GEORGIAN GOLD
Found in the Cotswolds, on a well-trodden path in the grass, just yards from a house, a solid 20 on the Legend VDI and a nice clean tone. I located a clod a few inches down with what looked suspiciously like a gold-coloured ring neatly packed inside. My first ring! I carried it calmly inside the house, stopping to take a pic of the muddy ball, imagining a piece of shiny costume jewellery inside, and dropped it unceremoniously in the washing up bowl along with my breakfast crockery. As the earth fell away my first impressions were - that’s bright! Oh, it has a lovely pillarbox red stone. I slipped it on my ring finger, perfect fit. Matched my nail polish to a T. Had a quick look inside the band - ah, never mind, no hallmark. Probably modern costume then. It was in such perfectly circular condition, not at all squashed or twisted, that I felt sure it must be contemporary. I took a few goofy pics wearing it in the garden for my friends on Facebook, and put it on a shelf. A few hours later, I scrolled in on the iPhone photos to look at the detail of the ring, and noticed that the setting looked handmade, and that even areas of the ring that had micoscopic damage were still gold throughout. I could see that the stone had flat ‘chamfered’ markings, suggesting it had been shaped by hand-tools.
Tentatively posting the photos on a Facebook detecting forum, I almost immediately had a flood of hearts and comments to say it looked like old gold!
I made contact with Salisbury Museum, and only 24 hours after finding it, I sat on the steps of the town library with the FLO as I took it out of its loo roll wrapping. I felt nervous. A few ‘hmms’ later, she said it almost didn’t feel quite heavy enough to be gold. But she was puzzled as the setting did look old. She told me they’d seen all sorts get handed in, some felt and looked so right yet turned out to be nothing more than a cracker toy. I felt my cheeks prickle with embarrassment and hoped I hadn’t wasted her time. She took it away and marked my receipt ‘Gold (?) finger ring - potential treasure’. A few days of tenterhooks later, an email arrived to say that on inspection under the microscope she believed the ring to be post-Medieval gold. Four weeks on, and the final verdict came back from the British Museum curator - my find is a Georgian gold ring, date range 1800-1850. Not quite old enough to be classified as Treasure and property of the Crown, it means I’ll get it back.
Huge emotional rollercoatser, and a great experience in the FLO process for the first time. I’m delighted that I was the person to have recovered it from the ground, and that I’ll be able to wear it! The best kind of treasure.
