Early Finds (2012)
For today’s post I’ll transcribe a few of my early log entries from late 2012 to give an idea of how the hunting generally went. While these entries are all good finds, there were many times that I found nothing but junk. Since that makes for some really boring reading, those hunts won’t be included. Just know that not every hunt will be noteworthy, no matter how good of a detectorist you may be.
I spent about four and a half hours detecting at a nearby park this afternoon. Found $4.59 in modern coin. The iPod and lock above were also found, proving that it’s not always the money that is most interesting. At the end of the day, I totaled up my year-to-date finds: $20.25 in quarters, $7.90 in dimes, 55 cents in nickels, and 279 pennies. Looking back now $31.49 isn’t a lot, but at the time it seemed like a pretty decent haul. Those totals didn’t include the 1956 silver quarter, the 1945, 1953, and 1963 dimes, and six wheat pennies. These older coins are kept separate from the modern junk. And zinc pennies never come out of the ground in savable condition, so I don’t keep or count them.
During this time period I talked to an expert detectorist and learned more about discrimination settings. I came home and practiced what I had learned in the back yard, which I had hit pretty hard in the first months of learning my detector’s settings. I pretty quickly found several coins and a few miscellaneous bits of metal. I was amazed because I thought I’d hit it pretty well.
Winter detecting presents unique problems to a detectorist. First, there’s often snow on the ground in the northeast, which means extra digging, just to get to the ground, which is generally frozen, making digging even more challenging. Even the beach sand can be frozen down a half an inch or more. You’d think frozen sand wouldn’t present that much of a problem, but it’s like digging in concrete and will often wear your digging tools down quickly. Second, it’s really hard to dig in snow or frozen ground because it doesn’t take long for your fingers to become painfully cold. Third, there is often a bitter wind, which just sucks the warmth from your bones. But if you really want to get out when nobody else is around, this is the best time to go detecting.