Occasionally my wife and I walk the trail around a small lake in one of our local parks. Recently we noticed that the park maintenance people had cleared some of the dense brush under a small grove of old trees near the path. I had never been able to detect under the trees because of the underbrush. Later I returned to the park to detect the newly cleared area. I checked the EMI and ground balanced my Equinox 800 before I started to slowly sweep the new area. When I got a clear signal with a VDI of 13, I suspected that I had found a beaver tail pull tab from an old soda can, but dug the target anyway. Much to my surprise, I dug out a very dark corroded disk the size of a nickel. When I brushed off the dirt, I could barely see the outline of a buffalo on the coin. Even though the date was worn off, I was thrilled because I had never found a buffalo nickel during my 14 years of detecting! I did a short happy dance in celebration. When I calmed down, I continued to detect the area and got a good solid penny signal which turned out to be a 1944 wheat sheaf. I continued to hunt the area and had a solid signal with a VDI of 25. As I dug the coin from the dirt, I could see the unmistakable sheen of a silver coin. This time it was a 1935 mercury dime. I did another happy dance to celebrate finding three of the oldest coins I had ever found in the park, including the buffalo nickel that had been on my life-long bucket list. One of the lessons I learned from my successful hunt was to always be on the lookout for newly opened areas of an old park that hadn’t been detected before.
Michael - UK
