Just Three Days On A Field In Russia.

By Sergei Antonov

Story began long time ago when I searched for all military things left in ground after WWI and WW2. That time back in 1975 it was hard to get any type of metal detector in USSR, so with help of my father I built the first one. Than it was different finds, new (more sophisticated) metal detector which "hooked me on the hobby", my father assembled for me.
After almost 16 years of time gap in my hobby I got metal detector again. Early in springtime here in Sweden I found a dozen of old coins while digging worms for fishing. That was quite an incentive to buy metal detector. I checked around Internet where and what I can buy. Rudy from Detecting Systems Holland ended up all my searches saying "That is a real thing, goes absolutely best for beginner and a professional. Take it - you won’t regret it". So I became a proud owner of XLT in 1998. After that I spend some time trying to get permit to detect here in Sweden. That was really hard, but I managed to get some, mostly for beach areas. It was painful to see how the ground and probably most of the coins and artifacts got destroyed by heavy construction equipment on the site that I got rejected from. A construction company built houses there, and I was refused to this site because of the presence of an old settlement and an old road…Nevertheless it was fun to use XLT, I found some rings (two of them were gold) and A LOT of coins. Sophisticated discrimination feature and user friendly display and programming made it easy to learn the machine. Quite soon it was easy to have efficiency about 80%. But it was just the beginning….
This spring I got an opportunity to go to St.Petersburg, Russia. I knew some guys from St.Petersburg Historical Prospecting Society ( www.klad.hobby.ru ) and they took me to couple of metal detecting trips. On April 22, we decided to go and detect a site where a village used to be. It was destroyed during WW II by nazi. First I had to adjust frequency with other guy who has an older model of XLT – it was done in couple of minutes. Than we started to move on the ploughed field. Just in 15 minutes I got reading 88 and felt shivers go down my spine when it appeared to be an old silver coin. Later at home it turned out to be a 20 silver Russian kopecks dd. 1914 in almost uncirculated condition. I moved on. Next signal I got was 82 and I thought it might bring me some other coin too. But when I shook cut out soil and grass prop… all of the sudden a dark silver cross fell on the ground. I had a look at it and it was a silver military cross "Saint George 4th grade" with a piece of rotten ribbon still intact!!! I cried out with excitement. Guys started to gather and then we started to work this site more intensively. It must had been cache hidden by a soldier soon after WW I – suggested my friend Arthur from the club. During the years of plough all items where spread on the area 3 by 2 meters. All together we found 54 silver coins including 4 big silver rubles and "my" cross. Next week Valentin and Sergei came back to the site to find one big silver ruble and a few silver copecs…We have been using old and new XLT, Explorer ES and even a Radioshack unit. It seemed that Explorer XS was not bad, not bad at all for a machine seen for the first time.

Then it was next day and next site…Arthur said that he will check more closely one promising part of the site where they earlier discovered a small cache of copper coins 300 years old in a strangely fine condition.. I went across the river, my most exiting find was copper earring from early 11th century! Those field also produced for me more than three dozens of copper coins lost during last 300 years. When I came back, Arthur pointed to neat pile of copper coins and some terracotta pieces. He has found cache of more than 60 big 5 kopecks coins from late 17th century that used to be in a pot, which was destroyed by plough!!! That was almost hitting a treasure chest!!!

Than it was next trip. Some guys from US will be really happy on this site. That was a site where a village used to be, but during WWII it was destroyed and than Germans had a second line of defense in 1943. So I guess we could get a supply of ammo for another battle if we decided to keep all those military things we found… I kept only one: quite nice aluminum pin – wire holder from a German trip mine. Just being practical – can use it for my tent (those tent pins, always got lost..). But it was not military artifacts that we were after this time…We ended up with all together 52 copper coins found separate, with oldest one being from 17 century. No cache this time. We even started to feel disappointed. How come? No cache??! After 5 hours of search? Than again – XLT gave a vague signal. Having strange feeling I cut out grass prop and shook it. After couple of seconds a yellow round object felt on the ground. I started to feel my pulse in my ears…gold?? I took it and had a closer look at it. Could it be?!!! Looks like it. I wiped soil to see what it was…oh no, this was a Russian aluminum – copper alloy 3 kopecks coin dd. 1924 in an absolute non corroded condition! Worthless thing on one hand, but how come it stayed in the ground for let’s say 70 years without a trace of corrosion? May be a ground is sweet (no alkalis?) It is still a mystery to me.

But time has a bad side – always runs out when it is less needed. I had to go back to work, little vacation was over. Hope to get back soon as a next opportunity arises...

I was so happy after those trips, they brought to me not just good finds, they brought to me feeling as I was time travelling on a land which still holds most of the treasures intact. ----Sergei