I spent two days carefully brushing dirt off what I thought was a Roman coin in a field near York, only for my professor to walk over, pick it up, and say 'Tyler, that's a 1995 ten pence piece'.

The giveaway was the faint, muddy outline of Queen Elizabeth II's profile, which I'd mistaken for an emperor because I'd been working on my knees for six hours and my glasses were fogged up. Has anyone else had a moment where modern trash completely fooled you in the field?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_henry2mo ago

That bit about your glasses being fogged up is the real key. I once spent a whole morning convinced I'd found a piece of worked flint, only to realize it was a broken piece of a driveway marker. Your brain just starts seeing what it wants to see after staring at the ground for too long. It's a special kind of disappointment that only field work can give you.

tessa_lewis2mo ago

Ever think that feeling is why we keep looking though? Like the disappointment is part of the hook. You get so let down by a fake find that it makes finding the real thing later feel ten times better. It's like your brain needs the contrast to make the win matter. Otherwise you'd just get bored picking up normal rocks.