January 2019, I’ve been retired now for 2 months. Hmm… what to do? I’ve always had an interest in looking for old things but you know how it is, work, eat, sleep, go on vacation with the wife, repeat. So, I bought a beginner’s metal detector (from a not to mention company). After 2 months it wasn’t working right anymore so I sent it in to get repaired. A friend of mine let me use his extra detector, from the same company. A couple of weeks later, I still hadn’t received my detector back (had to be sent from Germany to England to get repaired) I was invited to a detector rally. Off I went with my borrowed detector. After an unsuccessful day, at least for me, we all sat down for something to eat and talk. The friend who had loaned me his detector was sitting next to me and asked when I would get my detector back. After explaining that my detector was making a world trip to get repaired and that I was getting frustrated about the whole affair he said talk to Christoph about Minelab EQUINOX. So, after talking to Christoph I decided to buy an EQUINOX 600.
After receiving my new EQUINOX 600 in the mail, Christoph and I met a couple of times for `training’. So now a couple of months later, my auto is being repaired, I have a rental car that’s not going to cost me anything, just don’t put to many miles on it said the repair shop owner. Okay. It’s 08:15 in the morning and my auto won’t be ready before 16:00, what do I do now? Fired up my computer and started looking for places not too far away to go detecting. That looks promising, load everything up and drive away. As I got to the location, I see that the picture in the internet does not represent what I see on the ground. What to do? I remember passing a small path on the side of a field that boarded on the forest. Turn around, drive back. Put all of your equipment on, start up the EQUINOX, fix the settings. Multi Freq, Field 2, iron blocked out, 50 tones, recovery speed 3. Of course, even though you have iron blocked out, the EQUINOX finds those old square hand made nails because they have a composite of metal in them. And they come in with a high tone and 16 on the scale. You have to dig those tones because a lot of other things come in at 16 with those high tones. So, one nail, two nails, three nails, aluminum just to throw you off, a beer bottle cap. You get the picture? Keep walking, keep swinging, keep digging, keep hoping.
So, the next 16, high tone, 10-12 inches deep. Okay let’s dig the next nail. In goes the shovel, make a nice plug, turn it over. What’s that….not a nail, hmm…gold colored aluminum. Ah…. no not aluminum, to heavy for aluminum, and to firm as well. Scrape the dirt of the back side, I can’t read what’s written as its in Latin. Turn it over to the front, 1744 is the first recognizable thing I see. Wait a minute…..this is a gold coin……THIS IS A GOLD COIN!! I can’t believe it; I found a gold coin! Wow. Okay, put it away, search the hole again and the immediate ground around. Nope nothing more. Start detecting again, my mind is still whirling around that gold coin. 10 meters farther down the path, beep, go back, beep 11. Shovel in, plug out, what’s that? No, it can’t be silver!! Yes it can be, yes it is! Within 10 minutes and 10 meters I found a gold Ducat from Holland from 1744 and a silver 4 Pfennig coin from 1780. A day I will never forget.
