To the Beach! 22 Coins!!!

I'm pretty sure I still have plenty of metal in my backyard, but I wanted a little change of pace.  I wanted to head somewhere public...where I could possibly find some valuable items!  So with three days off, I decided to head to the beach!!!  Now I have to give some necessary details here...I woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground.  The windchill was 23 degrees when I headed out.  And the wind from Canada coming over that water...oh boy.

But I wanted to dig a beach!!!  So I headed out.

I headed to the middle of the beach...where I was basically alone!  It WAS windy, and outside of an ambitious kite surfer (I couldn't believe it!) and a couple of walkers, that was it.  A perfect time to dig.  I arrived around 10:40 A.M.  Within less than a minute, I had my first beep.  That surprised me!

That guy was even more crazy than me!

A piece of metal.  I would dig up several unidentified pieces of metal this morning.  I had NO idea what most of them were.  Junk washed up from Lake Erie.  And let's talk about junk.  The beach was FILTHY.  Just downright dirty...dead fish everywhere (I dug up more than just one), trees and braches everywhere, and just dirty.  Oh, Cleveland...you have so much potential!!!

The first thing I realized with beach detecting is that digging out an object is SIMPLE.  Sand is soooooooooooo easy to move!  That was a much welcome relief to digging in dirt!  What a difference!

Then I hit it.  My first penny!!!  And then a nickel!  And then another penny...and another!  It was obvious to me that this was a coin spill.  My first one!  Someone had lost the money out of their pockets (or off of his towel) right in this exact spot.  I pulled out a few pennies and a nickel within just a few feet of each other.

My first beach coin...a penny!

My first beach nickel in the same coin spill location.  Dated 1999.

But the trend of the day was junk.  Junk, junk, junk.  Plenty of unidentified metal, pull tabs galore, and tops and bottoms of aluminum cans...with the rest eaten out by the churning sea of water.  The entire time I searched I just wondered how much it would cost the City of Cleveland to buy a beach comber.  Granted, this IS Lake Erie but still.  It's a mess.

Kind of my luck on the beach.  Outside of that coin spill, just junk...including this very dead fish.

I also concluded that my hopeful finds of rings or watches was probably not going to happen on this beach, either.  Again, this is Cleveland...AND this was one of the "poorer" beaches.  I've been here in the summer, and the demographic is certainly no Florida beach.  Oh well.  I kept searching.  I searched the middle...then headed right up the water.  The finds along the water were consistently aluminum cans.

I decided to head to the grassy park next door and get out of the wind...and get off of the beach.  While I found several items, the finds were pretty blah.  So I searched the grass!  On the walk off of the beach, I swung the detector back and forth and was pleasantly surprised to find this 2012 nickel on TOP of the sand!  Well, mostly.  :)

A nickel on top of the sand but easily missed by the naked eye!  Dated 2012.

In the grassy area, almost instantly I hit my second coin spill!!!  By far the biggest one yet!  My Ace detector just went crazy over this short area, and I was certain these were accurate reads.  Very quick, pointed, abrupt, and loud.  COINS!!!  So I dug.  :)

A penny!  Another penny!  A nickel!  A dime!  A penny!  A nickel!  A penny!  This was just getting crazy!  Within a space of about four feet, I pulled out several coins.  The first penny was 1969, the next two 1964, the fourth a 1964 nickel, and I was excited that I had possibly found an old spill.  But the next one was a 1983 dime, and yet another was a 1976 penny, so I think maybe that's just what the person had in the pockets!

The first coin pulled out of the park spill.  A 1969 penny.

Two more pennies...both dated 1964!

But coin finds are so much fun.  I spent a solid half hour in that little area just picking up signals and digging up coins.  I pulled out two beautiful 1964 nickels in that same spot.

1964 nickel in decent shape.

The second 1964 nickel with great detail.

My body was getting tired, though, so I started making my way back to my truck.  Of course, it's very difficult to not detect as you walk, so I swept the ground on the way back.  Bad idea.  I hit so many targets...and a couple more coins.  I finally just had to tell myself to walk with the detector off!  I was spent.

I'm pretty terrible at telling time while detecting, and I thought it might be approaching 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon.  After all, I was getting hungry.  I was nothing short of SHOCKED to realize that it was 2:30!  I had spent FOUR HOURS walking around digging!  I couldn't believe it.  It felt like two!  I headed home to categorize the finds...but not before stopping for some lunch!

The day's bounty!

Mostly junk...but 22 more coins!!!

 The final tally comes in as follows...11 old-style pull tabs, 1 stay-tab, 4 metal pop lids, 6 tops or bottoms of aluminum cans, one partial hanger, too-many-to-count foil and miscellaneous metal, one obscenely large piece of metal, some sort of foil housing what used to be some sort of liquid (now sand), 15 pennies, 6 nickels, and 1 dime!!!

So while a bit frustrating with junk today, I did manage to find 22 coins!  Of course, I found no wheaties (grr!) or anything older than 1964 (no silver!), but a coin is a coin, right?!  All in all, not too shabby.

The items of value today...22 coins worth a whopping 55 cents!

What I find so intriguing, though, is the difference between two coins.  I found two 1964 pennies in the same hole basically.  Most likely in the same coin spill.  But what a difference in striking between the two.  Was it the soil after they were dropped in 1964?  Or was one used and abused through life and one pampered and then dropped in 2013?  We'll never know!

A 1964 D penny found in the park today.

A 1964 penny found in the same spot but so much more detail!

I'm itching for my first elusive silver, though!  And I'm learning that it's probably going to have to be at some older site.  My backyard and this park just might not do the trick.  HOWEVER, in the same breath, those pull tabs tell me that this site has not been detected in a very, very long time.  The stay-tab was introduced in the late 70's or early 80's, so it's possible this park has gone undetected for more than 30 years!  As I quickly learned on my walk to my truck, there are oodles and oodles of coins just waiting to be found!