I have been pretty busy lately, my job has been going 10 hours a day pretty steadily, I am getting my dads house and yard ready to sell, but last week my son for fathers day bought me a metal detector, it is a pilot 125, which is a huge step up from the toy I had before. So I have taken it out to the yard three times to practice using it before I go to a public place and make a fool of myself. Its coil seems to pick things up better on one side than the other, the first thing I picked up was a zinc penny, then a bottle cap, a pull tab from a pop or beer can. I spent about half an hour and got a penny? well I may not be the sharpest spoon in the drawer but I am patient, the next time the first thing I found was nickle, common date, but I was encouraged, if I keep finding 5 times better value each time I will be doing pretty good after a while, I also found an old bolt, a wire from the kids 4th of July sparklers. The third time I took it out was this afternoon, I am getting better at pinpointing the metal, found another nickle, then got a strong reading for coins, I ended up digging down about ten inches, and pulling up some sort of soft metal about twelve by three inches, not sure what kind of metal it is, It does not register under Iron, zinc nickel or aluminum. The strange thing is that our yard was once part of a cornfield, when we first moved in, digging the garden I found old cobs, where this metal came from I do not know. after that I found a clad dime, so my curve went from finding 5 times the previous value to three times, still I am on an upward curve. Back in the early 70s a neighborhood friend and I went in on renting a metal detector, we found lots of things, he used it much more than I did, but still gave me a share of the loot he found, this is still sort of fun, I plan to check out my dads property before I sell it, he built a bathroom on the house back before I could remember it, I have heard that old outhouse locations are prime places to find interesting things with a metal detector. His house was built in 1919 by a man they called hamburger John, my dad and mom contracted to purchase the house in 1955, as a child I remember digging in the yard so after over 50 years I will still be digging in the yard!
Iam sure there are many who will never know the fun this toy can bring as they feel they are above the use of one. Ive owned one for over forty years and each time i use it i still get the childish thril that it gave me the first time i dug a coin. You never forget the feel of finding your very first silver coin no matter its amount in coin value. Happy hunting.
Almost forgot be sure you do check over the old homeplace as the coins and some other things you will find will be priceless to you in the future. Also the new owner will not let you look after the sell if he she is like most today. My moms yard yielded me 5 giant peenys that even tttoday i find joy in looking at and can see in my mind the place that each was found. Its one of the best memories of the farm i have today.
