Artifacts - Bag it and Tag it!

I am always amazed at the number and quality of finds in the world of the metal detecting hobbyist! Coins, artifacts, and who-knows-what come up everywhere; spoons, tokens, hardware, bullets and shotgun shell remains to name a few. All very impressive sleuthing by folks that take history seriously and bring many inorganic remains of a previous people back into the public domain. People who were going about their everyday lives, without an inkling that people of the future, 100 or 150 or even 200 or 500 years in the future would be interested in the mundane aspects of their technology and lives.

One thing I have in common with archaeologists is being conscious of an artifact's context with the environment it is recovered in. Most metal detecting hobbyists, and bottle collectors are NOT interested in context; they are more impressed with the object itself, more than they are interested in the precise location and orientation of the object. Or even in general terms. This is a shame, because, archaeologists are correct when they say the object's piece of the puzzle, or context, is lost forever once it is removed from it's resting place. 

Simple, home-made tools: computer-printed in and cm scale and North reference on the handle of a cleaning brush

Fun is fun and I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I've seen literally thousands of items of all kinds, including lead musket balls, pieces of Spanish armor, and Seminole copper adornments, end up on display. However, not one of those item's locations, orientation, depth found, weight or pictures of it "in situ" were recorded. They are artifacts to be amazed at, but their story has been erased with the shove of a trowel, and yanked from history, it's narrative or origin never to be recovered.

Handheld GPS unit, or the GPS app in your phone will give you geo location data

Now, metal detecting, the hobby, as more and more and more "I'm new to the hobby!!!" people enter the ranks, is becoming more and more and more competitive. Newbies asking online about the "best" places to hunt, are more and more and more being met with crickets chirping in the background and a lonely blinking cursor. And many of the old guard are looking for new happy hunting grounds, as most of the "easy" finds have been vacuumed up in previous years, when metal detecting was not as well known or practiced, using machines that were expensive, and users that would not talk about anything involved.

computer-printed size reference scale on my Garrett Pro Pointer II

So, here we have a perfect foil for the act of documenting metal detecting finds, even for the important or amazing looking artifacts that may tell us something new about the history of that very ground that hobbyist is digging in! Take the time to record it and it's location would seem to be inadvisable in the competitive scheme of things; what if someone finds my "secret" spot??? What if archaeologists come in and make it off-limits to us??? What if an asteroid hits the Earth and we have no more places to hunt???

Keeping a record of significant finds is not a liability, it is an asset! No one is asking you to take out an ad and publicize your find...it is your find, pure and simple. However, one day, when your young son or daughter or even grandchildren, wander over to you with it, and ask "What's THIS Grandpa?" what are you gonna' say? Maybe you'll say, "I don't know, let's take it to the museum and find out!"

Use a simple and cheap, pocket rolling ruler for depth measurements

Once there, you'll pull out the dusty record of the find; geographic location, picture of it in the dig, the orientation to north, a size reference, ruler or scale of some kind, the date and time you found it, and the object itself. The museum thinks it may be a piece of bronze steam boat hardware, and a local archaeologist decides to visit the location of your find, the shore of a small river, using your record of the object's orientation, locates rotted wooden pilings in the mud. Apparently there was an unknown steamboat wharf and trading post at this location...forever unknown if it was not for YOUR find!

I think keeping records of significant finds will label us all as responsible metal detecting hobbyists, and not the looters of history we are sometimes made out to be. The tools to do so are not expensive and the work involved is minimal. If only we'll just do it! Time will tell if it was worth the effort or not.

Life's a Beach - Electronic Beachcombing

My best memories, the candy-colored ones you remember most, are created while metal detecting along Florida's beaches. The morning sunrise, the color of hot coals, coupled with a cool salt breeze off the endless blue-green Atlantic ocean, just a few short hours before low tide; this is my nirvana. Looking north and south, very few people are evident as far as you can see through the morning mist and salt-spray. This bodes well for a few hours of contemplative solitude in searching for the sea's hidden offerings.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on my Favorite Beach

The invisible cone of electromagnetic energy, enmeshing the search coil, pulsing and reversing polarities so fast, it approaches magic for anyone without an engineering degree to comprehend. And at the low frequencies it operates, it penetrates wet sand, clay and limestone like a bright light through frosted glass. Modern 21st Century technology has gone one step further in coupling ultra high-speed computer capabilities into the mix, able to examine and analyze the electromagnetic flux to the point that it supplies data that almost reveals what lies hidden below the coil. With practice and experience, it is still your decision to partake or ignore. But ignore certain signals at your peril...there are many items that aim to muddy the water and hide that Spanish gold coin, that heavy silver chain, or that 1- Carat diamond ring. A piece of rusted iron will obliterate the signal of a close proximity silver coin. You never know!

A heavy .925 Italian silver chain I pulled from the clay hard-pan

I detect a historic coast in Florida, not to say all Florida coasts are NOT historic, but this coast yields 19th Century copper sheathing peeled from a long-wrecked schooner, alongside a twisted beryllium copper spacecraft component that made it halfway to orbit before it's booster exploded.

The tops of shell piles poking out of the sand-good omen

The digging is easy, if you have the right tools (I've seen an inexperienced detectorists using a knife, trying to recover a target from wet sand) but persistence is not. Wander down to the local fishing pier on the public beach, and you'll see literally dozens of people with metal detectors, wandering around in circles, almost interfering with each other as they pass each other. Frankly there are no longer enough beach-goers to support the hordes of detectorists convinced they are going to become self-supporting within a few warm afternoons at the beach.

Lone water-hunter looking for treasure with his metal detector

Most good finds are hard-won, gridding a piece of sand miles from the pier and crowded public beach, seeking the right conditions and the right place, and the right time where something good lies. Take a deep bite of sand with your stainless-steel beach scoop and take a look at the sample of material you've removed. Dark grey clay...very little sand. Hard-pan. The bottom of the bottom of the sand all blown away by Hurricane Matthew months before, reveals the stopping point for all lost coins, jewelry and artifacts. Items lost 30 or 40 or even 50 years ago reside here. This is what beach metal detecting is all about...knowing the secrets, understanding the sea, and taking advantage of the right conditions right away before the door closes again in a few days, or a few hours.

A 1942 Wheat Cent recoverd from the clay hard-pan of the beach

A few more hours of this and I'll grab some fish and chips at the pier and watch the ships sail by, before heading home and looking over my treasures.

Some beach finds from the pouch-notice old encrusted coins