Smith McDowell House, history camp for kids.

[Obscurist]

I was invited to do a metal detecting demonstration for the kids at Smith McDowell House museum, Asheville, NC. They are having their summer 'history camp' and I arrived about lunch time and scoured the front lawn for strong signals. I marked a dozen good signals with halves of plastic Easter eggs and after lunch demonstrated with an 'iffy' signal, plugged the lawn carefully, put everything on a sheet of newspaper... and found a piece of copper, likely from the old gutters.

Then I told the kids that I had marked signals around the yard and they should search for them and we would help them make their finds. Each child was given a sheet of newspaper and a trowel and as they removed the grass and dirt I would make the rounds and let them know if it was on the paper or still in the ground. We found a couple more pieces of roof/gutter copper and pennies, dimes, quarters from circa 1963-1987, good enough to excite the kids in any case. The last signal we worked on was giving a bit of trouble... I went over it (Garrett Ace 250 btw) and got a 6 inch reading. I worked around the edge of the hole carefully loosening the dirt while all the kids looked on. I hit a few small rocks, each time the kids shouting, "I think you hit it!" Then I saw something shiny fall into the hole. I lifted out a handful of dirt and spread it out in the palm of my hand to reveal a Merc! a beautiful 1919 at that, and proud to say I didn't so much as scuff it with the shovel (whew!).

A photographer from the newspaper was there to document the hunt and it should give the hobby some good publicity locally. I loved it! This was my first public demonstration and it went very, very well... and silver to top it off!

 

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[Happy Harry]

Way to go!!! Teaching kids is just plain vanilla fun. With the merc it turned into a very real history lesson. Now they will bugg their parents for a metal dector for Christmas. HHHH

 

[Detectingfreak]

Nice job on the silver!!! Any pictures?

 

[Obscurist]

Nice job on the silver!!! Any pictures?

I didn't take my camera and handed all the finds over to the kids and staff. Hopefully there will be some pics in the paper tomorrow. If so, I'll add them.

 

[Tank69]

wtg see now thats good karma

 

[CRUSADER]

I've done similar with the local school. Each kid dug a good signal in the school field. Best find a mid-18th Century Irish Halfpenny. Not even I had one as nice as it!

 

[ncdirtdigger]

thanks we need it round here WTG

 

[Obscurist]

Made front page of the Asheville Citizen-Times with this!

 

[allen]

way to go on that nice demo
and hopefully get a few kids
interested in detecting !!

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Vance! That is awesome! Congratulations on that merc and, helping with thw kids. I'm proud to have you as a friend. Mike

 

[Evan/tn]

great story

 

[Obscurist]

Here's the gallery of photos taken by the newspaper.

http://tinyurl.com/kkxnac

 

[curbdiggercarl57]

Always great to see detecting put in a good light. Now interrogate those kid's parents on other old areas to detect!

 

[NGE]

I sure hope you taught the kids the proper recovery of those coins.........NGE

 

[Dan32981]

Awesome job!, definately on way to make our hobby grow, and inspire kids to get outside and be more active like the old days, instead of staying inside with the PS3, X-box, etc... Happy Dirt Fishing.

-Dan

 

[artzstuff1]

Fantastic way to promote the hobby ,, you should feel proud,,, wish that would happen in my home town!!!

great story and thanks for sharin,,,,..
arthur