What DetectID can identify — the honest, complete answer

A regular question from new users (and a fair one): “what can’t this thing identify?” This post is the honest answer. The short version: most coinage commonly found by UK detectorists, plus four artefact categories, plus three free tools. The longer answer, with the caveats and the known gaps, is below.

We keep a live inventory at app.detectid.co.uk/scope— that’s the source of truth and we update it whenever new coverage ships. This post is the narrative version.

The principle

DetectID identifies what a UK detector actually digs up. That sounds obvious but it shapes everything. We’re not trying to be a general numismatic encyclopaedia. We’re trying to give the person standing in a field with a hammered silver disc the closest likely attribution, the reasoning, and the references to verify it themselves.

In practice that means depth on the English hammered series, with increasing coverage of everything else that arrives on a UK detector site — Scottish, Anglo-Irish, Hiberno-Norse, Welsh, Manx, and the long list of Continental imports that circulated through British ports and wool routes for a thousand years.

Coins, by period

• Iron Age British — Celtic gold staters and silver units of the major tribes (Corieltauvi, Iceni, Catuvellauni, Trinovantes, Atrebates, Durotriges, Dobunni).
• Roman Britain — Republic through Late Roman radiates, across all Reece periods.
• Anglo-Saxon — Sceattas of all primary series, broad pennies of Aethelraed II through Harold II.
• Norman — William I & II, Henry I (all 15 BMC types), Stephen and the Anarchy issues.
• Short Cross — Henry II through Henry III, the immobilised HENRICVS REX series. Fractional money in this period is cut pennies only (cut halves and cut quarters) — round halfpennies and farthings as struck denominations only arrive with Edward I in 1279.
• Long Cross voided — Henry III + early Edward I pennies, plus their cut halves and cut quarters.
• Edwardian — Edward I, II, III silver pennies (the full 15-group Fox–Shirley-Fox classification) across all recoinage mints, including the Welsh Rhuddlan issue with its distinctive CIVITAS RVTHLAN mint signature; Edward I round halfpennies and farthings (the first time these were struck rather than cut); Edward III gold Nobles. Richard II (1377–1399) silver — pennies, halfpennies and farthings of London, York and Durham, sharing the long-cross design but with the diagnostic RICARD legend.
• Lancastrian and Yorkist — Henry IV–VI, Edward IV, Richard III.
• Tudor — Henry VII through Elizabeth I, including Henry VIII’s four coinages and the Edward VI posthumous continuation.
• Stuart hammered — James I, Charles I (with the full Civil War mints), Commonwealth.
• Milled coinage — Charles II milled silver through Victorian and Edwardian.

Coins, by country

This is where it gets interesting, and where we’ve recently expanded coverage most aggressively.

• England — full from Iron Age through modern decimal.
• Scotland — William the Lion through James VI, plus Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I Scottish issues.
• Anglo-Irish — John as Lord of Ireland (the “triangle on cross” pennies, Dublin / Limerick / Waterford), Edward I Anglo-Irish (Dublin / Waterford / Cork), Hiberno-Norse Dublin (Sihtric Silkbeard and successors, c.997–1170).
• Welsh — Hywel Dda silver penny flagged, Charles I Aberystwyth mint with the diagnostic Welsh-plume mintmark.
• Manx — Stanley pence, Atholl 1709, British colonial Manx (triskelion + QVOCVNQVE IECERIS STABIT motto).
• France — Nuremberg and Tournai jetons (the single most common non-British detector find), Anglo-Gallic silver and gold for Calais and Aquitaine.
• Low Countries — Brabant esterlings (often confused with English Edwardian pennies), leeuwgroten, riders.
• German states — Bracteates, Reichsthaler, free-city issues, Maria Theresa thalers (the 1780 restrike trap).
• Spain — Cob / pillar / bust 8-reales and fractions, plus Bank of England countermarked Spanish dollars.
• Portugal — Tostões, vinténs, cruzados.
• Islamic / Viking-deposited — Abbasid, Umayyad, Samanid dirhams with Kufic legends (Cuerdale, Vale of York, Watlington context).
• Byzantine — Bronze folles with large reverse denomination letters.
• Greek (Hellenistic) — Athenian owls, Macedonian Alexander tetradrachms.
• Russia — Imperial roubles and wire kopecks (often confused with English cut farthings).

Artefacts, not just coins

We cover four artefact categories where detector finds are well-documented enough to support real attribution rather than generic guesswork:

• Roman brooches — the full Mackreth typology.
• Anglo-Saxon and medieval strap-ends — Trewhiddle-style through medieval double-loop.
• Medieval buckles — D-shape, double-loop, frame buckles by century.
• Modified coins — bent silver coins as 17th–19th c. love tokens, smoothed and engraved coins, pierced coins reused as pendants.

Free tools (no subscription)

• Mintmark dater — type or pick a Tudor / Stuart mintmark and get the year window.
• Grading gallery — visual reference for Poor through Extremely Fine across the main UK denominations.
• Treasure Act wizard — the actual 1996 Act decision tree, not a heuristic.

What Premium adds

• Auction comparable sales — real recent hammer prices from Hosker Haynes (live) and Spink (rolling in this week). Text data only — the auctioneer’s photograph stays on their site, linked.
• PAS reference matching — comparable Portable Antiquities Scheme records.
• Spink catalogue reference — Spink number alongside every matched attribution.
• Rarity tier — how often a given ruler / denomination appears in real detector finds.

What we don’t yet cover

Honesty matters here. Known gaps:

• Silver hallmarks (assay marks on hallmarked silver objects)
• Lead seal matrices and bullae
• Medieval and post-medieval jewellery beyond strap-ends and brooches
• Modern foreign coinage (post-1900)
• Banknotes
• Religious tokens and pilgrim badges (recognised but not deeply catalogued)
• Coin and trade weights (partial; roadmapped)

How to tell us when we’re wrong

DetectID gets better when serious detectorists tell us where the engine has gone wrong. If you upload something and the attribution is categorically off, email admin@detectid.co.uk with the find ID and a short description of what it actually is. We patch the methodology, fix your attribution, and credit you when the fix ships. Recent improvements driven by tester feedback include the entire Anglo-Irish series, the Continental medieval imports, the Sovereign-type design gate, the Treasure Act language rewrite, the British Iron Age sub-type taxonomy, and the confidence-calibration gate for sub-period attributions.

The live scope page at app.detectid.co.uk/scopealways reflects what’s actually shipped. Bookmark it.