Back Home for a Northern Virginia visit - March 2013

March 15th - 18th, we took our metal-detecting show to northern Virginia.  We metal detected three different places.  My parents' house (shown above), a small park, and a middle school.  Here's what we found at my folks' house:

After asking a park ranger if we could have permission to search/dig at a national park, he informed us that digging in national parks was not permitted.  So, we moved on to a local middle school:

These items were found at a Northern Virginia middle school

 After a little bit of online research, we determined that this item is a Cub Scout neckerchief slide.



The next day, we braved the bone-chilling cold and winds, searching a local city park playground:

While searching a playground, we hit a "hot spot" right at the bottom of a slide, which is where we found most of these coins.  Note the penny with the cross cut out of it.  We also found another penny like this one later in the year at a different location.

One of our favorite items we have found so far, this Spongebob Squarepants character, "Patrick," is made of pewter and belongs to a special edition Monopoly game.  We typically  find lots of stray buttons at playgrounds.

Small-Town Park - Feb. 11, 2013

February 11th, we decided to go to another park in town that we had never been to before.  The park is out of the way and surrounded by a small wooded area.   It also has a basketball court that we decided to detect around, because we heard that bball courts were good places to look.  As you can see, if you ever need some spare change, look around the edges of basketball courts.

Also in the picture is some sort of lock (a friend suggested it could be from a car trunk), and a weight to balance a car tire.  Nothing too exciting, but we did find a nice place to re-visit later on.

 On this same day, we went back to another local park in a nearby town, locating the items shown in the picture above.  Sometimes you find rock-shaped metal mystery pieces as shown near the top left.  We keep them to one day clean up and hope to find something interesting inside.  If you notice on the bottom left, we found someone's dental floss.  We later found out that one of these pennies is a 1914 Wheat penny, valued between $5 and $25, depending upon the condition.  One more unusual button (with the four holes) and another zipper pull is also lying in the picture above. 

Back Home, at School - Feb. 10, 2013

Feb. 10th, we returned to one of our local schools.  As we are writing this entry several weeks after we found these items, you might be surprised to know how many bullets we find at schools.  On this day, we found two unfired .22 shells.  We also find a lot of broken zipper pulls and snaps.   There must be a lot of people walking around, trying to hold up their pants.

Also note the neat heart-shaped flag pin we found.

We returned to the fishing pier area for our final day of metal detecting, since we had good luck there previously.  We ended up having a fun day and digging up a lot of interesting finds.  From looking at the pictures above, you can see all the interesting pieces we located.

Picture #2 is our first silver item we have located, a small flower earring.  Picture #1 shows all of the findings for the day, which as usual have been strategically placed in a pleasing array by PPP, even turning a found piece of wire into a whale and adding a washer to make its eyeball.  We even located a couple of large items this time, including a pry bar and a can of partially-used silly-string.

Finally, in Picture #3, we located this mystery object, which on the outside looks like a rock formation which was formed over many years.  We were hoping the metal inside would be something unusual, like an old coin, so we took this mystery item home.  We soaked it in vinegar for about a week, taking it out every day and chipping away the debris as it loosened a little at a time.  As we began to chip away the outer coating, we began to speculate what was underneath.  To find out, tune in to a future post, entitled "Uncovering the Mystery Item."  (coming soon).

An Unusual Find Day - Feb. 5, 2013

Today, we started our detecting in the early afternoon.  After getting a slow start due to all our previous day's sightseeing, for the first time we decided to drive several miles down the beach toward a large fishing pier.  The pier is located on a public beach away from the hotels.

We were surprised at all the coins that people seem to lose on the public beach.  While digging at one signal, we located three quarters and several other coins, all in one spot.  Unfortunately, all of them were "clad" coins (no silver).  However, we did get one of our most exciting finds to date -- PPP dug up an Eisenhower Dollar!  Not that they are rare, but it is exciting to find one, considering the fact that you rarely ever get one in change nowadays.

The best we can figure out, the long black item in the picture is some sort of fishing lure or anchor, which has little silver rhinestones all over it.   We also dug up a small metal button, but nothing else of any real value that day.  We won't even take time to post our findings on February 6th, since it rained all day and all we found was a penny before we gave up.  So.....we hopped in the car and went shopping.

Back to the Beach - Feb. 4, 2013

After a couple weeks of cold weather and snow, we decided to return to Myrtle Beach for a second stay.  Of course, we can do that because we're retired.  Once again, we had a lot of fun at the beach, but we're not going to tell you about all that because this blog is about metal-detecting!  So we made sure to make time each day practicing our hobby.

On February 4th, we located the items shown above, which should have also included a nickel, but somehow didn't show up in this photo.  Maybe we accidentally used it for sales tax on lunch?

Returning to Same Park - January 29, 2013

After having pretty good luck the previous day, we returned to the same park, which is about twenty minutes away from our house.  The long item shown is a palm pilot stylus.  We also located a neat-looking metal button, three quarters, five dimes, and eleven pennies.....and the usual beer cap.

I have determined that if there are four hundred billion coins in this world, that half of them are located underneath the ground, which you will see in my future posts.

We are now up to $3.13 in money..... enough to buy a small coffee at Starbucks.

New Park - January 28, 2013

Rule #3 of Metal Detecting:  Always fill in the holes you dig, and try to make them look the same as they did before you started digging.  This usually requires a sharp digging tool, where you make a half-circle straight down, then fold the sod over in one piece to locate the item you are looking for.  Most of the time, this works fairly well.  But not always.  Thus, it leads us to Rule #4:  Buy a PINPOINTER.  A pin-pointer is shaped like a small, thin flashlight, and is about 8 inches long.  This item is very handy, as I will explain later.  The only drawback is that it costs about $130.00.   So after obtaining a second mortgage, we broke down and bought one.

The pin-pointer is placed in the hole after digging out the sod plug, and it helps to locate your target easier.  This helps to avoid over-digging.  The signal gets louder and more intense the closer you get to the object you are looking for.  So the metal detector finds the general area, and the pin-pointer zeroes in on it exactly.

Today's find included:  one dime, one quarter, one nickel, eleven pennies, a screw, two fake pearls, and the common pull-tab.  We are now officially up to $1.77.... Working toward that Big Mac combo.

Our BIGGEST find yet - January 16, 2013

Three days later we returned to the picnic shelter where there was also a playground next to it.  Shortly after starting, we found our biggest item to date:  a horseshoe.  I have no desire to see the horse that has a hoof big enough to fit this shoe.  Of course, it makes sense finding a horseshoe since it is only steps away from a horseshoe pit.  The funny thing is that this one was located underneath about an inch of grass and sod.  Figure out how that happened.

We also found four pennies, a dime, a nut, and a small green charm in the shape of a heart. 

Our total findings in monetary value to-date are:  $1.26    We are now able to buy a double hamburger from McDonald's if we want to.

Picnic Shelter Detecting - January 15, 2013

Another rainy day.  And a new site.  A local picnic shelter.  People who have never metal detected before do not realize how much trash that metal detectors locate while digging.  Rule #2 of Metal Detecting:  Always throw your trash away.  Thus, you are doing Society a service. 

So far, we have thrown away:  glass, nails, crushed soda cans, bullets (fired and not fired), and many other sharp and/or dangerous objects.  This makes parks and other play areas safer for children and adults. 

This particular day, all we found of value was a penny and a tiny diamond(ish) stud earring.  We later confirmed that it is gold.  Not much demand for one tiny broken earring, though.  It's still raining, and PPP looks ridiculous digging holes with an umbrella in her hand, so we're going home!

Rainy and Dark - January 13, 2013

Sometimes you have to be a little sneaky when you metal-detect.  You often feel as though people are watching you or that you are doing something wrong.  So we decided to go to a local school late one evening, right before dark, so as not to attract attention.  We found an area where we began to get several signals for coins.  But, the night was cut short due to a heavy, cold rain that was beginning to come down.

I was ready to continue a while longer, but PPP was complaining because she didn't have an umbrella and her hair was starting to frizz up.  Rule #1 of Metal Detecting:  Don't carry an umbrella. 

Back in Virginia - January 13, 2013

After arriving back in Virginia, and still not knowing where to go to detect metal things, we returned to our first detecting spot at the local creek.  We found four pennies, a dime, and a flashlight.  To our surprise, we gave it a twist, and it lit right up!  This was a real surprise, and to make it more special, I prefer to think of it as belonging to somebody from 1902, who was looking for worms by the creek.  Just think:  a hundred and eleven-year-old flashlight.....maybe.  Or, it may have been dropped more recently.  But it WAS buried at least two inches down in the dirt!

Beach Hunting

It's now about three or four days since our first hunt.... The weather has been very cold in Virginia, which doesn't make for very good metal-detecting.  So we've decided to go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to find some valuables!

We metal-detected the beach on January 10th and 11th, in a quest to recoup our metal-detector investment.....which so far has only been reduced by one penny.  sigh......  January 10th, we found the items which can be seen in the top two pictures.  The first item we found was a penny.  We were now up to two cents!  As we began to think we might not ever find anything other than a penny, we suddenly discovered our first coin other than a penny, which was a NICKEL.  Pinpointer Princess (PPP) yelled out, "Cool!  We found a nickel!"  The nickel soon led to a dime, and the dime led to a quarter.  Meanwhile, we also spied a real shark's tooth lying on the sand, and scooped it up......and a couple of shells.

On the way back to the hotel, we found a lead-based Civil War soldier.  We also found the first of dozens of tent stakes, which we eventually threw away. 

The second day on the beach, we found another crummy tent stake, a cheap hoop earring, and some poor kid's McDonald's toy.  They're probably still crying from losing this.  But it's mine now!  Also, we found two more quarters.  We are now up to 92 cents in findings.... I had better get all this money in the bank so it can start growing interest.  Maybe by the time I'm 70, it'll be up to 93 cents.

Our First Monetary Find, January 3, 2013

My Blog Name is "Digger Gran."  After taking an early retirement from work, I decided I wanted a hobby to occupy my spare time.  So, I decided that I would metal detect.  My trusty sidekick (or wife), better known in this blog as "Pinpointer Princess," gave me my metal detector for Christmas. 

After waiting for the weather to warm, we ventured out on our first metal detecting adventure.  We went to a nearby creek, having no idea what we were doing, and began to detect.  We heard dozens of beeps, whistles, dings, and dongs, not knowing what any of them meant.  So after about 2 hours of walking and digging, we were rewarded with our first monetary find, which is pictured above...... a PENNY! 

First Dig December 25th 2012

After receiving my first metal detector on Christmas eve, I had to try it out the next day.  Not knowing what I was doing, I ventured off to the back yard and found 3 pieces of crap. What fun....