The First Dig

A couple of weeks ago I was digging in my backyard and discovered a quarter from 1966.  It was in rough shape and not really worth anything above face value, but still I felt excitement upon uncovering the coin.  Maybe it was the moments before I cleared the dirt from the coin, the moments when it could have been something more than a 46 year old 25 cent piece that sparked a sense of adventure in me. Maybe it was finding something that someone had lost, having no idea how long it had been there and knowing there must be more buried and waiting to be found.

The next day I started looking online for metal detectors.  After doing a lot of research I decide on the Garrett Ace 150.  I was originally looking at some fancier models but after reading advice from seasoned hunters this seemed the best option given it's ease of use and price.  I spent the next few days reading tips and techniques on metal detecting so that when my Ace 150 arrived I would be ready to go.

When my new detector arrived I wasted no time assembling it and testing the settings on a few coins and other metal objects I had laid out on my floor.  At first I was getting a lot of erratic readings until I realized that it was sensing the nails in the hardwood floor.  This gave me an opportunity to test the detector's mode settings which can be used to reject the signals produced by specific metals such as iron nails.  It worked like a charm. After a few more minutes of testing I grabbed my trowel and headed to the backyard.

The first signal I got was strong and the display indicated that it was a coin.  I began digging and before long I unearthed a strange looking gear about the size of a silver dollar.  I'm not really sure what it's from, but it looked pretty cool so I tossed it in my treasure bag and kept searching.

The next few holes didn't go as smoothly as the first.  I would get a signal and dig the hole roughly to the depth indicated by the meter.  Then using the advice I read online, I'd check the hole with the detector as well as the pile of dirt I made.  If it sounded over the hole I'd dig some more.  If it sounded over the dirt pile I'd grab a handful of dirt and wave it over the magnet coil at the bottom of the detector.  If it sounded again I'd separate the handful into two and wave each hand over it individually, discarding the handful that didn't make the detector beep.  I'd get down to a tiny amount of dirt but still couldn't find the riches.  As it turns out there is a large amount of tiny foil bits in my backyard which were hard to find but triggering the detector just the same.

After a while of digging holes and finding nothing but foil I adjusted the sensitivity of the detector down and learned to differentiate the strength of the signal so as not to waste my time digging up trash. This proved effective against the foil but not can pull tabs.  Though I didn't really mind finding the pull tabs, they were the old kind and the reward in finding them far outweighed the disappointment in sifting through dirt for 15 minutes only to find a pea sized piece of foil.

At the end of my searching I counted my bounty.  In total I had found the strange gear, three pieces of can pull tabs, a toy truck, a large old capacitor and 38 cents in recent vintage change.  Judging by the dates on the coins I'm pretty sure I must have lost some of them myself a few years before.  I also found two nonmetallic treasures while digging, an old dried up super ball and a plastic army man figure.

Tomorrow I hope to go to a local park and see what I can find.