Not a Viking hoard

      Every time our two grandsons come to visit there is always a request to 'get the metal detector out Grandad, we might find gold or even treasure'. Now my metal detector is the metal detecting equivalent of a water diviner's forked stick, it's not really sophisticated in any way but the boys don't care, as the elder one said there's always a chance.
      The farmer lets me turn them both loose on his fallow field and a 'systematic' search begins, the older convinced we'll find old ammunition from the war and the younger one that it will be Roman or Viking Jewels, I'm thinking King John's lost treasure will do nicely thank you. Then when the bleeping starts you can feel the excitement as soil flies everywhere.
      The finds were, in a way, quite exciting. Some large old nails and bolts and those rusty old items stirred a memory because a blacksmith used to have a forge in the corner of the field before the farmer was born and he's eighty two.

      Out in the field they found an old turnbuckle and a hollow metal sphere with the back missing. That's it on the right and nobody that I've shown it to has a clue what it is. Around an inch and a quarter in diameter and quite sophisticated in construction the nineteenth century blacksmith certainly didn't make it. More research needed on the metal sphere I think.
      We also found an almost complete cast metal saloon car that looked very 1920's, needless to say they took the car home for their version of the window sill treasure display.