Jim Wirth of OpenRoad.TV has been a passionate metal detectorist ever since he was a kid. Jim wrote to me:

I hang out on a website called Treasurenet.com, which has forums all related to metal detecting. One of the forums (which I've used myself a number of times) is the "What is it?" forum, where people can post a picture and description of something they've found metal detecting yet have no idea what it is or what it was used for. There is a thread on this forum that I thought would interest you and your readers. Who knows, maybe you or one of your readers might know what this item is...

Metal detectorist's mysterious find