Full transcript of “#38: The Art of the Seal! (Countdown to UK GOLD, Day 5) XP Deus 2 Metal Detecting”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 [Music] Well, welcome to day five of my UK metal detecting adventure in Norwich area. Spectacular day here. Spectacular day going up to 61. Bright blue skies at the moment. Sun is out. It's 9:00. We're just getting started on the field. I've got my second or third signal here. Um, first one was a button. Second one was a piece of um, metal. The third one here is a uh, nice decorated button. Show you that. And we're going to keep
0:46 going. Okay, here's the button here. Just dug it out of the hole. Relatively close to the surface. Um, it's got some nice decoration. two lions uh either side of a shield. We'll clean it up, take a closer look later, but there's the first decent find of the day. Day five, metal detecting in the UK. And we've got something in the clump here. It's giving a loud signal. Let's break it apart. See what we have. And we got a big piece of lead. Piece of lead. On to the next. Well, I've just had an outstanding find about 45 minutes into day five. Let's take a look together. Okay, here's the hole. We are running on general program. I've
1:33 pushed the sensitivity up to 97 and reactivity down to one and a half. Otherwise, uh running all the same out of the box features. Came up a long hill here and uh didn't find much of anything. a button or two or three shotgun shells. Very top corner of the field here and dug a signal down here. It was coming up as a 55ish signal. I thought it could be another piece of lead cuz I've dug a few of those as well this morning. But I've pulled it out. It's over here. And it's actually an absolutely spectacular find. And it's very similar to a find that was made by one of the other folks on the trip uh yesterday, Greg. And uh let's take a
2:19 look together at what we have here. So from the top, it looks just like another piece of lead, but when I pulled it over, there's actually a bit of an impression left on on the uh the dirt. And you can see here some writing comes through. This is actually a medieval um seal and uh you'll see it come up here the design and the lettering the old English lettering. It's absolutely spectacular. So this will date to um around the 11th or 12th century. I'll get a more accurate date from Steve, but very very cool. This is a lead seal matrix from the 12th to 13th century.
3:07 This was a huge status symbol. Every merchant, religious dignitary, and official possessed a personalized seal. The seal is engraved in taglio, which means it's a mirror image of itself. So, it could be read naturally when it was impressed in wax. As you can see on the right side, that's the actual seal. the left, it's what it would have looked like as a wax impression. Now, during the medieval period, the use of seals on documents, letters, packages, and even bundles of products was widespread. It guaranteed authenticity and meant the sender was honorbound to any implied agreement. Without such a a seal, the transaction was worthless. So, think of
3:53 this as a medieval Venmo transaction. The best part is we can actually read what it says. You'll notice it's engraved in this incredibly wonderful old English script. And at the center there's this wonderful eight petal flower. Now, thanks to Trevor and Steve, we can start to read these letters as s apostrophe. What looks like LOL, but it's not. laugh out loud. It appears to be R O B with some of the letters rubbed off. Apostrophe Ti D and then F apostrophe W. So we can read this as the
4:39 seal of Robert Tide whose father is William. Or said another way, the seal of Robert Tide, son of William. Very, very cool. Fantastic find. So happy with that. And I know uh I know Greg will be, "Wow, that's just like mine because it is just a signal here and I'm actually working in an area where there lots of signals. Um and I seen people earlier gritting this area. So I um thought I would spend some time here. Had a signal here. It's it's ringing up in the hammered koi range. So, I figured I'd try to live dig it and just see what we've got. Um, it's in this clump here.
5:27 And, uh, let's see what we have. Where'd it go? Could be lead. That's There's a lot of lead in this area. And that seems to be the uh, you know, seems to be close in range to hammered coins, but there have been some hammereds coming up in this area as well. So, uh, we'll see what we have. And, uh, this is it here. Little piece of Yeah, I think this is it. Don't think it's going to be anything spectacular. Little piece of straight piece of uh, copper, bronze. Nothing spectacular, but that's kind of, you know, this is the size that we're looking for.
6:13 Um, you know, this is not round, but it's round enough for the detector to notice and give a, you know, whopping good signal from. So, okay, not this time, but on to the next. It's over here in this area here. Yeah, I think it's going to be this big old piece of little It's going to be a big old piece of lead. It's going to be a small old piece of lead. Those are the types of signals we're looking for. small, roundish, but we're looking for hammered
6:58 silvers because they're challenging to find and um well, got a lot of history to them. Well, had a signal here in an area that a lot of folks were detecting over earlier and this is why field is never detected out. Just had this uh signal here, dug it, and look at this beautiful medieval uh buckle. really spectacular. Tiny tiny tiny buckle. Um, hand forged. Uh, it's a shame it doesn't have the pin on it. I'll give it a little look just to see if per chance it came off here. But, uh, nice little find. Beautiful day. Continue on. Well, it's about lunchtime here on day five. And, uh, it's been a great day so far.
7:45 Unbelievable weather for March. You just cannot ask for better weather than this. Um, so far today had a really nice medieval uh lead seal matrix. Uh, nice buckle. Another piece of lead with it looks like some sort of an inscription on it, but it's only uh it's only a fragment. So, we'll have that looked at. Nice big greeny. Uh lots of little tutor buttons and um shoe studs. Nice little uh Charles token uh Charles
8:30 Farthing decorated button musk ball beat up buckle and um Oh, and the hammered silver coin in here. Yeah, there it is. Hammered silver. It's kind of beat up, but I just had a signal here. Dug it. And really interesting token. Dated 1764. It's a relative newbie here in the UK, but for those of us from the US, it's actually a really nice find. Uh some detail in the back that I'm sure will clean up. And this has been a productive corner for me. A lot of uh medieval pieces coming here. where I got the lead seal matrix, hammered coin, the token, uh some of the
9:15 little tutor pieces, all in this general area. So, uh there's a lot of different areas I could go to. Going to stay in this area for another hour or so, migrate down the field back to the van. Um have a quick bite to eat and a drink and then maybe try along the hedro down by the road by the lane. That seems to be a productive area as well. But don't want to sit here and talk all day. I want to get on the field, find some things. Stay tuned and hopefully we'll have a few more finds after this. I think I am the lead whisperer today. This is a massive piece of old lead. You can see it's white. It's been in the ground for a long, long time. Several hundred years at least. Um, it's
10:01 got a hole in it. Probably some sort of a a weight. I'm not sure if it's pierced all the way through or not, but this has got to weigh four or five pounds. It is a a really stomping piece of lead here in the wall of the of the field. Um, when I count this with all the other pieces of lead, both stray lead as well as interesting uh historic lead, I think I probably have uh well, more than my my fair share today. So, uh, this is the lead whisperer. Signing off for now. On to the next signal. Going to live dig this. We're just a few feet away from where I found that big honking piece of lead. Uh, this is an area that has been producing all day long. A lot of medieval finds. And,
10:48 uh, let's see what we have here in this big clump. Okay, it's here. And I think we got ourselves piece of lead. Told you I'm the lead whisperer today. Another piece of lead. Old lead. This is a medieval area. They were using a lot of lead for a lot of things and a lot of it is ending up in my box of finds. Okay, on to the next. Just pulled this really nice medieval button. 15th or 16th century. Nice design on front. Flower design. On to the next. Okay, this has come up
11:34 5354 on the general program and uh this is classic hammered silver territory 5354. I've gone up above the field here into the sort of the grassy area just that lines the field and want to see let's see what we've got in this area. Just figured I'd just check out some see if there are any signals here. And uh well, let's see. We got something here now. It could be a Well, what do we have here? Let's say it could be a modern soda can pull tab. Um I think we
12:19 have piece of a Sorry if you couldn't see it. We have piece of a strap end here. Uh, it's old. It's got some age, but and it was a great signal. Definitely hammered silver territory, but it's not hammered silver. That's not what we're looking for. Onto the next. Okay, we've got one of our nicest signals of the afternoon so far. Nice clean 52 here. Um it's coming up in an area where we've had medieval and hammered throughout the day. Little scratchy now. Maybe maybe lead. But it seems to
13:06 be coming to me all day long today. Lead. Lead. Lead. Lead. Lead. And let's see where we are at here. All right. It's right in this area here in my hand. And I think we have a tiny piece of lead. Nope. No, we don't. Still in my hand. Yeah, we have a tiny tiny piece of lead. Or could it be a hammered silver coin that's bent over? I don't know. I think it's That's lead. That is lead. Next time we're going to bring a spray bottle that
13:52 works. Yeah, I can see the whites. That is definitely lead. Boy, it was a nice signal. Little bit shallow, but uh you get a signal like that, you get excited because that is hammered silver territory, but in this case, it's not. Next. Well, day five's in the books. Let's have a look at the finds from today. First, we'll start out with button alley here. Lots of different buttons and sizes, shapes. Some are fragmentaryary. Couple buckles, a buckle frame fragment. Looks like maybe a crotle bell fragment. There's a thimble from the 19th century, so from the 1800s. Musk ball. Some dads. Big old lead thing. There's a pin fired
14:39 shell. Um coin here. A little bit too far gone. Maybe a half cent. This is an interesting little gaming token. 1788 half guinea gaming token from the time of King George III. And then uh our bagged finds today. We have a really pretty 17th century uh button floral design. Little floral design on the on the front here. You get a little bit of a look of that. Uh 15th century buckle underneath it. interesting coin dug up. This is a um Holland coin from 1769. It was in general circulation,
15:24 made its way here to England, and was lost in the soil of Norwich. Um here we've got a 17th century lead cloth seal with a design on it and a really pretty 16th century time of King Henry VII. tutor button. It's an open work tutor button. You can see the white shining through. Really cute button. High fashion in the 1500s. Charles II farthing which dates to about 1670. The find of the day for me is really this 12th 13th century lead seal matrix. And um you can see the old
16:10 English writing around it. Beautiful design. It's complete. And finally, a um not much to look at, but this is a James I penny. Hammered silvered penny,6003, 1625. Um these James pennies are scarcer than your typical Henry's and Edwards. Uh it's got a rose on the back and uh king on the front. That's our finds for today, day five. Looking forward to getting back out on the field tomorrow for day six. Join us for the next episode. For everyone who's been with me on this journey, thank you so very much. Really appreciate you
16:57 joining. Well, we finished day five. We're getting so very close to UK gold. Just a few more episodes to go and we'll bring you that final groundbreaking episode with the gold. And if you haven't already, please subscribe or hit that thumbs up to give this video a like. In the meantime, enjoy your hunting and may all your tones be high tones. See you next time. [Music]
