In my mind it qualifies as a hoard!

[Redmoorphil]

Hi guys,
I just wanted to share my story of a strange find with you.
Where I live I am lucky enough to be surrounded by fields and old orchards and the owner has given me permission to detect on any of the land he owns. I have never found much except pre-decimal coins and a few tokens that were given as payment to the apple pickers.
I decided to head off to a field that I hadn't detected before and after a couple of hours had found another handful of pre-decimal coins. I then headed off to a small overgrown patch surrounded by bushes and elder trees and immediately got constant sharp bright signals. I assumed that it was contamination as the site once housed an apple sorting hut and there were old beams full of nails lying around but the signals were in the coin range. I scraped away at the surface with my foot and saw that it was covered in small muddy metal discs. I was confused and incredibly excited - why were there so many coins and why were they lying around so close to the surface? I picked up a handful, cleaned them off and my heart dropped - they were buttons! But why so many? There were literally hundreds of the things absolutely everywhere.
I called in to see the farmer on my way home to see if he could shed any light and all became clear.
Apparently the apple sorting sheds were a favourite haunt of soldiers and the local girls during the war. The buttons were actually suspender belt buttons obviously lost during the throes of passion. What was surprising was the amount of them! I dread to think how many babies were conceived in that old sorting hut!

[Dakaras]

Love it. Thank you for sharing.

[Oxgirl36]

Great story

I suspect however that it is more likely that a load of old clothing was being recycled as ‘fertiliser’. That was quite common(ish) it seems. The material rots, leaving the buttons.

Or the original story is the truth, who knows?

[PastMem]

I have a small patch on my permission about 20x20m that throws up tons of buttons. I have about 25 Pembrokeshire regiment buttons from there on my last visit