Join A Treasure Hunting Club: There are some real advantages to belonging to one or more treasure hunting clubs. A wealth of information on treasure sites and how to better hunt are foremost reason for joining. Not only will you gain experience and advice, but the club experience is fun. Hunts and friendly competitions as well as camaraderie enhance the experience. To find out about clubs in your area, contact the Federation of Metal Detector Clubs (FMDAC) at www.fmdac.com.

Masking is not a new concept in the metal detecting field, but probably one of the least known or least understood topics in the hobby. I discovered masking early in the 1970’s when discriminate was added to detectors and I built my first test garden to practice on the varying signal types introduced through the medium of discrimination. Using high discrimination to get rid of those pesky pop tops and pull tabs, caused me to notice that some signals were mere blips but turned out to be good finds. By placing good targets next to junk targets, I noticed that standard and larger coils produced unusual signals or none at all, and I was missing the good targets. I took out my Fisher 441 all metal unit and could get readings on most of the good targets that were being masked by the tabs, pencil erasers, gum wrappers and buck shot that I had in my test garden. I decided to test out masking by going to a favorite site that always produced a few old keepers. The Fisher 441 was a great all metal detector with exceptional depth for the time period. I marked-off an area and hunted it using three different patterns and found piles of junk items and about 40 coins. I cleaned that area so well, that I called it my hunted out site. I did not go back there again for nearly 15 years, believing I got all the goodies that had been lost there. I so cleaned it out that none of my top line detectors received signals of any kind. I thought that I had licked the masking problem. I was recommending to all of our club members to use little or no discrimination and/or utilize a smaller coil to get around the masking.

During the mid 80’s, I discovered the second type of masking. This menace is known as “silent”  masking. Silent masking works this way. Bury a good target such as a silver dime, at three to eight inches deep. Use both all medal mode and discrimination to confirm the signal. Now take a very small staple or lead or steel buckshot and bury it on top of the dime at about one inch deep. This item will mask the dime in discrimination mode and even moving the item as much as four inches from center of the dime, will produce masking or cause the dime to read as a pull tab. Then, bury the staple or buck shot to three inches deep over the dime and something amazing happens. There will be complete silence and even changing to all metal mode will give only a chatter sound like ground minerals. What is taking place here is called inductive coupling. The eletromagnetic energy from the coil hits the small junk item producing an electromagntic halo around it. The signal strength is greatly reduced and in all probability will not reach the dime. Even if it does the signal will fail on the return path when it hits the halo again.

What does this really mean to the detectorist? Probably only about 25% of all coin targets in schools, stadiums, and ball fields have been recovered because of masking, silent masking and deep depths. No metal detector on the market today can see through iron. I further proved my postulate that no site is completely hunted-out. I took my Fisher Impluse, a pulse induction detector,  and went back for a visit to my hunted out spot. I dug up over 300 targets including five old coins that were masked by this high amount of hidden trash that none of my conventional locators could even get a signal. Please do not go buy a PI detector to use as a coin shooter. Sixty to one odds of trash to coins will be greatly increased in most places to more than 100 to 1 odds. Remember, I had cleaned or sanitized this area with my conventional detectors more than 15 years earlier. These great detectors are not affected by mineralization or the medium between the detector and the target. Performance does not change whether detecting through air, water, silt, sand, or solid coral. However, using a PI as a coin shooter might shoot you down for a very long time as you will dig very deep and every few inches.

“Hope all is well with you and that you have enjoyed the new year so far. We were able to locate several more buildings using the metal detectors, and it seems like my Professor is now planning to open up some excavation units based on what we found!”

WOW! This would be a dream site area and experience for any hobbyist and I am glad to share with two Fisher metal detectors for the team. Please read previous posts on their adventure.

The following are a few of the many religious pendants that were either tossed or lost.

Here iare a few throw-away locks.

There are countless things tossed away by people that metal detector users can turn into money or even pay the expenses of being in the hobby. As a beach hunter from the1970 era, the aluminum pull tabs and cans dug-up while searching for coins and gold/silver/platinum jewelry, have earned me several hundred dollars. Can you “dig it”? I do! 

Urban renewal projects are my second favorite land sites to find treasure. My first is another site where the action by man causes deeper coins to come closer to the surface. This is resodding of schools, ball parks, and playgrounds. I have dug-up several thousands coins from these processes and my biggest prizes are the silver dimes and smaller fractional coins like half dimes, three cent silver coins and many small foreign coins too. One school resodding produced 36 Mercury Dimes and over 200 coins in a four hour hunt. There are many more ways that natural events can cause movement of treasure. My favorite water hunts occur after a severe winter storm hits the beach areas pulling tons of sand away for short periods of time. Three friends of mine dug more than 2500 coins in a one day period. Numerous gold items, including more than 30 gold rings, also were the result of that Northeaster hitting a popular east coast Daytona Beach area. I dug three treasure coins after a storm hit my Tarpon Springs, FL area. The pictured authentic counterfiet Spanish coin, that I just sold on ebay for a good price, is one of those coins.

These are are part of the process of moving targets. I hope your patience and research will keep you “diggin”  some good treasures like these.

Finding a wheat penny dated 1956 is all it took to hook me. It was about three blocks to the high school where I started my career as a teacher that year, and I went to the sports stadium there just a few hours later and found my first ring and a handful of coins including several silver dimes. The ring was a wedding band with initials and a date of 1949. I was able to return it to the couple with a little research. The very next day I hunted my yard only to be interrupted by an elderly neighbor who asked if that thing would find gold. Fifteen minutes later I recovered a beautiful family treasure that she lost eigth years earlier while cleaning her car. It was a pendant made from two 20 dollar gold peices. Todays value on that beauty would be more than $2500. I have lived in this same community now for more than 40 years and have dug-up 125,000 of my total of 153,000 coin finds in my own “backyard”, Tarpon Springs. The hottest and largest untapped treasure field is private home lots. Always get permission to hunt and leave the area looking as good as when you started.

Do not believe the misconceptions about finding treasure and remember wherever people have congregated there is treasure to be found. During the month of February, my favorite month, I will share at least 20 more best-kept secrets to finding treasure. Keep on digging!