Johnny Cache Hunter
Sr. Member
- Oct 16, 2006
- 399
- 34
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Equinox, White's Spectra V3, Minelab Excalibur
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/29/look_what_i_found/
Look what I found
Today's beachcombers turn up long-lost mementos and the occasional treasure amid sun worshipers
By April Yee, Globe Correspondent | July 29, 2007
IPSWICH -- Making his sandy way among the bikinis and bright umbrellas of Crane Beach, Hank Kirby of Danvers swung his whirring, eight-pound metal detector in a 5-foot arc. It was late on a July Saturday morning, and Kirby was beginning his search. Perhaps today he would find that elusive diamond ring or a coin washed from some obscure shipwreck.
Suddenly, the machine beeped madly. Was this paydirt, or merely metallic detritus buried in the sand? He leaned over and started digging with a metal scoop.
"It's the excitement," said Kirby, 66. "because you never know."
Coastline treasure hunters like Kirby are proliferating on New England beaches as baby boomers retire and the technology becomes more refined.
They follow gold and silver prices, said Ed Burke, vice president of the Federation of Metal Detector and Archeological Clubs, and are motivated by a variety of impulses, though one tends to stand out. "Do I dare say greed?" said Burke, 60, of Kingston, Pa.
Shifting sand with his metal scoop, Kirby listened for the clunk of metal against metal. A boy who had been sitting with his family nearby, 9-year-old Chris Bradshaw, came to watch with big eyes. Then the prize emerged: a battered toy racecar.
Kirby gave it to the boy, who soon began trailing Kirby, wandering far ther between the coolers and beach chairs. Two other boys lined up behind Chris.
"My followers," Kirby joked.
He likes the company of beachgoers who ask him about his finds. Some ask him to help them locate lost necklaces and wedding bands.
The detectorists, as they call themselves, spend hours pacing beaches, even if their glittering dreams of pieces of eight usually yield to more mundane realities.
But that has not stopped retirees like Kirby from continuing daily patrols, or the increasing number of men in their 30s who want something to do as their families lounge on the sand, said Anthony Brogna, who sells treasure-hunting machines in Watertown that range in price from $249.95 to $1099.95.
"The hobby has absolutely exploded in the last 10 years," said Brogna, 37, who grew up watching his great-uncle hunt the sands of Hyannis. "The stereotypical person used to be an old guy on the beach with headphones and a metal detector."
Old or young, the beach treasure hunters of today have computerized equipment that can sense items deeper in the ground than before and even guess what the item is.
Kirby's White's Classic SL, a $500 midlevel detector, has a screen that he watches intently as a black bar dances beneath a legend showing images of a quarter, dime, and penny. The device senses metal by emitting an electromagnetic field that changes when it encounters metalic objects. A coil in the detector senses the changes and converts them to sounds that Kirby can hear through the headphones he wears under his Red Sox baseball cap.
Though Kirby sticks to Crane Beach, diehards go for fields and forests where the digging is more difficult, but the finds are more likely to be old and well preserved. Brogna, a detectorist as well as a retailer, scans microfiche records and lays colonial maps over newer ones, trying to pinpoint spots where people used to gather long ago, such as the sites of old fairgrounds, stagecoach stops, and taverns now obscured by farms and forests. When he heads to beaches, he tries to go in the hours after a northeaster, after treasures have washed into shallower waters.
"We're in the best area in the United States for metal detecting," Brogna said. "People in other states are dying -- really, they'd give their right arm -- to detect here. If they find something from 1850, it could go in a museum. Here, we'd throw it in a coffee can."
Brogna, wielding his $799.95 White's MXG, finds so many treasures that he cannot recall exactly where or when he located coins like his 1779 silver Spanish real and a 1723 Hibernia farthing minted in Ireland. On a good day, Kirby finds nickels and quarters dating to the 1980s and estimates he has recovered the $500 cost of his detector. He is still working on his $125 annual fee for Crane Beach.
Kirby took up his pricey hobby three years ago, after he followed a friend and watched him find $7 in coins in an hour. That seemed like a good deal to him, so he asked his wife for a detector. He took it first to the house where his grandmother once lived and unearthed a tiny silver thimble. Her initials were engraved on the side. He kept it. The others, he gives to his grown daughters.
The friend taught Kirby the rules: Fill all holes; never charge people for lost possessions, but accept rewards; always remove trash that sets off the machine, such as tin foil or discarded beer cans.
Those rules are passed on by the Massachusetts Treasure Hunting Association, one of five clubs in the state dedicated to the hobby. It was formed in 1981, during another boom in treasure hunting caused by a spike in gold and silver prices.
These days, up to 100 relic hunters and gold prospectors come to the meetings each month to show off the cameos and coins they have unearthed. Though some seeking older finds specialize in hunting forests and fields, many of them still hunt the beach, though at dawn or around 4 p.m., as sunbathers leave.
But Kirby likes the company he finds in the middle of the day. By noon, Chris Bradshaw and the other boys had lost interest. Kirby, too: He had wandered off the beach, distractedly waving the wand across the sandy path to the parking lot. He rummaged inside his fanny pack and rattled his finds: a metal bookmark and five quarters dusted with sand.
"$1.25, that's all; that's all I made." Kirby sniffed. "Well, better days are coming."
Look what I found
Today's beachcombers turn up long-lost mementos and the occasional treasure amid sun worshipers
By April Yee, Globe Correspondent | July 29, 2007
IPSWICH -- Making his sandy way among the bikinis and bright umbrellas of Crane Beach, Hank Kirby of Danvers swung his whirring, eight-pound metal detector in a 5-foot arc. It was late on a July Saturday morning, and Kirby was beginning his search. Perhaps today he would find that elusive diamond ring or a coin washed from some obscure shipwreck.
Suddenly, the machine beeped madly. Was this paydirt, or merely metallic detritus buried in the sand? He leaned over and started digging with a metal scoop.
"It's the excitement," said Kirby, 66. "because you never know."
Coastline treasure hunters like Kirby are proliferating on New England beaches as baby boomers retire and the technology becomes more refined.
They follow gold and silver prices, said Ed Burke, vice president of the Federation of Metal Detector and Archeological Clubs, and are motivated by a variety of impulses, though one tends to stand out. "Do I dare say greed?" said Burke, 60, of Kingston, Pa.
Shifting sand with his metal scoop, Kirby listened for the clunk of metal against metal. A boy who had been sitting with his family nearby, 9-year-old Chris Bradshaw, came to watch with big eyes. Then the prize emerged: a battered toy racecar.
Kirby gave it to the boy, who soon began trailing Kirby, wandering far ther between the coolers and beach chairs. Two other boys lined up behind Chris.
"My followers," Kirby joked.
He likes the company of beachgoers who ask him about his finds. Some ask him to help them locate lost necklaces and wedding bands.
The detectorists, as they call themselves, spend hours pacing beaches, even if their glittering dreams of pieces of eight usually yield to more mundane realities.
But that has not stopped retirees like Kirby from continuing daily patrols, or the increasing number of men in their 30s who want something to do as their families lounge on the sand, said Anthony Brogna, who sells treasure-hunting machines in Watertown that range in price from $249.95 to $1099.95.
"The hobby has absolutely exploded in the last 10 years," said Brogna, 37, who grew up watching his great-uncle hunt the sands of Hyannis. "The stereotypical person used to be an old guy on the beach with headphones and a metal detector."
Old or young, the beach treasure hunters of today have computerized equipment that can sense items deeper in the ground than before and even guess what the item is.
Kirby's White's Classic SL, a $500 midlevel detector, has a screen that he watches intently as a black bar dances beneath a legend showing images of a quarter, dime, and penny. The device senses metal by emitting an electromagnetic field that changes when it encounters metalic objects. A coil in the detector senses the changes and converts them to sounds that Kirby can hear through the headphones he wears under his Red Sox baseball cap.
Though Kirby sticks to Crane Beach, diehards go for fields and forests where the digging is more difficult, but the finds are more likely to be old and well preserved. Brogna, a detectorist as well as a retailer, scans microfiche records and lays colonial maps over newer ones, trying to pinpoint spots where people used to gather long ago, such as the sites of old fairgrounds, stagecoach stops, and taverns now obscured by farms and forests. When he heads to beaches, he tries to go in the hours after a northeaster, after treasures have washed into shallower waters.
"We're in the best area in the United States for metal detecting," Brogna said. "People in other states are dying -- really, they'd give their right arm -- to detect here. If they find something from 1850, it could go in a museum. Here, we'd throw it in a coffee can."
Brogna, wielding his $799.95 White's MXG, finds so many treasures that he cannot recall exactly where or when he located coins like his 1779 silver Spanish real and a 1723 Hibernia farthing minted in Ireland. On a good day, Kirby finds nickels and quarters dating to the 1980s and estimates he has recovered the $500 cost of his detector. He is still working on his $125 annual fee for Crane Beach.
Kirby took up his pricey hobby three years ago, after he followed a friend and watched him find $7 in coins in an hour. That seemed like a good deal to him, so he asked his wife for a detector. He took it first to the house where his grandmother once lived and unearthed a tiny silver thimble. Her initials were engraved on the side. He kept it. The others, he gives to his grown daughters.
The friend taught Kirby the rules: Fill all holes; never charge people for lost possessions, but accept rewards; always remove trash that sets off the machine, such as tin foil or discarded beer cans.
Those rules are passed on by the Massachusetts Treasure Hunting Association, one of five clubs in the state dedicated to the hobby. It was formed in 1981, during another boom in treasure hunting caused by a spike in gold and silver prices.
These days, up to 100 relic hunters and gold prospectors come to the meetings each month to show off the cameos and coins they have unearthed. Though some seeking older finds specialize in hunting forests and fields, many of them still hunt the beach, though at dawn or around 4 p.m., as sunbathers leave.
But Kirby likes the company he finds in the middle of the day. By noon, Chris Bradshaw and the other boys had lost interest. Kirby, too: He had wandered off the beach, distractedly waving the wand across the sandy path to the parking lot. He rummaged inside his fanny pack and rattled his finds: a metal bookmark and five quarters dusted with sand.
"$1.25, that's all; that's all I made." Kirby sniffed. "Well, better days are coming."
