Please welcome Richard Lincoln to Treasure Talk

I would like to welcome Richard Lincoln to Treasure Talk. Last year, I was on a detecting trip in Croatia with Richard and he will be writing a blog series about this for you all to enjoy. But, before we get to this, here is an introduction from Richard about himself and how he got started indetecting:

Where it all started…

I was born and bought up on Canvey Island, a very much sub-tropical paradise located in the Thames delta, some 30 miles from London, U.K. In my formative years I would spend most of my free time fishing off of Canvey sea wall, enjoying the splendid view across the estuary to Kent whilst attempting to catch something big enough to call dinner. 

In the early 18^th century the Government passes the land reclamation act which lead to Dutch engineers building sea defences around Canvey. At the foot of these sea defences were large rocks and it was these rocks that claimed many lead fishing weights. When the rocks were exposed at low tide my friends and I would clamber over these rocks looking for lost weights. We generally found more weights than we needed and would sell the surplus to the local fishing tackle shop, I think we used to get paid about 5p per weight.  I realised that more people would lose weights through snapping off when casting out and that these weights would be very quickly covered over by the silty mud that surrounds Canvey. What I needed was a metal detector so when Christmas came around it was the item at the top of my want list. And I got one. With this machine I was able to find many, many more weights than my friends and what is more, because they hadn’t been battered in the rocks I was able to sell them for a premium. My pocket money was very much boosted by this seemingly never ending revenue stream.

One day whilst out on the mud flats searching for this grey treasure I found a coin, a 1918 silver Florin that had been drilled for use as a pendent. It was my Uncle who told me that the silver coin was 100% silver and that the local jeweller would probably buy it off me for its silver value.  I shot off to the jewellers where the coin was weighed and the jeweller offered me £1.87 for it.  This seemed a small fortune to me, my pocket money at the time was 25p per week.  The coin was sold, I was temporarily wealthy!   The money was soon invested at the sweet shop.

It didn’t take me long to realise that this wonderful machine was capable of finding much more than the lead weights I had been searching for. I visited the site of the travelling fairground that visited the Island annually. I searched for and found the coins that people had lost there. It seemed that the stream of coins was never ending but eventually the site ceased to yield the money so other fairground sites were visited and the money flowed in. I was 15 years old and I was hooked!

My first machine was a BFO machine, primitive technology but very effective for what I wanted to find. Next came a VLF machine which was a revelation to me, now I had discrimination. The real change came many years later when I bought a Minelab Sovereign. 

Compared to what I had been using this was fantastic. I had discrimination, extra depth and I could use it in foreshore areas with a huge level of stability.  It’s fair to say that the Sovereign transformed my metal detecting. Since then I have used the whole of the BBS and FBS range of machines and today the CTX 3030 is my go to machine. I’ve transgress a few times over the years when hype and popular opinion has swayed me onto other makes but I’ve always come back to using Minelab machines. They can do exactly what other manufacturer’s machines can do but other manufacturers machines don’t seem to be able to do what the Minelab machines can.