Skippy SH13
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- Metal Detecting
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Thread Owner
Hey all,
I'm a rabid hobby-addict. I get into a new one every few years... some of them last a year or two, others a lifetime. I usually get into them for the experience, as well as the study. I love to learn about new things. It helps me focus on the rest of my life, if I have a diversion I can go to when I need a "happy place."
This year, for Christmas, I used part of my year-end bonus to purchase a metal detector. After some thorough research, I felt the Garrett ACE 350 would be a good beginner's detector, and purchased it along with a Garrett Pro-Pointer and a Lesche digging tool (about a week into January).
What prompted this was the "coin collecting" merit badge. I'm a counselor in a local Scout Troop for the badge, and had recently had a seminar for a bunch of scouts. Previously, I'd spent years collecting Ancient Roman coins. I've got a very nice Tiberius denarius that's the prize of my collection (AD17, and known as the "Tribute Penny" of the Bible). As part of the class, however, I dug through my change box (where I've thrown interesting coins, coins from around the world, and other unique "finds" since about 1997. In it, I discovered I had several silver quarters, some 40% half dollars, and an old buffalo nickel. My son took an interest in these, and the old wheat pennies, and we spent a few evenings sorting through things. His interested continued, so I bought him the blue penny books to start a collection.
Interestingly, just after that, I received a Mercury dime (winged Liberty, I know!) from a gas station while getting my morning soda. I had to laugh, and I got me thinking about where I could get more of them. Doing some quick research on the Internet led me HERE to this forum, where folks mentioned they'd also received change like that from gas stations. And that naturally led to investigating Metal Detecting. See how that all works?
Well... The Metal Detector arrived in the last week of December... and there was 4" of snow on the ground. Was a total bummer. I'd done plenty of research on technique, settings, etc... but failed to account for the fact I couldn't use it! I gave it a few days, waited until the snow was 1" and went detecting anyway. My son came in tow, and as we hit the new local park (4 years old), both of us were convinced we were going to find Aztec Gold! OK, not really, but it was a good running joke.
At the point I hit the park, I'd only swung in my own yard, and I dug EVERYTHING those first few weeks to learn my detector (recommended by you guys at the forum, right!?). Well, the first trip out, I was crossing the field to a new spot, and hit a DING. I bent down and dug it (it showed as a quarter). SILVER RING! I was stunned. I NEVER expected to find something valuable on the very first "real trip" out. It was a bit misshappen, but I didn't care. My son and I took it home (along with our 4 lbs of trash and about $1.30 in change), and I polished it up in the garage. (I wrapped a cloth around a drill bit, put some car wax on it, squeezed the drill on high, and rotated the ring against the cloth... in about 30 seconds the ring looked brand new!)
I took it in to show my wife my PRIZE! She just looked at me funny and asked what it was worth. I had no idea. It's a silver ring, right? What? $30, $50? It's GOT to be super-valuable, it's SILVER!!! I went to Amazon.com and checked out what silver rings cost. Imagine my laugh, when I discovered a plain dome silver ring (brand new and not misshappen) runs about $3.99. I just cracked up! But hey, according to all my research, finding Silver is FINDING SILVER. That's a treat a lot of folks spend a lot of time trying to do.
AND... I was hooked. In the next three weeks, I took the detector everywhere. In fact, I was so hooked, my kids wanted to join the fun, too. So, I went to Harbor Freight and bought the 9-function Metal Detector for $38 to give them something to do. I also picked up a second Garrett Pro-Pointer with a $100 bit of savings I'd had.
This kicked off a virtually "every afternoon" jaunt to the city parks (I'd done the research there and found what I could and couldn't do), I'd pretty much perfected the art of the "flap." And I'd gotten the hang of looking at the "lay of the land" for where people traffic, gloves off, and sitting down would occur. Tops and bottoms of hills? Coin banks. Chair patterns on the sides of football fields? Cheap jewelry, coins, and a BILLION gum wrappers. Walking toward the concession stands? Gloves off, right? Mostly pocket stuff... BUT...
The second week of my actual "Hunting" in January was the third week, as I was on a cruise on week 2!... led me to a newer park on the other side of our small town. About 5 minutes into the hunt, a nice pull tab came up on the Notching, and I bent down to dig it and add it to my collection. Imaging my joy, as I cracked the earth and lifted the flap, and BLING! A woman's GOLD ring sat there. Was a vintage class ring of 10K gold. I couldn't believe it! GOLD on week 2! Some folks spend months and years to find Silver, and I've found GOLD on week two! My oldest was with me this day, and came over and shared in my excitement. The ring was about 4" down into the dirt (past the grass layer), so I expected it'd been there a season or two at least. I also figured though, after the "snafu" of believing the silver was worth more than it was that the ring was probably worth about $45-$50 in melt. I recalled, as well, that many folks in our detectorist field believe that returning a class ring is well worth the trade-off of the $50. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but my hunt wasn't over, so I put it my my special zipper pocket for safe keeping and kept on swinging. Best idea of the day.
My oldest, by now, had caught the fever, and also was noting the regularity I was picking up coins, not just trash. With his Harbor Freight model, the discrimination wasn't great, and he was digging more trash than anything else. I noted also, every time I chose a new line on the field, he'd promptly come over and walk in front of me to detect it first. After about the third time, I finally had it, and told him, YOU STAY THERE, I'M GOING OVER TO THAT FIELD... and walked my way over. On the way over, I had a super solid nickel sound and stopped and popped the Garrett Pro Pointer out. Strong signal, but it wasn't on the surface. A quick flap later, and I'd unearthed a nice Tungsten-Carbide ring! Two rings in one day! Booyah! My oldest prompty came over and told me that it should probably be his, because I wouldn't have found it otherwise. He makes me laugh>
I went home that evening, and for the next two days (another snow storm came in and shut things down), I spent HOURS trying to find out how to find the owner of the class ring. There were only initials on the outer edges VC and I don't know if that was a school or a person. There was no year marking, and given the design and wear on the gold, it was no younger than the early 1960s. I contacted the maker, and they had no lost and found for rings that old without markings. The recommendation was just to post an ad. So, I did. I ran it for a few weeks, but had zero luck with that (didn't figure I would based on the time the ring had been in the ground.)
The next 2 weeks brought a banner run of rings. In fact, the last week of January and first week of February had 6 outings where rings were recovered. One 8.3Gram 14K mens domed ring (no markings), another plain silver ring, a 4 gram 14K gold, a titanium and steel ring, another tungten-carbide ring, and a few cheap rings of no intrinsic value. I sold the titanium ring for $10, and replaced my own wedding ring with the first Tungsten-Carbide (I liked it better... besides my original gold wedding ring didn't fit anyway, and the second one was a very lightweight 10K).
Just before Valentine's Day, I decided to sell all my gold (the three rings I'd found and the two wedding rings of my own, which were small in comparison to weight, but would add to it). Based on weight and Karat, I figured I'd get somewhere between $250 and $350. I negotiated for $300 which was 70% spot, which I was happy with since I Only wanted $296.
Why $296? Because I wanted to outfit my kids with an ACE 250 (with coil cover, cap, digger tool, bag, etc... the adventure pack). I ended up finding it for less than that, and the equipment arrived a week ago!
Today, we're headed up to a reservoir that draws down in the winter. on the non-road side (accessible only by boat), there's a lot of dock and grassy areas people "claim" in the Summer months on a daily basis. We're headed there to try our luck in a few hours! Will post results.
Who knows? Maybe we'll find AZTEC GOLD.
I'm a rabid hobby-addict. I get into a new one every few years... some of them last a year or two, others a lifetime. I usually get into them for the experience, as well as the study. I love to learn about new things. It helps me focus on the rest of my life, if I have a diversion I can go to when I need a "happy place."
This year, for Christmas, I used part of my year-end bonus to purchase a metal detector. After some thorough research, I felt the Garrett ACE 350 would be a good beginner's detector, and purchased it along with a Garrett Pro-Pointer and a Lesche digging tool (about a week into January).
What prompted this was the "coin collecting" merit badge. I'm a counselor in a local Scout Troop for the badge, and had recently had a seminar for a bunch of scouts. Previously, I'd spent years collecting Ancient Roman coins. I've got a very nice Tiberius denarius that's the prize of my collection (AD17, and known as the "Tribute Penny" of the Bible). As part of the class, however, I dug through my change box (where I've thrown interesting coins, coins from around the world, and other unique "finds" since about 1997. In it, I discovered I had several silver quarters, some 40% half dollars, and an old buffalo nickel. My son took an interest in these, and the old wheat pennies, and we spent a few evenings sorting through things. His interested continued, so I bought him the blue penny books to start a collection.
Interestingly, just after that, I received a Mercury dime (winged Liberty, I know!) from a gas station while getting my morning soda. I had to laugh, and I got me thinking about where I could get more of them. Doing some quick research on the Internet led me HERE to this forum, where folks mentioned they'd also received change like that from gas stations. And that naturally led to investigating Metal Detecting. See how that all works?
Well... The Metal Detector arrived in the last week of December... and there was 4" of snow on the ground. Was a total bummer. I'd done plenty of research on technique, settings, etc... but failed to account for the fact I couldn't use it! I gave it a few days, waited until the snow was 1" and went detecting anyway. My son came in tow, and as we hit the new local park (4 years old), both of us were convinced we were going to find Aztec Gold! OK, not really, but it was a good running joke.
At the point I hit the park, I'd only swung in my own yard, and I dug EVERYTHING those first few weeks to learn my detector (recommended by you guys at the forum, right!?). Well, the first trip out, I was crossing the field to a new spot, and hit a DING. I bent down and dug it (it showed as a quarter). SILVER RING! I was stunned. I NEVER expected to find something valuable on the very first "real trip" out. It was a bit misshappen, but I didn't care. My son and I took it home (along with our 4 lbs of trash and about $1.30 in change), and I polished it up in the garage. (I wrapped a cloth around a drill bit, put some car wax on it, squeezed the drill on high, and rotated the ring against the cloth... in about 30 seconds the ring looked brand new!)
I took it in to show my wife my PRIZE! She just looked at me funny and asked what it was worth. I had no idea. It's a silver ring, right? What? $30, $50? It's GOT to be super-valuable, it's SILVER!!! I went to Amazon.com and checked out what silver rings cost. Imagine my laugh, when I discovered a plain dome silver ring (brand new and not misshappen) runs about $3.99. I just cracked up! But hey, according to all my research, finding Silver is FINDING SILVER. That's a treat a lot of folks spend a lot of time trying to do.
AND... I was hooked. In the next three weeks, I took the detector everywhere. In fact, I was so hooked, my kids wanted to join the fun, too. So, I went to Harbor Freight and bought the 9-function Metal Detector for $38 to give them something to do. I also picked up a second Garrett Pro-Pointer with a $100 bit of savings I'd had.
This kicked off a virtually "every afternoon" jaunt to the city parks (I'd done the research there and found what I could and couldn't do), I'd pretty much perfected the art of the "flap." And I'd gotten the hang of looking at the "lay of the land" for where people traffic, gloves off, and sitting down would occur. Tops and bottoms of hills? Coin banks. Chair patterns on the sides of football fields? Cheap jewelry, coins, and a BILLION gum wrappers. Walking toward the concession stands? Gloves off, right? Mostly pocket stuff... BUT...
The second week of my actual "Hunting" in January was the third week, as I was on a cruise on week 2!... led me to a newer park on the other side of our small town. About 5 minutes into the hunt, a nice pull tab came up on the Notching, and I bent down to dig it and add it to my collection. Imaging my joy, as I cracked the earth and lifted the flap, and BLING! A woman's GOLD ring sat there. Was a vintage class ring of 10K gold. I couldn't believe it! GOLD on week 2! Some folks spend months and years to find Silver, and I've found GOLD on week two! My oldest was with me this day, and came over and shared in my excitement. The ring was about 4" down into the dirt (past the grass layer), so I expected it'd been there a season or two at least. I also figured though, after the "snafu" of believing the silver was worth more than it was that the ring was probably worth about $45-$50 in melt. I recalled, as well, that many folks in our detectorist field believe that returning a class ring is well worth the trade-off of the $50. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but my hunt wasn't over, so I put it my my special zipper pocket for safe keeping and kept on swinging. Best idea of the day.
My oldest, by now, had caught the fever, and also was noting the regularity I was picking up coins, not just trash. With his Harbor Freight model, the discrimination wasn't great, and he was digging more trash than anything else. I noted also, every time I chose a new line on the field, he'd promptly come over and walk in front of me to detect it first. After about the third time, I finally had it, and told him, YOU STAY THERE, I'M GOING OVER TO THAT FIELD... and walked my way over. On the way over, I had a super solid nickel sound and stopped and popped the Garrett Pro Pointer out. Strong signal, but it wasn't on the surface. A quick flap later, and I'd unearthed a nice Tungsten-Carbide ring! Two rings in one day! Booyah! My oldest prompty came over and told me that it should probably be his, because I wouldn't have found it otherwise. He makes me laugh>
I went home that evening, and for the next two days (another snow storm came in and shut things down), I spent HOURS trying to find out how to find the owner of the class ring. There were only initials on the outer edges VC and I don't know if that was a school or a person. There was no year marking, and given the design and wear on the gold, it was no younger than the early 1960s. I contacted the maker, and they had no lost and found for rings that old without markings. The recommendation was just to post an ad. So, I did. I ran it for a few weeks, but had zero luck with that (didn't figure I would based on the time the ring had been in the ground.)
The next 2 weeks brought a banner run of rings. In fact, the last week of January and first week of February had 6 outings where rings were recovered. One 8.3Gram 14K mens domed ring (no markings), another plain silver ring, a 4 gram 14K gold, a titanium and steel ring, another tungten-carbide ring, and a few cheap rings of no intrinsic value. I sold the titanium ring for $10, and replaced my own wedding ring with the first Tungsten-Carbide (I liked it better... besides my original gold wedding ring didn't fit anyway, and the second one was a very lightweight 10K).
Just before Valentine's Day, I decided to sell all my gold (the three rings I'd found and the two wedding rings of my own, which were small in comparison to weight, but would add to it). Based on weight and Karat, I figured I'd get somewhere between $250 and $350. I negotiated for $300 which was 70% spot, which I was happy with since I Only wanted $296.
Why $296? Because I wanted to outfit my kids with an ACE 250 (with coil cover, cap, digger tool, bag, etc... the adventure pack). I ended up finding it for less than that, and the equipment arrived a week ago!
Today, we're headed up to a reservoir that draws down in the winter. on the non-road side (accessible only by boat), there's a lot of dock and grassy areas people "claim" in the Summer months on a daily basis. We're headed there to try our luck in a few hours! Will post results.
Who knows? Maybe we'll find AZTEC GOLD.
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