You never know

This medieval cross recovered in Smiths Cove on Oak Island Nova Scotia is one of my favorite metal detecting finds because of what it is and where it was found. 

I will always remember the day I found and it pretty sums up todays blog, you never know what you have detected until you dig it up which is one of my favorite things about the hobby of metal detecting. 

Another pull tab or a Canadian once cent, nope a medieval lead artifact in North America.

Many of my favorite top pocket finds in the past were recovered in the most unlikely of places and often recovered after the most dullest pieces of junk were placed in the trash pocket of my finds pouch.

I am fond of saying to find the treasure you have to go thru the trash and for good reason, treasure hides and can found in the most unlikely places. 

Some of the sequences of finds I have had the pleasure of seeing are mind boggling, Seminole Indian war gold coins after bottle caps, a magnificent Spanish 1715 fleet emerald treasure ring after a flattened beer and countless modern diamond rings recovered after corroding one cent coins.

You never know what you have found until you dig it up so never walk away from any area because you assume an area is just full of more undesirable targets.

It is so easy to move away from an area with a high number of nuisance targets, for example pennies, pull tabs, bottle caps, nails, fishing weights or can slaw. 

When I go metal detecting I insure I put an X thru an area even if I do not recover anything of value because I want to know I left nothing behind for the next person willing to do what it takes to find treasure amongst the trash.

I love searching areas people using metal detectors are likely to skip over and ironically I call it searching for diamonds in the rough. 

Getting down and dirty at a trashy site will lead to some amazing recoveries if you know how to search those kind of areas using your eyes and ears instead of targets ID numbers to help you find treasure amongst the trash.

Clear and subtle signal responses learned from experiencing detecting sites with large amounts of targets will insure you never miss a valuable find in the future.

Look at "Dig busy" sites as areas to learn the craft while getting a good work out at the same time. 

Use a small size search coil to help you winkle good finds from trashy sites to help isolate individual unwanted and desirable targets, always think target separation over target depth at these type of sites.

Some of the hardest good non ferrous targets to detect in trashy areas are relatively shallow targets being masked by both ferrous (Iron) and non ferrous junk. 

Something to think about the next time you become frustrated recovering large amounts of the same nuisance targets and ponder moving away from an area.

There is treasure to be found in unlikely places at the most unlikely of times, but still the majority of beach treasure hunters head to likely places at likely times.

Treasure is where you find it, previous experiences have taught me that treasure is often barely hidden in plain site waiting for people to take a chance on searching areas people assume hold nothing of value. 

www.garydrayton.com