Frodov
Bronze Member
Sweet Charm Mary with Rappen Shoes!
Hello again everyone. Are we having fun yet? I did today. I got up a bit early, for a day off, and hit the road to detect a couple of school yard playgrounds before it got hot, or the kiddies came out of the woodwork to play. I donāt mind the occasional curious George asking me about what Iām doing or what Iām looking for... But I donāt particularly like being the Pied Piper if you know what I mean. When you have upwards of half a dozen or more of the big eyed woodchip monkeys following you around it gets a little tedious trying to make recoveries without having to shoulder your way in to even dig the target to begin with. Ah kids... you gotta love āem. SO... I try to avoid them if I canāt just give them the Iggy. (Ignore them and pretend that I canāt hear their questions) Well? I *AM* wearing headphones, they donāt know for sure if I can hear them or not... right? <grin> Anyway, up just after sunrise and in the chips soon after. The two school yards I chose for todayās hunt are downtown in my fair city , and have lain idle for a few months now. All the kiddies are back in school now so I can only hunt those and other school yard tot lots on the weekends or holidays... or late evening before dark. Yeah.. the weekends. <smile>
School yard number one this morning, I roll up and thereās not a soul stirring. Well, perhaps half a dozen squirrels running around the giant oak trees harvesting the fallen acorns. As it would turn out, they werenāt the only searchers harvesting this morning. WooHoo! I didnāt even make it to the woodchips before I started getting coin signals. Oh sure, a lot if not most of them were pennies to begin with, but soon I was finding a few quarters, a LOT of dimes and an unusually frequent appearance of nickels as well. Usually when I get a nickel signal in the school yard tot lots it turns out to be a pull tab or one of those pencil tip metal barrels that secure the erasure head to the top of the pencil. Iām sure thereās a name for that little barrel, but I donāt happen to know it, other than as āANOTHER ONE OF THOSEā . <laughing> Yeah, it was a good morning for clad recovery, and I had a few surprises along the way too. I found a coin that at first I thought was a pendant of some sort, and truthfully, thatās probably what it was being used as. I looked it up this afternoon and got a little education. Turns out that my mystery coin is a Swiss āRappenā, although I think itās been dipped in silver or mercury or something to make it all shiny. The minted and circulated Rappens are made of brass I think. Anyway, cool find.
As I said, I suspect the Rappen was used as a pendant or charm, prior to its loss and then its recovery by yoursā truly. I would eventually find more ācharmsā or pendants this morning, between the first and the second tot lots I hunted. One has a decidedly religious bent if you will, perhaps a touch of Catholicism for a Sunday morning. Is it āMother Maryā or St. Mary or just āMaryā ? Whatever, Iāve now got a cute little charm or pendant with her likeness on one side.
I donāt know if āMother Maryā was a āRapperā (play on Rappen) <grin> or if she would have been a jogger if they had jogging shoes back then, but not far from where I found that charm I dug up another and it was a SHOE-in for silver... or so I thought. No hallmarks, no stamps, so itās probably not silver after all. Still pretty cool find though.
A couple of swing sets down from the shoe I got a strong signal for a dime, but try as I might I couldnāt find the blessed thing (another play on the religious stuff) <laughing>. I eventually found it, by eyeball as much as with the use of my trusty Bullseye pin pointer. No easy trick considering how small it was, and down amongst the woodchips and dirt as it was... it was the back to a earring or something similar. How small? Oh about the size of two sesame seeds stacked atop each other. TINY! That along with some buttons and snaps and some blown out rivets from some kids jeans or jackets or whatever kept me SIFTING the woodchips this morning at BOTH tot lots. At the second tot lot I found some more bling, this time in the form of a complete set of earrings... cheap though they may be, itās rare that you find both. They werenāt found together by the way, separated by probably fourteen feet or better. I also found a cheap metal wrist bangle. That one was hard to find too, nearly invisible because of itās coloration when mixed in with the dark woodchips.
After the wristlet my finds definitely went to the Rats. Well to one rat anyway... or is it just one really big mouse? I unearthed (is that applicable to woodchips?) a Chuck E Cheese Token. That rat really gets around doesnāt he?
I know I know I know... some of you out there think that those tokens are just about worthless. And truth be known, I donāt disagree, but I still like digging them up. But then I get excited digging up penny after penny after pull tab. <smile> Even the trash is fun to uncover, most of the time. Sometimes however, it can be a challenge to locate the target even though your detector is screaming at you that itās āRIGHT THERE!ā Like the case this morning of first, what turned out to be a magnet. That kept me looking for a few minutes. And later, another magnet of sorts in the form of a headphones speaker, at least it was a little easier to spot because it was shiny.
Coins, coins and more coins... combined with the scrap and trash certainly kept me on my hands and knees a lot this morning. The key was that there was something there to recover... like the keys I found as well. <grin>
Two for one on a ring! Even a painted key with tropical palms and the ocean in the background, some kid obviously wasnāt able to let him or herself into the house after school that day. (whenever it was that they lost the key). More keys to my growing key collection. Iām going to have to make a BIG shadow box or display case to fit all those keys into it... maybe more than one display case? Oh well, speaking of collections, I found more of the usual suspects of course, pull tabs and can slaw and even plastic bottle caps. Or as I like to call them, āBrownie Pointsā. <smile>
By the time I got finished up at the second tot lot this morning it was going on Ten Oāclock in the morning, and my stomach was growling... not to mention that my knee was beginning to make itself āheardā a bit. No serious pain or anything, but I could feel it swelling a bit and thatās not a good sign. So, I headed for home and my darling wife that I had left sleeping peacefully still in bed this morning when I headed out on my adventure. She was up when I got home, of course, and she had not had breakfast either. So, after cleaning up a bit and, she, getting dressed, we went to a local eatery for āBrunchā. Sometimes food just tastes better when someone else does the cooking! Hey...! Maybe THATāS why my wife likes MY cooking so well!! Dang it!~
After ābrunchā we returned home, my wife resumed working on her paper for school, and I sorted through my finds from this morningās hunt. After tallying up all the clad I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had nearly covered āBRUNCHā. <grin> Another fine addition to the Vacation fund indeed!
Not a bad collection for so much fun looking for it! And a beautiful day... Someone else cooked!... I even got to take a nap this afternoon before being talked into going shopping with my wife this evening. WOW! Itās like a mini vacation in one day ! WooHoo! I guess it was a āBlessedā day...<snicker> I hope the rest of you had as good a day or will have one soon. As always...
~HAPPY HUNTING~
Frodov
Hello again everyone. Are we having fun yet? I did today. I got up a bit early, for a day off, and hit the road to detect a couple of school yard playgrounds before it got hot, or the kiddies came out of the woodwork to play. I donāt mind the occasional curious George asking me about what Iām doing or what Iām looking for... But I donāt particularly like being the Pied Piper if you know what I mean. When you have upwards of half a dozen or more of the big eyed woodchip monkeys following you around it gets a little tedious trying to make recoveries without having to shoulder your way in to even dig the target to begin with. Ah kids... you gotta love āem. SO... I try to avoid them if I canāt just give them the Iggy. (Ignore them and pretend that I canāt hear their questions) Well? I *AM* wearing headphones, they donāt know for sure if I can hear them or not... right? <grin> Anyway, up just after sunrise and in the chips soon after. The two school yards I chose for todayās hunt are downtown in my fair city , and have lain idle for a few months now. All the kiddies are back in school now so I can only hunt those and other school yard tot lots on the weekends or holidays... or late evening before dark. Yeah.. the weekends. <smile>
School yard number one this morning, I roll up and thereās not a soul stirring. Well, perhaps half a dozen squirrels running around the giant oak trees harvesting the fallen acorns. As it would turn out, they werenāt the only searchers harvesting this morning. WooHoo! I didnāt even make it to the woodchips before I started getting coin signals. Oh sure, a lot if not most of them were pennies to begin with, but soon I was finding a few quarters, a LOT of dimes and an unusually frequent appearance of nickels as well. Usually when I get a nickel signal in the school yard tot lots it turns out to be a pull tab or one of those pencil tip metal barrels that secure the erasure head to the top of the pencil. Iām sure thereās a name for that little barrel, but I donāt happen to know it, other than as āANOTHER ONE OF THOSEā . <laughing> Yeah, it was a good morning for clad recovery, and I had a few surprises along the way too. I found a coin that at first I thought was a pendant of some sort, and truthfully, thatās probably what it was being used as. I looked it up this afternoon and got a little education. Turns out that my mystery coin is a Swiss āRappenā, although I think itās been dipped in silver or mercury or something to make it all shiny. The minted and circulated Rappens are made of brass I think. Anyway, cool find.
As I said, I suspect the Rappen was used as a pendant or charm, prior to its loss and then its recovery by yoursā truly. I would eventually find more ācharmsā or pendants this morning, between the first and the second tot lots I hunted. One has a decidedly religious bent if you will, perhaps a touch of Catholicism for a Sunday morning. Is it āMother Maryā or St. Mary or just āMaryā ? Whatever, Iāve now got a cute little charm or pendant with her likeness on one side.
I donāt know if āMother Maryā was a āRapperā (play on Rappen) <grin> or if she would have been a jogger if they had jogging shoes back then, but not far from where I found that charm I dug up another and it was a SHOE-in for silver... or so I thought. No hallmarks, no stamps, so itās probably not silver after all. Still pretty cool find though.
A couple of swing sets down from the shoe I got a strong signal for a dime, but try as I might I couldnāt find the blessed thing (another play on the religious stuff) <laughing>. I eventually found it, by eyeball as much as with the use of my trusty Bullseye pin pointer. No easy trick considering how small it was, and down amongst the woodchips and dirt as it was... it was the back to a earring or something similar. How small? Oh about the size of two sesame seeds stacked atop each other. TINY! That along with some buttons and snaps and some blown out rivets from some kids jeans or jackets or whatever kept me SIFTING the woodchips this morning at BOTH tot lots. At the second tot lot I found some more bling, this time in the form of a complete set of earrings... cheap though they may be, itās rare that you find both. They werenāt found together by the way, separated by probably fourteen feet or better. I also found a cheap metal wrist bangle. That one was hard to find too, nearly invisible because of itās coloration when mixed in with the dark woodchips.
After the wristlet my finds definitely went to the Rats. Well to one rat anyway... or is it just one really big mouse? I unearthed (is that applicable to woodchips?) a Chuck E Cheese Token. That rat really gets around doesnāt he?
I know I know I know... some of you out there think that those tokens are just about worthless. And truth be known, I donāt disagree, but I still like digging them up. But then I get excited digging up penny after penny after pull tab. <smile> Even the trash is fun to uncover, most of the time. Sometimes however, it can be a challenge to locate the target even though your detector is screaming at you that itās āRIGHT THERE!ā Like the case this morning of first, what turned out to be a magnet. That kept me looking for a few minutes. And later, another magnet of sorts in the form of a headphones speaker, at least it was a little easier to spot because it was shiny.
Coins, coins and more coins... combined with the scrap and trash certainly kept me on my hands and knees a lot this morning. The key was that there was something there to recover... like the keys I found as well. <grin>
Two for one on a ring! Even a painted key with tropical palms and the ocean in the background, some kid obviously wasnāt able to let him or herself into the house after school that day. (whenever it was that they lost the key). More keys to my growing key collection. Iām going to have to make a BIG shadow box or display case to fit all those keys into it... maybe more than one display case? Oh well, speaking of collections, I found more of the usual suspects of course, pull tabs and can slaw and even plastic bottle caps. Or as I like to call them, āBrownie Pointsā. <smile>
By the time I got finished up at the second tot lot this morning it was going on Ten Oāclock in the morning, and my stomach was growling... not to mention that my knee was beginning to make itself āheardā a bit. No serious pain or anything, but I could feel it swelling a bit and thatās not a good sign. So, I headed for home and my darling wife that I had left sleeping peacefully still in bed this morning when I headed out on my adventure. She was up when I got home, of course, and she had not had breakfast either. So, after cleaning up a bit and, she, getting dressed, we went to a local eatery for āBrunchā. Sometimes food just tastes better when someone else does the cooking! Hey...! Maybe THATāS why my wife likes MY cooking so well!! Dang it!~
After ābrunchā we returned home, my wife resumed working on her paper for school, and I sorted through my finds from this morningās hunt. After tallying up all the clad I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had nearly covered āBRUNCHā. <grin> Another fine addition to the Vacation fund indeed!
Not a bad collection for so much fun looking for it! And a beautiful day... Someone else cooked!... I even got to take a nap this afternoon before being talked into going shopping with my wife this evening. WOW! Itās like a mini vacation in one day ! WooHoo! I guess it was a āBlessedā day...<snicker> I hope the rest of you had as good a day or will have one soon. As always...
~HAPPY HUNTING~
Frodov
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