I took my friend JoJo to Roxbury, CT to hunt what I’ve dubbed the button site. So named because I had dug 14 buttons there, along with a CT Copper, pewter spoon and other colonial miscellany the week before.
It’s a really cool site, and I had only hit a small part of it. There are acres of old farmland, now wooded, with rock walls everywhere, and after hitting this spot, I was anxious to explore more of the area, either then or at a later date.
Bears Bears Bears!!!
After a decade of trapsing around in the woods of New England, I finally saw my first Bear(s). I was hunting a spot up in Kent, CT with my friend Kevin D. Kevin went to go hunt down in the meadow, and I decided not to because it was too sunny. When he came back to the top of the meadow, we were talking, and he suddenly says “Hey, whats that? Is that a bear?” I looked down into the meadow, and sure enough it was a bear, not only that, but about 5 seconds later, another bear climbed down from a small tree right next to it. Kevin had just been detecting the area minutes before that. I don’t know that they would have bothered him, but still a little scary to see a bear (or two) at any time. They weren’t cubs, but they were young.
We decided it was best to move on, but Kevin was so nice to point out that he did not have to run faster than the bears, just faster than me–thanks Kev.
If you don’t subscribe to American Digger Magazine, then you missed the article I wrote titled “A Detectorist’s Dilemma” which was published in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue. So now that my ethical obligations to the magazine have been met, and the issue has run its course–well mostly, because we all know that American Digger NEVER…
So I got this package delivered a few weeks back, and it said Made in France on the box. A friend said that perhaps there was a little French man inside, so I checked. Nope, no French dude, but there was a new XP Deus–WooHoo!!!
I’ve been wanting to get this machine for a while, but I’ve always been in love with my E-trac. Seriously, I love my E-trac. I think it’s an awesome machine, but my age is starting to catch up with me. After a few hours swinging, my arm starts to hurt (a lot). Against my better judgment, I just keep on swinging anyway. I tell myself lies like “You’re building muscle”, and “It’s still early in the season, you’re just not used to it yet”, but the reality is they are just lies I’m telling myself.
Read More “My New Machine: A Hard Decision with a Happy Ending” »
It’s been a cold winter, and I don’t think I need to rehash my feelings about cold weather, but for a while, I was pretty miserable waiting for the thaw. I know a lot of you feel the same way, and then there are those of you that have that the weather ain’t gonna keep me from hunting attitude, and the only response I can offer you is “No, the frostbite didn’t disfigure you at all, you look fantastic—that Barber dime you found was definitely worth it”.
Read More “Treasure Hunting with Oma plus Hunts and Events Updates” »
In only its third year, Awesome Relics New England’s Annual Penguin Dig is turning out to be the new favorite winter metal detecting event in New England.
It’s timing is perfect, the end of February, when most in the hobby are going stir crazy waiting for the ground to thaw. And its held on the beach, where if the weather is mild, that just adds to the enjoyment of the day.
This year it was held on February 24th, at Scarborough Beach in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and myself, along with over 200 other eager detectorist’s were lucky enough to be able to attend and join in on the fun.
Read More “Awesome Relics New England’s 3rd Annual Penguin Dig” »
I haven’t posted much lately because I had an article published in the NOV/DEC issue of American Digger Magazine, and I figured that pretty much covered me in the writing department for most of the winter.
Another reason, is because its winter. I hate winter. I hate being cold, and I don’t like to detect in the cold, so there’s not much to write about while I’m avoiding the cold. But…
So I’m thinking what to write about for my next post, and annoyed because I had a list of topics in my head, but forgot them. I do this a lot, and a friend told me a few days ago that I should write it all down. “Yeah, I will” was my response… and I didn’t. So… this post will be about my cool Miniature Schnauzer, “Abby”.
Abby is sleeping right now, she does that a lot, in between being lovable and adorable. She gets very excited when she sees me get my detector out, because sometimes I take her with me. I like to pretend she likes detecting, but deep down I know she just really likes to be outside.
Okay, kidding aside, on to the real stuff, and it’s not that Abby isn’t worth a post, she’s the best, but she just doesn’t share my passion for the hobby. Sorry Abby.
A good friend and detecting buddy of mine, JoJo, was kind enough to share the story of his most epic detecting day ever. Thank you for sharing JoJo.
THE PUMPKIN PATCH
By JoJo Lantiegne
I received an invite to go hunt some pumpkin fields from Matt, a fellow member of my metal detecting club, The Yankee Territory Coinshooters out of Wethersfield, CT. I had hunted with him the week prior with much success, but that was nothing compared to what we were to find this time out.
Read More “Smashing Pumpkins: A Coin Bonanza in the Pumpkin Patch!” »
Wow—I’ve heard said before that “you can’t top your best times”, but that really doesn’t make a lot of sense, because there are always more “best times” that come along, so I guess in essence that statement is really kind of silly.
Yesterday was one of those new “best times”—I attended the hunt at The Norton Farm in Cheshire, CT, hosted by Nor’easters Metal Detecting club. The weather was superb, the people were awesome, and the attitude all day long was one of fun and the kind of excitement that only a fellow detectorist can really comprehend.
My free time has been pretty limited this past month, so I don’t have any great hunt stories to tell at the moment, but I did manage to get out a few times to unearth a few keepers.
On my first outing, I found a sterling silver spoon. I haven’t had time to investigate its age or hallmarks, but as far as I’m concerned that’s not too important, because any sterling spoon, (or knife or fork) wins as one of the better finds of the season.
I’ve been approached by many people complimenting me on my blog, and what I hear most often is “more hunt stories please, more hunt stories“. I’m always surprised and flattered by this, because if you log onto social media these days, you’d likely be convinced that all people care about is seeing photos of finds or links to YouTube videos.
But I have my niche. Despite all the hoopla on social media, the constant barrage of videos, and “lookie what I found” posts, there are still some folks out there who remember what the hobby was before Facebook & YouTube… in the days before reading became passé.
My buddy Jo Jo and I took a drive out to an old cellar hole site last weekend. I had hunted the site a few years back, and even though I knew it had probably been hit by all the cellar hole junkies a few times since, I still wanted to check it out again.
We spent a few hours there, and except for Jo Jo starting off with an old spoon, we really had to work for our finds. The iron and junk infestation was epic, and if not for my mad detecting skills, I would not have been able to locate every bottle cap, shot gun shell, and pull tab in the area 🙂
Detectorists from all over the east coast descended on the Catskills, June 16th to 18th to attend Blackthorne Resorts Lost Treasure Weekend, in East Durham, NY. This hunt has been an annual event in the metal detecting community for years—how many years, I’m not sure, but I’ve been hearing about it and wanting to attend since I started this hobby, and this year I finally got the chance.
My pre-event impression was a cautious one. Since I knew a lot of people who had been to this event in the past, I asked around about it a bit, and was warned about the resorts food, and lack of guest communication skills.
Read More “Blackthorne Resort’s Lost Treasure Weekend 2017” »
This past weekend was the Nor’easters Metal Detecting Club “Halcottsville Relic Quest” hunt, sponsored by the Historical Society of the town of Middletown, NY, and the Halcottsville Fire Dept., and held in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of Halcottsville, NY.
The event was held to raise money for the Middletown Historical Society, and to help restore the Halcottsville Fire Departments 1916 Hose House. $2000.00 was raised to help them in their endeavor, and everyone had a great time along the way.
This years 24th Annual Best of the Northeast (BONE) Hunt, held the last week of April in New Hampshire reminded me of one of those TV reality shows where they throw a bunch of strangers in a house together, start filming, and see what happens…
Ah, well, there was no drama, sorry to disappoint you, and we didn’t get any of it on video, but you’ll just have to take my word on it that throwing 4 women who love metal detecting in a house together for 5 days only adds up to fun, fun, fun!
Read More “A Recap of the 24th Annual Best of the Northeast Hunt (B.O.N.E.)” »
Detecting Diary–Weekend 2, April 2017:
I started preparing the night before for our clubs “Fun Hunt” which was secured by one of our club members.
One of the club’s goals this year is to have at least 5 fun hunts. After forming a hunt committee, there are already a few hunts scheduled, and we are only a few weeks into the detecting season. So I’d like to say a big thank you to the hunt committee, your efforts are appreciated–Thank you!
Detecting Diary–Weekend 1, April 2017:
After being cooped up all winter, in a miserable state of lackofdetectinitis, I woke up one morning about a month ago and something seemed odd. I looked out the window and thought–there is definitely something different about today. My Mini Schnauzer “Abby” noticed it too. Instead of her normal stance of staring hard at the door, waiting for it to magically open for her, she was pacing in front of it. I quickly threw on a jacket and performed my task as the magic door opener, and she literally sprinted out into the yard.
What a great day out Saturday at Scarborough Beach in Narragansett, RI for Awesome Relics New England’s 2nd Annual Penguin Dig.
All the worrying we did about the weather was thankfully a huge waste of energy, because it was the most beautiful day of 2017 so far. After the dense morning fog cleared, the sun was shining down from Detectorist’s Heaven, leading this fun loving group into a well deserved winter reprieve with temps in the 60’s most of the day.
Read More “Awesome Relics New England’s 2nd Annual Penguin Dig” »
Nic-A-Date–A quick Review:
I have tubes of old worn Buffalo nickels who’s only value is the value of what they are worth to me personally, because I found them. It frustrates me when I can’t see the year, because, like everyone else, I always want to date the coin.
About 5 years back I heard about this product “Nic-A-Date” by Nic-aLene, which is a date restorer for old nickels.
Read More “Nic-A-Date & The Mega Red 2017 Deluxe Edition Red Book” »
Ah, so it’s January, my least favorite month of the year, and February comes in a close second. What makes these months worse, is that during the week, the weather gets mild and I get my hopes up. I begin to think it might hold out until the weekend when I have the time to hunt, but nope, with the weekend comes another cold front or snow storm. I’ve lived in New England long enough that I should be used to that by now, but I’m not. I’m still easily fooled by my delusion that Mother Nature won’t change her mind last minute.
Okay, so Joe at Treasure Classifieds got this whole thing started with How to tell if a Detectorist Lives Out in the Sticks. He then mentioned he’s from “The City”, which around these parts means NY City, and he would like someone to come up with a version of “How to tell if a Detectorist Hunts in the Big City“. I suggested he get us started, and he sent along the following:
The Land or Sea Pinpointer
by Gold Digger Innovative Products
Another pinpointer review? Yup.
And with all the probes I’ve reviewed, as you can imagine, I’ve got quite a few in my collection. Even so, there are only two that I mainly use. The every day one which I use most of the time, and the waterproof one for the beach or rainy days.
Your probably wondering why I just don’t use the waterproof one all the time, and that’s a valid question, so I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t feel my waterproof probe performs as well, or has the depth of my everyday probe, so I switch them based on where I’m hunting.
Read More “My Review of the Gold Digger Land or Sea Pinpointer” »
When you go on an organized hunt, whether it’s a day hunt hosted by your local metal detecting club, or an expensive, hyped up, out of state weekend detecting bonanza, you never know what you’re going to get. It’s the chance you take in this hobby. Sometimes a site you think will produce amazing relics and finds turns out to be a dud, while the site you think will be “meh”, blows you away with the finds that are recovered.
I arrived home from the Andora Farm hunt in Culpeper, VA at about 1 a.m. on the Monday morning after. I hadn’t planned on being home so late, I expected to roll in around 8 or 9pm while it was still Sunday. But, those plans were sidetracked by having faith in my GPS, and listening to folks who said “It’s Sunday, you can take 95, there won’t be much traffic on 95 on Sunday”. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Life has been so hectic the past few months that trying to find time for myself and metal detecting has been taking some serious strategic planning. There’s been multiple weddings, wedding showers, birthday parties, family parties, just have to go even though I don’t want to parties, etc, etc…
It’s been hard enough trying to squeeze in a few hunts here and there, but a month without a blog post, and folks just assume I’ve hung up my machine and retired. So, um… well, FYI, that’s never going to happen! It is what it is, and the reality is that I can’t always be lost in Detecting Wonderland. Sometimes I have to do things that are more important than metal detecting (omg-did I really just say that)?
We attended the 3rd Annual Catskill Mountains Coin Shoot & Relic Hunt in Big Indian, NY, this past weekend, and I have to give the Nor’easters Metal Detecting Club a good dose of recognition here for putting on such a great event.
There were 19 different sites to hunt, and it was very well organized. Descriptions and photos of the sites (with GPS addresses–thank you) were handed out in a nice booklet, and each site was clearly marked so you were sure you were in the right place.
Pet Peeve: How annoying is it when people refer to us as “He (or she) is a metal detector?” Or, “Oh, You’re a metal detector?”
Dear rest of the world who do not metal detect:
We are Detectorist’s. We are not the machine, we are the user’s of the machine. Therefore, Detectorist’s.
Listening to someone speak to a group of us “detectorists” a while back, I had to grit my teeth as he said “You metal detectors…”, and yes, technically, with our machines in hand, we are metal detectors. We detect metal, but again, we are not the machines, we are the users of the machine. Calling us metal detectors is just wrong, and just sounds wrong.
There are two different versions of Nighthawking that I’ve come the be familiar with; the American version, and the UK version:
The American version of Nighthawking is loosely defined as metal detecting in the evening or at night.
The UK version of Nighthawking is metal detecting at night, for the purpose of plundering sites of their precious archaeological artifacts, under the cover of darkness.
Since I ranted on about my troublesome VW problems, I feel it’s only fair that I divulge the outcome of the VW saga.
The problem turned out to be the transmission, but thankfully, VW had extended the warranty to 100k on that particular transmission. Fortunately I had not gone over the 100k, but I did come in pretty darn close at 99,500k. Something went right–yeah!
