Women Of The Hobby -

I've been metal detecting a long time; a little more than 50 -years to date and I have to say, I really like the trend of more women getting into the hobby. Many years ago, you'd see the occasional lady swinging a coil in the dry sand, but it was rare. Women have more developed hearing than men, and that may account for their fairly rapid mastery of metal detecting, or at least the tones, although my wife says "I don't know about THAT,"  after pretty well besting me on various finds throughout the last 7 or 8 years that she has been my metal detecting partner. 

My wife, Patti, detected a 1926 Model-T Ford worm gear

I know quite a few of the women hunters in the Central Florida Metal Detecting Club, and some women who are independent hunters, and most of them are very proficient with their machines. Many take part in the CFMDC SEARCH TEAM which assists local police departments seeking critical evidence at a crime scene, while gaining experience in an aspect of metal detecting few detectorists will ever see.

CFMDC Search Team members Joanne, Nanette, Patti and Carolyn at a police hydration station

I do a monthly presentation at CFMDC meetings we call a "Tech Talk" where we try to present some useful information (a.k.a. News You Can Use) to new members, because new members may be also new to the hobby as well. I've been boring members for going on 3-years or so now, with 10-minute sound bites on search coil selection, proper digging techniques, properly pinpointing a target and what to do if you attract flying saucers with your pulse machine. Stuff like that. One of the most interesting talks I think by far was one that I did not present. I asked two of the experienced lady hunters, Kathy and Patrica, to do a tech talk for the substantial number of women in the club; Kathy on successful beach-hunting scoop techniques for ladies with their less developed upper body strength, and Patrica on use and ground balancing of the Garrett "carrot" pin-pointer. 

Kathy, visible for miles along  the beach, digging a target in the sub-tropical Atlantic beach

Their presentations were awesome. to say the least, and I think it was another affirmation that women have "arrived" in metal detecting, when ladies have enough tenure in the hobby to help other ladies understand the technical aspects and techniques of this sometimes complex hobby. Women seem to listen a little better when owners of lost property talk...we men are action oriented NOW LET'S LIGHT THIS CANDLE AND GO! whereas women seem to be more information oriented...which is weird because in my experience women don't seem to listen at all. Perhaps when gold and jewels enter the conversation, they are more attentive than when listening to me complain about pretty much everything.

One woman detectorist, Tish, created her own metal detecting group, "The Forgotten History Hunters" and friends, gaining permissions by gaining trust of homeowners on historic private properties in Central Florida, and recovering many historic items that would have never seen the light of day again.

Carolyn and Tish of "The Forgotten History Hunters" of Central Florida

Overall, I think it is an amazing trend, with more women becoming involved in the hobby as time goes on. I also like the trend because I don't get in trouble for coming home late while metal detecting anymore...she's right beside me!

LOCALLY HISTORIC FINDS -

Most metal detectorists are big fans of history; older coins, artifacts, and relics are a big thrill to dig! The big draw of these kinds of objects, is that they provide a direct line to the people of the somewhat distant (to us) past here in the United States, going back a few hundred years or so. England and other European locales feature items that go back several hundred to several THOUSAND years! To think another human being in another time and another place saw what you see and touched what you now hold is powerful magic! This is sometimes why a metal detector is sometimes refereed to as a "time machine."

Everything else is hand held now, why not a pocket time-machine?

With a great deal of local, shallow (1" to 15" deep), artifacts being recovered by metal detector users, here in the United States, that means a lot of the past is being returned to the public domain, that is IF users bring the item into the light, and not just marvel at it, toss it in the "finds" box, then head back into the field for more. I would urge everyone who finds what appears to be a unique artifact or relic to take it to your local museum or historic society and see if you can get some info from the folks that deal with historic artifacts on a daily basis. Maybe even loan it to them for a while, as having it sitting on your shelf somewhere puts the item pretty much right back where it was found, out of the light of day again. Your find may even re-write some of the local history; perhaps an unknown colony or fort or railway terminal or countless other things existed there that was not known until your find came back into the light.

Exterior of Florida Indian Pottery Fragment

I've found several artifacts while metal detecting that were NOT metal at all. While digging a deep target under a tree, not far from an old steamboat stop on a Central Florida lake, I hit what I THOUGHT was a piece of rock. I pulled it out of the hole, tossed it aside and continued digging down to a piece of iron so rusted, all that was left was red dirt.

Pottery Shard, Burned Interior

 

I filled in the hole, and grabbed the chunk that came out of the hole and was winding up to throw it into the lake, when I noticed incised marks on the "rock." I turned it over in my hand and saw what looked like a layer of burned material on the opposite side. I suddenly realized it was a piece of Florida Indian pottery! Made by someone who never knew electricity, or automobiles, cellphones, airplanes, television or even imagined them! And I would never have found it, and probably it would never have seen the light of day again had my "time machine" not locked onto a conductive target just below it. It now rests in a museum, where it belongs, for everyone, not just me.

AS SEEN ON TV! - Showing Our Stuff to the World

Our title is probably not familiar to you if you have been born within the last 30-years, or maybe even 40-years. Once upon a time, television was considered the peak of our industrial and technical prowess, and to be seen on black and white television was remarkable indeed. If you managed to get a coveted bleacher audience spot on a local kid's cartoon show, complete with it's own host like "Bozo The Clown" or "Ranger Andy," after the show, you'd be a very minor kid celebrity, getting free packs of candy cigarettes from your admirers at school and the playground. 

The same thing happened with other products advertised on "the tube" in the mid-20th Century...toys, games, clothing, kitchen appliances and so on bore the mark "AS SEEN ON TV!" and even if you had NEVER seen it on TV, it made a real impression on you...it had been scan-lines on a television screen and that made it famous, regardless of whether it worked as advertised, or worked at all. 

Today, we not only have ultra-high definition color TV on everything from our cellphones to a wall-sized screen at home, we all now have our own integrated, digital TV station and motion picture studio in our personal device software, a truly democratized entertainment system that ANYONE can take part in...creating prerecorded video programs or hand-held live-broadcast transmissions, better in quality than some multi-million dollar production companies of only a few years ago!

How does this tie in to metal detecting? Especially here in the United States? Probably one word; YouTube. Maybe two words; YouTube AND Facebook. Where once there were a few metal detecting video producers, and I admit I am still one of them, there are now literally thousands of detectorists showing their finds on their own channels and Facebook pages. I like watching some of them myself, as an interested hunter in my own right, and a lot of those channels have something to add to my knowledge of the hobby. But "promoting" the hobby is probably no longer necessary...any more than the last 100 fishermen surrounding the last shrinking pond on earth needs to be posting "the fun of fishing!" videos to promote fishing! 

My point is, with so many metal detecting enthusiasts posting so many videos of various hunts and digs while digging so many historic artifacts from the ground, this increasingly publicly visible activity has drawn the unwelcome attention of various groups and agencies interested in either curtailing, or eliminating our hobby, plus has them collectively seeking video proof of the metal detecting public's possible careless indifference in recovering and/or handling relics. I'm NOT saying anyone is purposely violating the law or being careless...far from it! But I am saying we are being watched, and at least one international organization, who would be more than happy to see metal detecting shown in the same light as a major criminal enterprise, has mentioned the hobby as a source of archaeological malfeasance, and referencing Social Media as the source!

On the darker side of this, I've seen the results of people who view social media metal detecting posts and videos, who have profit, not history, in mind, and are happy to locate, invade and tear up a featured site looking for possible coins, jewelry or artifacts in a one-time, devil-may-care escapade, thus leaving the site off-limits to the rest of us who practice the metal detecting code of ethics in the lurch.

Now, like I said earlier, many of the metal detecting social media posts and videos are well done and interesting. I know of several sites and YouTube video channels that I anxiously AWAIT new episodes or posts to see what my friends and other hunters have found in their area. What are the answers to this issue of us all occasionally baring our sometimes dirty laundry to everyone outside the hobby?

To me, an immediate improvement would be to refrain from verbally or visually identifying the area that is being detected! In the excitement of the hunt, I've heard a few video creators identify EXACTLY where they are, sometimes mentioning it again through several episodes of an entertaining and well done video of their hunt. That's like putting a billboard up on your site DIG HERE!

Another improvement would be to not show an out-of-hand recovery you are digging...yea, your gonna' cover it up later, but for now, it looks like a drag-line project...the anti-detecting community LOVES these images! I'd love to see your find, but, unless you are cutting a perfect plug on-camera, and replacing it seamlessly, try not to display it. I've done this myself countless times, finally realizing, although I've cleaned up my hole and put everything back the way I found it, it still looked like a small construction site on my video when I was recovering something fairly large.

Well enough complaining and the gnashing of teeth here. I hope you will take my thoughts in the manner in which I made them...just trying to keep us all off the endangered detectorists list for as long as possible and maybe beating the naysayers at their own game!

Cheers!