Treasure Hunting?

[FarmerChick]

Anyone do this?

I hit the beach each year for a vacation and many times I wanted to borrow Barb's metal detector--never used one? I always forget to take it...LOL

I saw a show about treasure hunters that go to festivals and competitions to scout for treasure and they party, scout, make tons of money and find cool artifacts. I saw the one where they did in Connecticut, scene of a union army encampment.....and they found tons of cool stuff, and valuable.

Just wondering if anyone does this type of thing. Cool !!

 

[Henrietta23]

Does sound cool! DS has an inexpensive metal detector and has found a few little things in the yard. Nothing valuable but to a 7 yo they're treasure. I wonder where in CT that encampment was.....

 

[sylvie]

We had a guy give a lecture and demonstration on metal detecting at our local library. He brought 15 different types of detectors, let us hear the beeps when running over sample objects. It was very informative.
I was thinking of renting one for a day. The roof is done and I could use it to find the stray nails, lol. Also the pins along the property lines.

 

[Henrietta23]

We had a guy give a lecture and demonstration on metal detecting at our local library. He brought 15 different types of detectors, let us hear the beeps when running over sample objects. It was very informative.
I was thinking of renting one for a day. The roof is done and I could use it to find the stray nails, lol. Also the pins along the property lines.

Oh DS did that for us too! Amazing how many nails were left behind and the places they ended up!

 

[freemotion]

I rented one to find the pins on my property line, along the busy road, and found cans, bottle caps, nails, and all kinds of metal crap. But I am not really known for my patience....

 

[k0xxx]

I did "Metal Detected" for over 25 years. I found tons of neat stuff over the years, including old coins, rings and other jewelry, Civil War Artifacts, etc. I would still be doing it if my knees would let me.

I never bought a metal detector with my own money. At 14, I borrowed a friends machine and used it until I had found enough change to buy it from him. After that, all of my subsequent detectors were paid for with items that I found (and I had quite a few, with several costing in the $1000 dollar range).

It's not as easy as it looks though. To really get good with a metal detector, you need a lot of patience and spend a lot of time really learning the machine. You will also need to dig a lot of trash in the process of learning, until you understand what the machine is telling you.

I have sold most of the items over the years, but I still have several hundred dollars face value in silver coins, some of the jewelry, and two small display cases of civil war artifacts (and one 6 lb cannon ball).

It's a good hobby and it provides some good outdoor activity. Also my kids learned a lot of history while they were involved in the hobby. I have a few photos of some of the finds and can post them later if anyone is interested.

 

[FarmerChick]

yes please post the pics when you get a chance.


I think I will definitely borrow my friends machine and try it out.
also I will do a little searching on the net to learn a bit about it all.

and try to find some good NC sites to test it out in....like there is a state park in SC we rode horses. Kings Mt. State Park...it has trails with civil war markers.....big battle between the union and rebels there. I bet that would be a great place to start searching.

 

[k0xxx]

Here are a few things that I do not have to open the safe to get to.

These are some of the silver coins. You never know what you'll find. The large coin to the right of the pile, with the green tint on part of it, is from Tibet.

Some jewelry and other gold or silver things. The fountain pen is sterling silver, and has a gold nib.

Yes, that a partial in this group. You would have thought that someone would have missed that. The buttons are Civil War era and earlier. The thing at the bottom center is, well... I have no idea what it is, but it is solid silver and weighs about 3/4 of an ounce.

I'll try to get a photo of the Civil War stuff in the display cases also.

 

[Blackbird]

Extremely impressive!

We have one that we borrowed from a friend, used it a bit, when it went off we could never find whatever it was. Found some rusty nails though..

 

[Blackbird]

Your keyboard is disgusting though.

Thought I'd throw that out there. Lol.