Don't Mention the 'L' Word

Are you lucky,  or what?

Judy's technique improves swiftly, I must say! She's a willing student and I'm intent upon driving home the fine points of good practise, but of course, at this time there's a very large discrepancy between our abilities in the matters of locating, digging, isolating and pocketing targets at speed.

When I returned from a solo mission on the field that she had worked the evening before, she was astonished that during the same time slot of an hour and a half, I'd returned home with no less than eight items worth keeping compared to her total of just one... which she promptly lost!

"Jeff, how could you have been so lucky?"

"Judy, banish that word from your lips right now!"

"Which word?"

"The 'L' word! This is never a matter of that, and if you ever start believing that it is, then you will begin to fail. Once upon a time I did this every day of the week that I could spare and did it for fifteen years continuously. Let me tell you this — the 'L' word does not enter into it — detecting is simply a game of numbers. The only reason that I found more than you is that I dug more than you, and probably in the order of five times as much!"

Edward VII half penny 1907, General Service button 1902-52, lead token, 'Land of Leather' brass tag - 1990's. Napoleon III 5 centime 1856, Part of an 18th-century shoe buckle, George III cartwheel penny, racing pigeon ring 2002, and the worst find of the day... some kind of trashy aluminium finger ring that when dug looked as if it was made of silver.

Of course, this happens to be true. I recover items quickly because I know that these barley fields will close come sowing time and will not open again till this time next year. I want a clear picture of what their potential might be by then and so I want to uncover as much information as I can in the time available this season. It is a brief window of opportunity that cannot be frittered away upon delays.

Time flies!

However, I do not fly across a field blindly thrashing away at the job.  I'll walk slowly and detect lowly, dig swiftly and accurately and isolate an item from the soil by rapid division of the clump that it resides within. With wide overlapping swings of the coil that do not rise above the ground at their extremities, I just don't miss anything in my path. I will also dig 'iffy' signals that others might consider not worthwhile simply because so many in the past had turned out to be positive once a few inches of surface soil had been removed...

Hence the title of this blog... 

Judy cannot hope to match such speed in the short term and should not even try to. Bad habits are so easy to acquire but are so very hard to eliminate later and so for the time being she must endeavour to perfect good technique - and take her time over it. If so, then surely the finds will come for her!

Those People of Our Past & Us Detectorists of Their Future

Judy gets her first taste of stubble!

Our previous foray into our new fields took place back in June when a hay crop was cut - seemingly for our convenience! Of course, nothing is ever conveniently timed where farming and detecting is concerned and when we passed by just a week or two later the second crop of the year was growing abundantly and we could not resume our search there.

Finally, the arable crops were cut and we ventured out upon a new set of fields some distance away from the first. Here we saw that we had about ten acres at our disposal and half of that was permanent pasture which we'd save till wintertime. The arable land looked fairly unpromising to my eyes in that I could see very little in the way of obvious signs of past activity upon the surface. Just a few sherds of Victorian pottery scattered here and there, some fragments of clay roof tile too, but the soil not coloured by concentrated human activity or manuring.  Of course, that should not deter anyone from trying a field. We tried our best there for a couple of hours but the results were just as unpromising as the surface signs suggested they would be. Nevertheless, the dogs enjoyed it immensely and Judy had her first taste of stubble!

I noticed that even when she would put her full weight on the spade she had trouble penetrating the hard-baked surface and so I set to work making a garden border spade into a proper detecting tool. This is not a difficult task to accomplish with an angle grinder and a file and with across-the-counter prices for 'proper detecting tools' with the very same blade profile retailing at ridiculous prices, then DIY is, in my eyes, an essential economy. This wooden handled spade (and wood is best, I think!) cost just fourteen quid and half-an-hour spent cutting away excess steel then shaping, fettling and sharpening a new edge profile, transformed it into the best tool for the job. It was good quality from stock and I expect it to give many years service as it stands now. Over the counter, you might be asked to pay £45 for something similar that might well not... 

The next evening we chose to search for an hour or two in a field that my initial map research suggested might be promising. Fortunately, the stubble was that of barley and not nearly as punishing to work over as wheat stubble might be. For a beginner, I think wheat stubble might have proven too much of a deterrent, and even a seasoned pro might blanch at the thought unless wheat stubble is all that's available at the time. Judy managed it easily enough and she had plenty of signals to dig. Unfortunately, most of these were fragments of aluminium trash of which the field seemed to have far more than its fair share.

At last, she dug her first decent find - a half-penny of Edward VII and it looked to be in good condition too. Unfortunately, an hour later she'd lost it! She set off to find it again but I called her back from what would have been an utterly fruitless task in the half-light of dusk! And then I realised that I too had lost something - my high-power reading glasses, without which I cannot tell the difference these days between the half-pennies of Edward VII, George V or even Victoria... 

I've had people ask me how those people of our past managed to lose so many of their belongings for us detectorists of their future to find. 

I think that upon this evening we proved just exactly how that happens!

Target Practice - Musket Balls from a Georgian Firing Range.

Since relocating to Coventry from London way back in 2008 I have gone out detecting just a few times and then without any serious mission in mind. However, over the past few years, my wife, Judy, has developed a keen interest in Medieval history and especially the period of the Wars of the Roses. When I regaled her with tales of actually finding coins of the period with the heads of the monarchs struck upon them she expressed an interest in having a go at finding the same for herself.

Alas we had nowhere to start, but we were attending a rugby match at Ricoh Arena and at half time I went outside for a smoke, where I ran into a local farmer. I knew something of his land and so I asked for permission which he readily gave. The next day we walked our dogs to a couple of his fields and began instruction in the art of swinging a search coil.

Learning to swing with it...

She was fine with it, albeit a little unsure about how to use it effectively and swang the coil upwards on every sweep wasting half her time and missing half of her targets. After half an hour she had the swing mastered and began to find things. 

Nothing of any interest appeared until we came to a corner where she began to dig lead musket balls. Five were discovered in a short space of time and so I got the chance to explain a very important tenet of detecting theory - that people gather together for activities in discreet areas.

One these balls had in impact mark and so we discussed the idea that we had found the butts end of a firing range and this ball was one that had hit its target. Of course, then we thought that somewere nearby and within a few hundred yards at most, would be the best area to search for other items associated with this activity - the firing line.

The five musket shot recovered. These are not a type of ball that I'm familiar with, because each possesses no less than three sprue marks around the casting-seam. I am guessing that they were not cast individually but in a complex multi-shot mould. 

We did not find it that day, but no matter - the idea was locked in her head. And I think it to be a very important lesson to learn, for people in the past gathered together to do things in certain places and for good reason - and such places had boundaries outside of which very little will be found associated with the activities that took place.

Target practice!

The Eyes Have It — Cracking the Thames Foreshore

Searching the Thames Foreshore in the City of London has always been one of my favourite ways to while away a few hours. Wandering about looking for likely spots and employing the time-honoured mudlark's method of 'eyes only' I usually find one or two items worth having in a day's work and occasionally something really very nice indeed.

Objects from Thames mud are usually in fantastic condition due to oxygen free conditions that halt oxidation and corrosion in their tracks so even ordinary copper alloy metal finds that from land sites might be dismissed as 'hedge fodder' come up almost 'as new' and that makes them special. Perhaps the best thing about the Thames though is that it's not all about metal finds. There's plenty else made of other materials, from wood, leather, bone and ivory, to stone, pottery and glass to stumble across.

A Charles I copper farthing in typical condition. Toned, but as fresh as the day it was struck

For a beginner the Thames is daunting. It takes some time to get used to the search methods and only long experience will tell you why you should be looking in the right places rather than the wrong ones. The majority of the surface has been picked clean over the years and in places where erosion has halted it's unlikely you'll find anything much but discover those spots where erosion, no matter how subtle, is taking place and that's where to be.

A Tudor period iron spur inlaid with silver. Such preservation is usual for ancient iron objects

In those areas you'll likely find collections of nails, wire, small pieces of this and that and mostly made of iron. These have collected in places where the motion of water has swept them and because of their similar weight and size, just like granules of gold in a prospectors pan full of river gravel, they separate from the matrix and end up in the same place. Amongst this iron trash is where far rarer non-ferrous metal finds are most often made. However, non-metallic finds can be almost anywhere because the same laws that apply to metals also apply to them but they have very different weights and sizes so they end up in different places.

It's also well worth investigating any lump of concreted iron you come across. The lovely spur I discovered was locked inside a large brown lump that looked interesting enough to warrant further investigation, but only when I went to work on it at home did I fully realise what I had. The concretions aren't that hard to remove so I'll take home anything that might come good. Inside the rusty prison can be a treasure waiting to escape!

How many finds in this one random picture? The Thames Foreshore in london is half man-made material...
You'll notice this is the bowed down approach and even this picture makes you feel a little motion sick. 

You have to know what you are looking for on any search. There's little point going to look for coins and buckle sized metal finds but expecting to also discover larger objects, and vice versa.  Small items and large items require two different stances and two very different kinds of concentration.

The first approach requires you walk about with your hands behind your back, legs straight and upper body bowed over with your nose as close to the shingle as you can comfortably get. This gives you just a small section of shingle in vision at any given time and when I find areas really productive of small finds or I believe are worth taking a detailed look at then I'll crouch or even get right down on my knees in order to focus really close-up. This is hard and focussed concentration.

Medieval Iron chain mail is rare, but it washes up in the iron rich
spots as do the very rare brass fringing links from the same garments

The closer you get to the shingle the harder it is to appreciate large objects right under your nose and you'll miss everything outside peripheral vision often walking straight past great finds just yards away without having a clue. So, the second approach requires an upright stance from which you'll see large objects clearly, miss many of the smaller ones, but be quite unable to discern anything the size of a Medieval farthing. This is a relaxed and broad form of concentration.

You cannot do both at once but in a day I'll employ both in rotation. I'll cruise for large objects and likely areas of erosion and then crouch over whenever I find those crucial collections of iron. This way I use the brief time available well, don't get back ache, and avoid the queasy motion sickness that walking bowed over all the time tends to create.

Shape and colour are important. If you go with the intention of finding silver and copper coins then expect them to turn up as they do on land sites — silver and green coloured respectively — then you'll probably never find any at all because silver coins from the mud are usually black or very dark grey and copper coins often bright and brassy if they've been freshly washed out or a light yellowish brown colour when they've been knocking about a while on the surface. I've never found anything that was green-coloured but pottery or glass or silver-coloured unless stainless steel!

Very large objects such as this fabulous 13th century moulding are there to be
found but because the face of such an object will be buried it has to be flipped.

What confuses matters even more is that coins are rarely spied flat and round but more often seen edge on or partially obscured. The foreshore is smothered in pieces of broken mussel shell that are black in colour and have rounded edges. These fragments need to be investigated when it isn't obvious they are shells because I've lost count of the times that a piece has turned out to be a hammered coin on edge by investigation.

Another consideration is flipping over any object that looks remotely interesting. Often the reverse lays face up and looks anything but special but the other side is highly decorated. The amazing hand carved Viking Age gaming piece I discovered was a startling example because when I first saw it I believed it to be another one of the perforated plain bone disks I'd found so many of. Only when I flipped it over did the decorated face appear.

And then there was the Medieval harness boss that looked just like the modern iron washers the foreshore is strewn with in certain places. I flipped it over and it had a brass face plate decorated in repouse work with a beautiful quatrefoil. That it had been crushed wasn't the point, it was a very rare find indeed and only one other of its kind is recorded!

In short, to make finds you have to investigate anything out of the ordinary and anything within the ordinary too because finds rarely present themselves clearly. If it looks worth the effort then investigate it — curiosity is your best friend down there, believe me.

What works against you is time. The tide waits for no man and all the while the clock is ticking. Get there as the tide ebbs away, exposes the first useful areas and start straight away. Only leave when forced off by the flood. You have just a few short hours in which to locate areas and make finds and those few hours must be used well.

There's are rules to be obeyed. You cannot use a metal detector without a license from the Port of London Authority and cannot dig down further than a few inches without being part of the Mudlark Society and having a special permit. Unfortunately, the society is a closed group, you must be seconded by an existing member and cannot simply apply for membership. The good news is that you do not need permits of any kind to walk on the foreshore and makes surface finds by 'eyes only' methods just so long as you do not scrape the surface with a tool, because that counts as digging and requires the appropriate permit.

It goes without saying that you should have recorded anything interesting enough to warrant it and take anything really interesting along to the Museum of London where the keepers will happily take a good hard look at it. The museum's enormous collections wouldn't be half as fabulous as they are without the many thousands of finds mudlarks have made from the Thames, you know.

Dead man's man's footprints. A 17th Century high-heeled silk shoe or an 18th Century square-toed leather boot? Experts at the Museum of London will know which or if it's something else entirely.  

Access points are not hard to find but I would not advise climbing up or down any ladder. The drop from the top of the wall to the foreshore can be as high as thirty feet and it's not worth the risk or braining yourself when a flight of stairs is usually nearby. I usually start making tracks toward a convenient exit point when the tide has risen above a certain point covering over the most productive areas, but it's actually hard to become stranded anywhere because the exit points are so numerous. Take a mobile phone in any case.

As for the reputation of the mud — it's not to be feared. Not really that dirty a place to be, it's mostly a very firm shingle and mud mixture with lots of tile and brick in it and walking about safely requires only a careful footfall, a slow pace and the avoidance of slippery rocks. I'll go down even in shoes I'm wearing on a day out in London and just wash the mud off on leaving.  I've never hurt myself in any way and have never sunk more than few inches, though I have seen others come a cropper. If it looks too soft then it probably is, so avoid it. You'll get your shoes filthy otherwise but it's unlikely be any worse than that.

And lastly, nobody will be looking at you as if you're some kind of social misfit these days. When I first started as a teenager I'd get coins thrown at me from above but since the South Bank at Southwark and Bankside was regenerated making it so very popular with tourists, loads of people began to enter the foreshore and have a dabble.

Nowadays it's seen as a legitimate pastime for all the family because you absolutely cannot fail to find something of interest. It might not be a treasure, but treasures are certainly there for the insatiably curious to find because London has been a world-class city for two millenia and arguably the world's greatest city for the last 300 years, so on any given day, at any given place, a few good things will always be visible and somewhere, believe me, there'll be a jackpot.

Undiscovered, then tomorrow they'll be in another mudlarks pocket or more likely washed under a stone and rendered invisible perhaps for years to come, but that's the whole point and appeal of 'eyes only' searching on the Thames. With any luck it'll be you who there's at the right place, at the right time, and with their eyes wide open to the chance.

Our Miss Sivewright

An Oxfordshire lace maker at work at her pillow.

Three or four years ago I came into possession of a box of lace making equipment. It belonged to a friend of ours whose pastime it was when she was young. This equipment was probably passed down by her mother because even without prior experience of handling bobbins I could see that most of them were very old.

In the bottom of the box were strips of card with thousands of tiny holes carefully pierced through them and outlines drawn over the top. These were obviously lace patterns. Many were yellow with age and two carried inscriptions. The most interesting of these was the one with instructions written upon it in old brown ink... 

'To be worked only for Mrs (?) - The Rise - Oxford'

Though I tried and tried, I just could not work out the lady's surname. I could see plainly the name began with an 'S' but I thought it ended in an 'R'. Therefore none of the letters between made any sense at all. It was just an indecipherable scrawl.

Two 'Oxfordshire' lace bobbins from the box. These are known as 'Bucks point trolly bobbins' The largest is a 'thumper' and it really is a beast of a bobbin considering the extreme delicacy of 'Bucks point ground' lace they were asked to make. Both possess pewter gingles, but neither possess pretty bead spangles dangling from the bottom. And they were never meant to. These were tools and tools fit for the serious purpose of work! 

My client's instructions were to sell what I could for her. So I listed a number of items on Ebay and successfully shifted half or more of what I had. I was happy that quite a few items were acquired by one going by the user-name of 'dontbhasty'. She was clearly a proper collector because she selected only the most interesting items as all serious collectors do. And I seem to remember that she was particularly interested in these 'prickings' and certain types of bobbin. But then my client friend moved away, we lost contact for some time, and so I stopped selling for her. 

Two weeks ago I recommenced. And began with a listing of the item under discussion. In the description I freely admitted that I hadn't a clue about the surname and requested an answer if anyone had it. The next day that answer arrived, and of course, it was my old customer Dontbhasty who provided it.

"Hello Jeff, SIVEWRIGHT is the name"

And of course it was! If only I'd read the 'R' as 'T' and then' IGHR' AS 'IGHT' then I might have worked it out for myself.

Dontbhasty won the auction and I sent the pricking off to her. When I received feedback I reciprocated but then sent a message requesting further information. In the meantime conducted a little Internet research of my own when to my astonishment not only did I found Mrs Sivewright out, but also discovered where she'd once lived...

'Sivewright Mrs, Headington Rise, Headington Hill.'

Not our miss, but just how I imagine her...

And there's me thinking all along she'd turn out to be anonymous. Yet another wealthy 'must have' client for whom I believed some factory or another had designed and made lace exclusively and expressly for. I really hadn't thought she'd be traceable. But things didn't stop there. I then discovered that she was not quite the wife of an idle rich inheritor of an Oxford pile I'd imagined her to be when I came across the book, 'Fine Buckinghamshire Point Lace Patterns Belonging to the Misses Sivewright and Pope'.

Dontbhasty filled me in...

"Hello Jeff,

Miss Sivewright was the 'lady', Miss Pope was an experienced lacemaker. They seem to have been in partnership for some time, they later moved and traded in Torquay. 

Let me know if I can help further. 

Diana"

Our 'Miss' Sivewright, as it turns out, was not anonymous at all. She was an Oxfordshire businesswoman and perhaps a designer with a flair for pattern. Miss Pope it seems was the Golden Goose with her remarkable ability with the point of a needle — turning the ideas in Sivewright's head into prickings for the making of beautiful lace. What with the acumen of one and the talent of the other, in Oxford and between them, they seem to have produced fine and desirable products of the highest quality, and sold them.

And then they moved to Devon. These two busy 'Misses'. Together...

J. M. W. Turner, 'A View of Oxford from the South Side of Heddington Hill, 1803–4.
Ashmolean Museum. Miss Sivewright's house, 'The Rise', is left in the picture.

Thames Mudlarking — One of the Most Beautiful Finds I Ever Made...

...but when I discovered it, there was no Eureka moment.

It was just a skinny square object that was picked up only because I pick up and examine everything down the river that is clearly made of metal and not immediately recognised. I almost pitched it back to the shingle as a worthless blank piece of modern trash. But my better judgement kicked in. Nothing unusual once found must be left for others to discover. It is the law of the foreshore!

It had no detail at all, just a covering of a strange kind of slimy muck and therefore it did not go in the leather finds pouch hung safely round my neck where anything good gets to live. I pocketed it. In the crap pouch along with pot shards and encrusted iron requiring further investigation it went!

Under magnification it seemed that there was indeed detail of sorts to be seen. So I put it in the electrolysis bath, switched on the current, and let it be while I made myself a nice cup of tea. When I went back I was astonished to find that all the crud had vanished and what was left behind was a little jewel of a thing. Each side a tiny work of art.                                              

So far as I can tell, the two plates covering what remains of the thin flat iron tang are not solid gold, though they do appear to be. I think it must be heavily gilded brass. There's hardly any wear that I can see and so the gilt finish is as fresh as the day it was made. That's very rare with gilded finds. Usually gilding on metal is microscopically thin and easily rubbed away. As you well know.

It is a knife terminal, about the size of your thumbnail, and dates circa 1500. Originating from the Rhineland it was imported to Britain for sale or arrived here with its owner. It depicts a hare and a hound, a common enough hunting theme. I think they are both charming and delightful. Naive and yet artful. 

And to think I very nearly left them behind on the shore...

Thames Mudlarking — A Georgian Fob Story (Pt3)

What are our finds have if they aren't food for the imagination? Even the most trivial have something  small to tell us but best of all are those things that suggest an entire story. Even if the imagined tale is not what actually happened, it doesn't really matter. It is your yarn and that's all that is important.

Of course when you discover something and make it into something it is not then that's a problem. Imagination can and will make a silk ear out of a sow's purse but finds are only ever what they are and the facts must be established before you let imagination out of its pen. 

A watch would be have been 
attached to the top  hook

It wasn't so difficult to pinpoint with absolute certainty what this chain was. Though I hadn't much of a clue at the riverside, a quick scroll through a few of pages of Internet content gave me plenty of leads. I first thought it to be a lady's chatelaine — a chain suspended from the skirt from which were hung the keys to the house. 

Close. But not quite right. Turns out it once belonged to a gentleman and was part of his fob set. 

Fob watch, fob seal, key fob, fob chain. We're all familiar with those terms but I wonder how many know why they're called that. The 'fob' was actually a very small pocket stitched into a man's breeches and everything that tucked into it or dangled out of it had the word 'fob' appended. 

This pocket was very small indeed and the expensive watch a gentleman owned was stuffed inside. The tight fit made it very difficult to extract the watch so a chain was attached and it was pulled from the fob with it. Of course, this purely functional chain became more and more elaborate and soon fashionable dandies were hanging seals and watch winders and keys from the bottom.

The only trouble with this was that gleaming pendants hung below the waistcoat where they advertised just how rich a man was likely to be and therefore how much his concealed and costly watch was likely to be worth.

George III by Thomas Gainsborough.  Seals and watch keys on plain view

Of course such a visible and ostentatious display of bling made him a target for pickpockets. A sly lift of the waistcoat, a swift snatch at the pendants, a smooth upward tug — that was all it took to relieve a man of the lot. 

I have Georgian fob seals, watch keys, and a couple of watch casings too. They turn up from time to time, don't they? But how often have you come across one still attached to a short length of chain by a hook? Not often I'll bet. But if these items were lost rather than disposed of then many should be because surely the chain would break first, not the hook.

Am I suggesting that all these trinkets were jettisoned by pickpockets and highwaymen but not actually lost by their owners? No. But I am suggesting that more than just a few were and especially those made of base metals because they had no scrap value. Sure, a thief could prize the hard stone intaglio from a gilt brass seal and get something for it, but again, it carries incriminating evidence in the form of the victim's crest. 

If it ain't of solid noble metal or a carries diamond, emerald or ruby, then good riddance, chop, chop.

Georgian England was a not a disposable society. Things were not chucked in the midden till they were quite beyond useful function. (think leaden pot mends) Pennies to fix, pounds to replace. If it had been broken by the owner then it would have been sent for repair.

But there's not just a break in the chain, but three missing hooks too. And further, one of the two that remain was distorted by violent force. What's more, the monogrammed cartouche of the open-work plate, broken and distorted by what looks suspiciously like undue pressure between thumb and forefinger, also has three deep parallel scratches on its reverse made either carelessly or in haste by a sharp object or implement...

I think there's evidence enough to suggest shady goings on!

In Poultry, by Cheapside, London. It's late afternoon, on Friday 19th of October, the Year of our Lord one-thousand seven-hundred and eighty-one. Washington assisted by the French will this day defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, when the American Revolution will be effectively, over. 

   Shopping that fateful day for a well-hung cock pheasant and quite unaware that things will never be  the same for him ever again — Our Hero, Josiah Purswell — feels another truffling about in his silks, turns on his heels, only to find himself attached at the waist by his chain to a wall-eyed ruffian sporting a battered beaver tricorn in process of snatching his watch. 

   The thief is rumbled but thinks the prize valuable enough to risk a scuffle for. Knocking him down he yanks it from the fob but the prone Purswell fights back, battering him about the head with the bird, knocking off his hat and causing a colourful cloud of downy feathers to swirl around clogging his nostrils. Snatching up his hat the thief flees up Old Jewry sneezing, his victim back on his feet and in hot pursuit...

   The rascal might be the bastard whelp of a Covent Garden 'lady' but he's as fly as a Newgate Market butcher's dog from a lifelong career spent dodging. Purswell's thick-head from the previous night's excess of Madeira Sack at Boodle's coupled with the onset of gout in his left foot big toe put him at something of a disadvantage. Through St Olaves Churchyard, up Ironmonger Lane and west along Gresham Street he keeps sight of his assailant but there's an acute corner to turn into Milk Street where his wig slips across his left eye at the crucial moment. Into a dark and dank blind alley green with worts and ferns growing out the cracks in the mortar slips the thief, where he evades his hapless pursuant. 

   Resting a while in a shaded doorway he pulls out his folding knife. Scratching the back of the chain's monogrammed plate with its sharp point and holding it to his nose to check for the odour of brass, the miscreant finds that it's not what he'd hoped for. One chain is broken already but he can't tear the watch away from the two remaining. Unwinding the knurled collar of the hook he removes the captive timepiece, pockets it, then grasping the plate between thumb and forefinger yanks off each of the 18-carat baubles dangling beneath, one by one. 

   Checking his back, he hops over a brick wall into a yard and from there saunters through the city streets as casually as he can under the circumstances. Taking a circuitous time wasting route but in a generally southerly direction toward the river, he's hell bound on reaching Trig Lane undetected at dusk and there a wharf and its proprietor who's 'professornal' blind eye can be relied upon and who he knows 'wery well'. Luckily for him the tide had turned just an hour before his arrival and so the barges have all departed downstream assisted by the tide bound for Mersea Island to fetch cargoes of oysters.

   He looks about, finds the coast is clear, when he casts the worthless handful of evidence just as far as he possibly can into the Thames' concealing waters...

   Somewhat dishevelled and browbeaten, Perswell having given up the chase by nightfall bids a cab and returns to his Pall Mall pad. He's thinking he'll call on a Grub Street hack 'acquaintance' come morning to whom he'll tell his tale and try for a mention in the Daily Universal Register — hopefully securing some form of justice. Unshaken but cautious always, the pickpocket makes furtive progress across the bridge to Southwark, pockets laden with Perswell's loss. Heading to a consort's impoverished but spick and span apartment at Jacobs Island and within spitting distance of her creature comforts, he pauses. 

   Though she's always well pleased with a haul of silver coin, she just can't be trusted to hold fast her excitable nature, or her tongue, in the sight of gold. And so, he slopes back wearily to his grimy nest in St Giles rookery.

   The proprietor of our Trig Lane wharf, though, exercises due diligence. He always has (and always will...) take careful, detailed note of the evening, its characters, and its curious affairs. By his calculations whatever it was he'd witnessed tossed in the air fell short of intentions. So he'll go down stairs to the barge bed come midnight's low ebb and add what's discovered to his little mahogany boxfull of 'circumstantials' with date and time and name of culprit written down in black ink on a little card label attached with a short length of hemp netting twine...

   There's a lantern to light, and a pretty thing to find by it. He won't sleep till he has.

Ah, I could carry on all day long with this!

And you're believing my yarn now, aren't you?  But you do know what other meaning the word 'fob' has, don't you? 

To 'fob off' means to appease a person with falsehoods or dispose of fake goods by trickery. But I suppose that is exactly what a tale is, in essence. A fabrication of words that creates a picture so convincing that another takes it to be true and buys into it. 

Of course the chain may simply have passed out of fashion as all fashionable things must when whoever 'JP' was broke it up and threw it away in disgust...

But that's no kind of a Georgian fob story, is it?

PS

We still have fob pockets, though we don't really know what to do with them. You have one stitched into your favourite pair of jeans. It's that silly little affair in the right hand pocket that you fear to drop anything into for fear of not being able to get it out again. The reason it is there is because the first pair of Levis was made at a time when men still had their watches on chains rather than on a wrist strap.