What an exciting year it's been, and what better way to end 2021 than by taking a look of some of the most exciting metal detecting news from the month of December.
Despite the colder whether and the ongoing pandemic, the detectorists of the UK have still been out in force and there have been some really interesting finds to report. If you think we've missed any top news then please do let us know!
And as always we love to hear about your own recent finds and successes. You can contact us here or also via our Detectorlist facebook page.
A rare Bardwell Iron Age war trumpet, which was found in a lump of clay by a metal detectorist, has sold at auction for the whopping sum of £4,216.
Ivan Bailey was the lucky detectorist who found the instrument, known as a carnyx, at Bardwell in Suffolk, five years ago. It is an extremely rare find indeed, given that the only other known British carnyx was found over 200 years ago in 1816.
Mr Bailey is a metal detectorist with an impressive 30 years of experience, and he had been turning up cartridge cases when he got a signal that turned out to be the carnyx.
The detectorist is set to share the proceeds equally with the landowner, and has said he was pleased with the end result, especially considering that the pre-auction valuation was predicted to be between £2000 and £3000.
You can read the whole story HERE.
A Northland detectorist found the weddings rings lost by a Whangārei woman in the sea, the wedding rings she thought would be lost for ever.
This touching story really does read more like the plot of a movie than something that happened in real life.
Kim Ferguson and husband Billy were meant to take their honeymoon at Taiharuru, after their wedding four years ago. But the honeymoon was unfortunately delayed twice by Covid lockdowns, and Billy sadly became ill and died before they were able to rearrange it.
Grieving Kim decided to take the trip anyway in honour of her late husband, taking her girlfriends along for support. On the third day of their trip, whilst swimming in the sea, both her own ring, and Billy's which she had been wearing slipped off of her fingers.
Understandably, Kim was distraught and didn't have high hopes of recovering her precious rings. They spent hours looking for them, to no avail, before they had the great idea of calling in a metal detectorist to help.
Pete McGhee, from Northland Jewellery Recoveries, regularly hunts for lost treasures with his metal detector, and was able to get to the beach 2 days luckily.
Fortunately, one of Kims friends had the foresight to mark out the place where the rings were last seen with rocks, and Mr McGhee was able to recover them within just 40 minutes of searching. What a lucky break!
You can read the story with more details, HERE.
44 year old metal detectorist, David Edwards, found an 800-year-old gold brooch buried 4 inches down on farmland when treasure hunting after work one day.
He detected the emerald-encrusted object and could immediately tell from how delicate it was that it was special.
It turns out that the brooch is made of 24-carat gold, and the intricate sword-shaped pin, is less than an inch wide and weighs just 4g.
A coroner will decide if it should be sold to a museum, and when it is the proceeds will be split between Mr Edwards and the landowner. The experts are currently saying that it will sell for at least £10,000, but it could even make £100,000.
Check out the full story, HERE.
Cai Antoney, a metal-detectorist from Shropshire has uncovered a Bronze Age palstave axe head and ceremonial dirk close to Market Drayton on the 8th December.
The lucky detectorist is part of the Noble Pursuits Metal Detecting group and was joined by around 30 other people at this organised dig. Whilst there had been some "really nice bits" found in the morning, Mr Antoney said it had started to go quiet in the afternoon.
In fact he was actually on the way back to the car when he noticed a strong vibration coming from his metal detector, which turned out to be the palstave axe head.
Cai notified the rest of his group and directed them where to look, and they ended up unearthing even more treasure, including the middle piece of a Bronze Age dagger or ceremonial dirk was discovered, followed by the two additional pieces which completed the sword.
You can read the full story HERE.
On the 16th December a coroner declared this hoard of silver coins to be treasure. The 61 post-Mediaeval coins were found by a metal detectorist called Simon Hall, on land near Dursley back in September.
The eldest coin is dated from 1689, and all 61 of them are believed to be from the 17th century, from the reigns of King Charles II, James II and William III.
As the find is of more than one silver coin over 300 years old and they were all found in close proximity to each other, the coroner deduced that it qualifies as a hoard, and thus concluded it to be treasure.
You can see more pictures of the silver coins in detail HERE.
It might have taken 10 years for Reg Mead and Richard Miles to receive their reward for the Celtic coin hoard they found in Jersey- but I'm sure it was worth the wait for this amount!
These persistent metal detectorists had been searching for the legendary lost Celtic coins, on the eastern side of the island of Jersey, for more than 30 years.
But it wasn't until February 2012 that the pair got lucky, when they uncovered a total of 61 copper and silver coins, each adorned with an exotic 'Red Indian-style' head with tattoos, plaited hair and necklace on one side and a stylised horse on the other.
After they contacted the head of Jersey heritage they acquired assistance to fully excavate the site in the summer of 2012, where a total of over 70,000 coins were discovered!
It's taken nine excruciating years of negotiations between the Jersey government and the British crown for the reward amount to be agreed upon. But now Reg and Richard are finally set to see a share of the £4.2million fee that has been agreed upon to keep the coins on the island.
This is a fantastic story, well worth a read of the full article HERE.
If you have enjoyed reading about the top finds of this month, check out some of our favourite stories from September, October and November too!