First Mercury Dime

Finding a mercury head dime may be no big deal for many detectorists (one who metal detects), but for me it was a BIG deal.  For all the time I have search and all the coins I have dug, I have never found one until yesterday.
I could tell mother nature did not want me to go metal detecting as I backed out of the garage and saw the little snowballs hitting the windshield.  I knew it was not suppose to be a good day, but I had the day off work and was going to try anyway.  I met a few other people at the park at 8 am and we started searching the park, stopping several times to let the more intense rain and snow showers pass over.  It was not all that successful, only managing to find a small silver ring and some modern clad coins.
Lunch time came and I offered to buy lunch at JDawg's for a couple of the detectorists who are also BYU students before they left to do homework.
Me and the remaining hunters decided to search an area on the south side of the BYU campus next to the duck pond.  They had removed some dirt preparing to install a paved path.  I found the coin where they had removed the grass and some dirt.  With the grass and some of the dirt removed my XLT was able to locate the dime.  As the dime fell out of a clump of dirt I did an little yell and them looked around to see who was watching.  Turned out to be a good day after all.

Fossil Found With Metal Detector

Okay, so it is not the kind of fossil you were thinking about. I was a little surprised when I dug this out of the ground. I wonder if I replaced the battery would it work?

Idaho Treasure Hunt - Uncle Bill

Earlier this year I drove with my Dad up to his childhood home in Idaho, and to visit his brother.  Of course I brought the metal detectors.  While my Dad would visit with uncle Bill, I would go down to the city park with the hope of finding something old. My grandpa moved to Emmett when Bill was 4 years old, that would make it 1917.  Bill is probably the longest resident of the town and he said that city park has been there as long as he could remember.  I know the park has been hunted before, but I still had hope of finding a treasure.

I remember with fondness the trips to Grandpa's house and visiting the park, walking down to the store to buy penny candy, crossing the street to climb on the old tank in front of the county building.  This part of town is pretty much as I remember it, other than the candy store is gone.  Although, I imagine that it has changed a lot since my Grandpa moved there. 

I searched the park for hours and only managed to find a pile of modern clad and some tokens from the city carnival.

Before we left, Uncle Bill showed me a box of coins he had been saving for his grandkids.  Here was all the treasure I had been looking for: a high school class ring, an elk tooth, a roll of morgan and peace silver dollars, and a couple hand fulls of miscellaneous other old coins.  I wish I could have spent more time searching, but it was great to hear the stories about how things used to be,

My Finds Verses Dad's Finds

My finds left and Dad's finds right.

A little friendly competition is a good thing, right?  This is the our total take from the park this past Saturday.  I found a very rusty pocket knife and a handful of modern clad coins.  Besides the ancient artifact my dad found a nice hefty silver CTR ring.  Even though I had more finds, I would have to say that my Dad won this round.

Pocket Spill

A "Pocket Spill" is a term used to describe a hole where you find multiple targets (coins).  It appears that someone has spilled the contents of their pocket in one location.  Here is a picture of one such pocket spill where 23 coins came out of the same hole.  It would have been so much better if they spilled quarters instead of pennies.

Superman lost his Mojo (ring)

Superman lost his mojo and I found it. The ring which is his true base of power.

I have a goal to metal detect every day. So last night, after I tried to help my brother fix his toilet, I search the grass next to the basketball court within his condo place and within about 10 minutes pulled out this ring. It is pretty hefty, it rang up as a $.50.  Not bad for a quick search in the dark. The ring has the 925 stamp on the inside, wahoo.

Ancient Artifact?

While out metal detecting this past Saturday my Dad found what he called an "Ancient Artifact".  While I don't know if it is ancient, it is interesting.  If he had found it while exploring somewhere in Central or South America I might could believe it to be something authentic, but it was found in a local park here in Utah.  So what do you think?  Is this just some modern jewelry?

1869 Two Cents

Sometimes good things come from unlikely places. I found this to be true when metal detecting a children's play area. The sun was setting and the light was fading.  Pin pointed a target and popped out what looked like a token and I dropped it in my pocket with the rest of my finds. It was not until I got home and examined my pocket full of finds that I learned it was not a token, but instead it was an 1869 two cent.  The town in which I live was not incorporated until 1919.  It is estimated that only 2500 of these coins survive today.  Odds are that some kid raided his dad's coin collection and then dropped it in the playground.  It would have been a better find if it came out of some historic site, but regardless of where it came from I was glad to find it.

Gold Ring Fooled Me

Don't you just hate it when you find something good and then when you go home and clean it up it turns out to be junk! That is what happened to me last night. I found a ring that looked like gold with stones. It register on my White's XLT in the gold range. I tucked it away to clean when I got home. There was no hallmark stamp on inside of ring and the metal did not clean up the way gold does. Bummer!

New Detector - New Tradition

My Dad and metal detecting partner recently celebrated his 84th birthday. Normally when we go MDing, one person uses the White's xlt detector and one digs up the finds. Dad would always have me run the detector and he would do the digging. My siblings felt I was picking on Dad. So on his birthday I bought him a Garrett Ace 350 detector so we could both have one to use. Now we both dig up our own finds.
Along with a new detector, we added a new tradition. We make a stop at In & Out Drive-In and treat ourselves to a cheese burger or two.




-- Ben here done this