It was early September and we were planning a whole day of detecting for our members of the club, the site we acquired permissions to detect on where over 250 acres and had quite a lot of history too it. One of them is the legend of Haakon Jarl beeing beheaded by his own slave in the year 995, upon delivering Haakon Jarls head to the new king Olav Tryggvason the slave got his own head cut off as well for his betrayal against his former king. It is olav Tryggvason and the slaves cut off head you can see on the city statue in Trondheim today. A central piece of our city's history. We had hopes of finding something that could be linked too this legend on the site and we set off 22 men strong onto the fields. The hours went on without many good find leaving the soil, a few silver coins here and there dating about 200 years back but nothing sensational. More than halfway through the day we decide to move a little bit to one of the fields on higher ground as we were concerned that the river might have flooded the fields at one point, washing objects away. we went at it again, and it did not take long before first "old" object revealed itself, a very nice spin whorl giving us new faith in the area. as i walked along the field swinging my ctx i had a solid signal ringing very high, not quite silverish but almost up there. i decide to dig only to find a 18th century lead bullet, ah well.. a tleast something not trash.. next signal appears only a few meters from the last, same tone same clarity, i dig it and yep, another lead bullet. next signal appears only a few meters from the last, same tone same clarity, i dig it and yep, another lead bullet. next signal appears only a few meters from the last, same tone same clarity, i dig it and yep, another lead bullet.
this just keeps going on like this across the field until i have about 10-12 lead bullets in my finds bag. i keep walking and guess what? Another signal just like the previous bullets... i think too myself "ah why bother..too many of them allready" and i start walking again only too stop after taking no more than 2 steps and it hits you.. that voice that always tells you "hey....what if?..can you really walk on not knowing?..c'mon dig meee" im pretty sure many of you regognise this scenario! so i take two steps back, pinpoint the signal and dig the plug... i take one glance down the hole and the voice comes back: "holy mother of...! i told you too dig it!!" down there right in the centre i see something gold looking, i lay down too get a closer look and it just can’t be anything else but gold! i call out too those around me so they could see the unearthing of the object. i gently pick it up and the earth unveils the largest, heaviest gold finger ring i have ever seen in my entire life! jaws drop around me and there was utter silence for a few painful seconds... then it dawns on us all what i had found and a whole lot of words not suited for print echoes through the valley.
I delivered the gold ring and find location too our local museum the next day and they date it too roman times 200-400 AD. and they weigh it in at a staggering 30 grams! The find of my life! the "lead bullet" that i didn’t bother to dig... lesson learned guys... even if you do have "the best detector"... NEVER assume! Best regards Karl Johan Valderhaug Trondheim Metallsøkerklubb, Norway
