How to Find a Hoard When Metal Detecting

Intro: 

Hey Everybody. Welcome! To Episode 77 of the metal detecting show podcast. My Name is Ciaran and I have been Metal Detecting for nearly 30 Years. This week considering both my metal detecting subscriptions of both the Searcher and Treasure Hunting magazine feature hoards on the cover I felt of that This week I want to talk on topic of How to find a Hoard.

Hey everyone before we start I want to thank you for listening to the podcast and I hope you enjoy the episode this week  If you want to support the show there are many options available from the links in the episode notes below and if you want to interact with me and the show that information is there too.  

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Content:

Hey Everyone I Hope you got out this week be your season just starting or finishing I hope it has been successful or about to be the season of your life.

So this week I hit the ring beach again in the hope of recovering that expensive ring lost a few weeks ago however this time I enlisted some help from my little sister who has never detected before but in the hope of doubling up on coverage. 

I went out with the Nox 800 and my Sister used the simplex we covered a good chunk of ground but alas we came away empty handed and I decided to call it a day when I saw my sister using my sand scoop as a pick axe after she detected the iron pillars of the board walk hahahah.

Ahh im only messing I know she will be listening this week, she did well for someone with limited mental capacity hahahaha, if im not aloud to poke fun at my little sister then no one is….

to be honest she did great and did pick up some complex concepts very quickly  such as how deep you can detect considering sensitivity and the size of the target plus the concept of the conductivity scale and She impressed me enough for me to let her Borrow do you hear me Borrow my Simplex…

So this week I want to talk about a topic that as I have already said adorns the cover of both this months copied of Treasure Hunting Magazine and the Searcher Magazine and that Hoards and how to find them.

Firstly let’s get something straight I have never found a hoard nor have I actively gone looking for one, so I am not the expert here however I have done some research on the topic to help maybe get me and you to the next level in searching for hoards and lets face it you only become an expert on finding hoards when you find one whether by luck or not. 

I would recommend paying attention to anything that Gordon Heritage says an advocate for Minelab and of The Milton Keyes Hoard fame who speaks frequently on the subject of finding hoards. 

There are a few aspect to consider when hunting for hoards that is the type of equipment and set up you need, Where to search and different type of hoards to look for and the probability of finding either. 

What is clear to me is that hoard or Cache hunting is a separate type of metal detecting than what we would do every weekend and is not restricted to Europe or middle east but to the whole wide world of metal detecting and from a high level it is a game of probabilities, probabilities that you can tip in your favour by doing a few simple things with the first being research I know I say it all the time, site selection is the most important aspect of our hobby and hoard hunting is no different. 

Before we get into research we need to understand the reasons to why we have hoards and what behaviours drove people to build them up and hide them away. 

Imagine there are two needs in which a hoard can be created. One is in times of political unrest, battles, raping and pillaging and the other being the opposite in a periods of peace. 

Hoard locations from times of political unrest are actually easier to predict that time of peace. 

Simply by the fact that we have record of battles and wars etc.

Hoards from times of unrest tend to be of personal items and money like coin purses or religious items hidden to prevent them being pillaged from their person or the church before the owner underwent a battle that resulted in them being unable to return to recover them due to either dying or been taken slaves and all that comes with battles of the day. 

these hoards tend to be smaller in size due to their personal nature if you have seen the Detectorists I believe it is in the firsts episode of series three where there is a great example of this visualised, while hoards from the calmer periods of times tend to be substitutes for banks where people would squirrel away their silver and gold coins simply because they didn’t have anywhere else to put it safely resulting in these hoards tending to be larger. 

Hoards of this type could also have been a direct result of religious offering on burial of some great leader or simply a bunch of coins offered to the gods on crossing a bridge that build up over the years only to be found 1000’s of years later by someone with a metal detector. 

This type of hoard is more difficult to predict as there is no associated battle or war or raid to attribute to the need for you to hide your money. Resulting in a more random distribution of these type of hoards.

So keeping this in mind lets address the researching of where to find hoards.

Firstly let look at the Environment or Landscape you need to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is looking for somewhere to hide their most precious possessions, 

you are not going to bury them in the middle of the country side with zero points of reference to guide you to the exact location plus you’re not going to bury it next to a temporary object that potentially could be moved or in the middle of a field with no x marking the spot.

so with that in mind you need to look for something that sticks out as part of the natural lay of the land and potentially was Permanent a 1000 years ago or even just a few 100 years ago, it may be an old oak tree that is 300 plus years old or a bunch of boulders left by glacial clearing at the bottom of a valley or a physical shallow of water where people would cross and make offerings to the gods. 

Beyond the natural lay of the land you can research any battles or raids that may have occurred in the locality in the past, there may be record of this in your local library going back hundreds of years for you to draw on. 

Was there a church that existed at the time of the battle or was there an old lords castle ransacked, on and on you need to make some effort to understand the story of the battle or raid, what direction the attacking forces came from where people fled to etc. 

was there a battle between two Celtic clans, Celtic clans were predominantly nomadic so they would take their wealth with them and gather the spoils of battles along the way. 

I think you get the idea Battles and Conflict are a breeding ground for hoards this is why there are lots of hoards/caches found in certain areas and in areas near large battlefield sites. 

So research your locality for previously found hoards even search the same site of a hoard find if you can, there is a high probability that there is something left for you to find. 

Before we get onto equipment there is two typed of hoard placements when hoards are found. The first being an intact hoard where the hoard or cache exist in the exact same state and position it was hidden be it in a clay pot or an iron box. 

The second is called a scattered Hoard which lends itself to my point about going back to previous hoard sites. 

Scattered Hoards come about when there is either a coin spill or a vessel that was used to house the hoard contents that has become damaged resulting in the content spilling and getting dragged across the fields due to ploughing, erosion or construction. 

Scattered Hoards when compared to intact hoards more common and easier to find as the target area is as big as the scatter field of the target. 

I know if I found a Celtic gold stator on a field there would be no way I wouldn’t be returning to that field in the  hope of finding more it’s just common since.

Like I said Hoard detecting or Cache Detecting is a different form of metal detecting that what we are used to for example there are metal detector specifically designed for ground penetration and for the pinpointing of large targets at depth. 

For example the Garrett deep Seeker or The Nokta Makro Invenio interesting enough minelab don’t have a specific detector designed for deep ground penetration if you know of one let me know.

Irrespective of what detector you have, How can you set it up to best find a hoard well I have heard Cache Detecting called slow and deep and in my mind to do this you need to turn off  your discrimination or go all metal mode and increase you sensitivity to the max it can go but bear in mind the deeper you go the more ground balance comes into play and you need to be prepared to dig a lot of iron but who’s to say that large Iron won’t be a box full of Silver Reals. 

So to recap

When Researching look for history about battles or raids that may have occurred or the presence of an old roman villa or  castle that may have been in the battle of a stop on the way to battle. This is true for both hoards of political unrest and times of piece.

When on site Look for areas of landscape that could be considered unique and have a potential to stick out for a few hundred or even a thousand years.

Understand that your hoard may be scattered across a site so don’t give up after finding one piece of it.

Hoards or cache detecting is different than normal detecting and there is specific equipment designed for  deep ground penetration.

And if you can’t get your hands on one of those then the next best thing is to set your detector to max sensitivity considering ground balance and All metal mode without any discrimination set and be prepared to dig everything even iron. 

The inconvenience of A few deep iron finds is worth it consider the prize awaiting you.

Wrap Up 

That’s it for this week’s 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 eyes down and Happy Hunting.