

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Hey! Thank you for listening were at episode 19 and I hope you enjoy the show this week. If you want to give me feedback or interact with the show, please reach out to me on twitter @detectingthe or Instagram @themetaldetectingpodcast or If you want to pop me an email to ciaran@themetaldetectingshow.com  

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So firstly on to my adventures in Metal detecting this week I went back to the Beach where I had the disaster last week just so I have some closure and remove the bad memories of that hunt. I had an average day with several Euro’s and toy Car’s in the bag and what looks to be a junker Silver bracket well that's what it rang up like on the equinox so well say it was silver right., Speaking of the Equinox there is a new update out that adds 4khz to the frequency range my update went off without a hitch except that the magnetic coupling on the USB cable happened to have a little piece of steel wire attached to the magnets luckily i didn't plug in the cable without noticing the wire otherwise it could have been a disaster for my computer but it wasn't and thankfully everything went ok. 

So up to now I have been avoiding talking about history and i dont claim to be an expert as all my knowledge come from Wikipedia and various internet searchs over the years but I want to start bringing a history element to the Show so this week i start this off by discussing the history of coinage and its adoption across the world. this is a topic way to large to be covering in one short episode so over the next few weeks and episodes we will complete the story. Now to set your expectation this will not be PHD level knowledge transfer here but enough high level knowledge for you to equip and carry yourself through a conversation down the club or if your luckly a question will come up on a table quiz that you will be able to answer this time. 

So to start, The Invention of Coins or coins as we know them today has been attributed to the region of Lydia located in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey approximately 630BC.  but did you know that the invention of coins is linked to the king Midas mythology as king Midas was said to have washed his ability to turn all that he touched to gold away in the Lydian river of Pactolus. Now with all myths there is some element of truth This legend comes from the fact that the river Pactolus had a very high concentration of electrum which if you don't know is an alloy of gold and silver but the invention of coinage doesn't correlate to the real life king Midas, king Mita who lived during the 8th centry BC over 100 year prior to the invention of standardised coinage but during this period the use of pre coins with no recognisable image or standardisation were used.  

Standardisation using hammer and anvil came in with King Alyettes of Lydia during 630BC with the production of the Lydian Electrum Lion stater with lion on the obverse and the revese having incuse punch confirming purity. Some terms there out to the blue but to explain quickly the Obverse of the coin is simply the side of the coin that contains the principle design while the reverse refers to the other side or the back of the coin. Incuse refers to a punch in the coin or a design that has been impressed below the coins surface. Early lydian coins were to valuable to be used in day to day tranactions as they were valued at approx 1 day sustanance so it took some time before these ancient coins were used for commerce and trade. It wasnt till the rough incuse horse head Hemiobols silver fraction of Cyme a Geographical neighbour to Lydia that coins were available to the masses making it the first to be used for widespread market economics. With the Hemiobols used in large scale by the Ionian Greeks mercebaries who wanted to be paid in presious metal electrum in this case at the conclusion of their services. It wasnt till the middle of the 6 centry BC that King Croesus replace these electrum coins with pure gold and silver called Croeseids with a bull and ram in eternal conflit on the obverse and again an incuse punch on the reverse. With the Greek world made up of thousands of self governed city states most issued their own coins some circulated beyond their borders giving an indication that they were being used in intercity trading with the firat example of this being the silver Stater of Aegin 550 to 530 BC which depicted a sea turtle on the obverse and again an incuse square punch of 8 sections. These coins were so well distrubuted that they have shown up in hoard in Egypt but also were adopted and the standard and other cities started to adopt the aeginetian weight standard of 6.1 grams to the drachm.  

However, In Athens they adopted their own standard called the attic standard in which a drachm equaled 4.3 grams of silver. Over time these Athenian coins known as owls with the bust of Athena on the obverse and the Atenean owl on the reverse became the most widely used coins during this period this has been attributed to the extremely tight standard of purity and weight obtained during striking. Tetradrachms also produced during this period based on the Attic standardisation of 4 times the value of a Tetradrachms became the standard for large transactions and By the time of Alexander the great this large denomination was being regularly used to make large payments but was often saved for hoarding.  

Next week time continue with the history of Coins but up next is this week's tech time out. 

Jingle 

Time for this weeks tech time out!!!!! 

Ok so this weeks main topic was all about coins and believe we I didn’t have that inforamtion floating about it my head it required me to do some bit of research and that is what this week’s tech time out is all about. One of the fundamaental in metal detecting to ensure you are sucessful is research if I was creating a metal detecing course I would start with research. Research Research Research I know ive tipped on this previously but I cant stress the importance of research and knowing you locality historic past. 

So how do I research so starting with beaches with beaches you are generally coinshooting while looking for jewelry you're not going to the beach to relic hunting so beaches are quiet easy to research the first bit of research for a beach is to actually go to the beach not that hard so far but actually go to the beach when peiople are there preferably during high season and look at where they congragate what spots are popular for sun bathing or getting on or off the beach where the bars or shops are. Are they changing clothes is there showers. But try to also assess how many people come to the beach at any one time during high season there is no point is searching a beach if it only gets a few dog walkers a day during high season you are wasting your time there now I still do some of these beachs just for convience but you wont be finding many gold or silver rings here. 

Does the beach have a water park element to it that will be a hotspot so start there.  

So to synopsis quickly things to research when researching a beach. 

• Whats the general population at high season.  
• What are people movent patterns on the beach.  
• Its there attractions that lend themselves to customers either changing cloths or spending money. 

Take these three questions and stack rank all your beaches to give an indication of which beaches will be successful for you and now you have sucessfully researched your beachs. 

Now other terrain is an altogether different and more difficult task.  

Generally, we are talking about field sites here so how and where can you research the viability of a field. The first and most valuable and probably the most obvious is old maps not to confirm to the clesai here but X does mark The spot. the X being the site of a local church that may have been there for 100’s of years.  

Where do you get old maps I hear you say well there are lots of resources online that will sell you old maps for your area but actually the easiest is to go to your local library or municipality they will have copies of old maps for you to copy for a small fee. Other places to get old maps include your natioanl governing body in ireland this would be the National meusum of ireland in the uk this is the british meuseum and in the US i believe it the national park service but all have websites that can show you were to not go but they also have searchable resources including Mapp indicating where you should go. 

Review old maps look for sites that may have indicated population congregation in the past for example ghost towns, old wells, churchs, old sports fields and the list goes on and on but what do you do when you find the perfect site on an old map. Well if there's any landmarks on the map that still exist today you should take a modern day map and overlay the old map on top to help identify the modern location of the possible site.  

Im not going to go into the technicality's of overlaying one picture on another but you should be motivated enough to google that bit your selves. Google earth hasthis faculity built in and can give you gps co-ordinate of the location.  

Ok so say the field you have permission on is not the site of the obvious population congregation. what can you do here well something I do is draw a line from the field to a site of population congregation for example would people walk from the town to the church via your field remember 100’s of years ago churches weren't in the center of towns but built at the highest location near a town to ensure everyone could see it would these people walk through your field to get to that church that may or may not exist anymore this process can be repeated for all population magnets. 

Sync up with your local historical group this will be a gold mine of information for places you can hunt it will also help with permissions if you become part of this group remember network build permissions. This historical group will also be able to tell you the sites of any local battle sites old fairs the list goes on and on. They will also have done the legwork with any written accounts from newspapers, books and letters that may capture local events in the written form. Now you can and should read these and do this leg work yourself but it's always better to check if someone has done if first and is willing to discuss it with you and historical groups are the place for this. They will almost definitley have a list of books that pertain to your locality which you should read.  

If after all that your field/site is non descriptive one last thing you can do is try to find out how long that field has been used to produce crops or raise livestock this will give indication of the population density that may have accumated over the years for example if a field has been used to grow hops in the past... wait for it. It used to be common practice for Farmers to bus people out of the cities to help pick Hops for a few week during the summer with hundreds of people congregating on your seemingly non-descript field.  

Lastly if your site/field has no particular interesting past freestyle it you never know if an old lord fell off his horse dropping a signet ring for you to find 200 years later. 

To recap how to research an old site  

• Maps old map Maps new maps just Maps eat sleep and drink old maps.  
• Talk to your local historical group for local knowledge. 
• Check out your governing bodies resources on line  

One last little bit of research you can do for all and any sites but restricts the timescale of research because this source is not 200 years old yet and that is old photographs you find them anywhere but I have had success in checking out local antique shops or bars. These photographs were never just taken like selfies today their was always a reason or event to be captured and 9 times out of ten you can identify the location from the photograph.  

We can all have success by just freestyling but to maximise your find potential you need to embrace research these are the things I do but make sure to let me know what ive missed or something that you may do that will be beneficial to use all. 

Wrap Up 

Ok I hope you liked this episode of the metal detecting show podcast 

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Once again, I hope you have enjoyed this episode and we will chat to you all again next week. 

Get out there and Happy Hunting.