Yet Another First!!!

I "met" someone today...through an object he lost.  :)

I was working again today from 8:00 A.M.-8:00 P.M., but I was on-call, so that meant one thing:  live life as normal!!!  I headed to church, then back home to grab a bite to eat, then out the door to the Metroparks.  I had found an old baseball diamond (now part of a soccer field) that I wanted to explore.  Most people would not know that it was a baseball field, so I was hoping it had some untouched treasures.

As I pulled up to park, I took a minute to watch a father and son firing off a rocket from a baseball field just 100 feet in front of me.  They were bent down close to the ground, and I realized that the launch was near!  Then fffffffffttttttttttttt!!!  Up she went!  Of course, being a little boy, I cranked my head up to follow the white stream of smoke, only to watch this thing curl back towards me, pop something clear at the top of its path (which was immediately carried the opposite direction in the wind), then nose down and come crashing back towards the earth.  It all happened so fast, but I realized that something didn't t exactly appear right.

I had parked and walked around to the passenger's side door of my truck by the time the rocket was fired, so I was standing there with the door wide open.  What happened in the next three seconds happened so fast that I didn't have time to put it together until it was over.  The rocket came hurling back down towards earth just as fast as it had gone up.  I watched and listened to this thing come right back down towards me.  It came screeching down and slammed into the asphalt about five feet in front of my truck.

My first thought was, "That would have gone straight through my windshield!"  I don't know why that was my first thought, but it sure was.  I quickly deducted that the piece that was lost was the parachute to bring this craft safely back down to earth and that this was quite a failed launch indeed.  Of course, after the windshield, my next thought was if I could have moved fast enough to not be hit!  I honestly don't know that I could have!  The sky was crystal clear, and I had a visual of this thing from pitcher's mound to Mars to truck, but the whole event took maybe ten seconds start-to-finish.  I don't know if I could have missed that heavenly bullet or not!

But it missed me (and narrowly my truck), and that's all that matters.  The young boy came running over to retrieve it, and the dad sheepishly approached probably scared to death of my response.  "I think your parachute is heading that way in the wind."  He was grateful.  Both he and I knew the gravity of what just happened, but I was glad to see a boy and his dad playing together, and quite frankly, I wasn't hit although quite too close for comfort!  But no reason to make a fuss.  He replied with a very sincere and deep, "Thank you," acknowledging the unspoken gentleman's agreement of letting that one just slip by.  We exchanged a couple more sentences, then both were off to find the lost cap.  I was asked to keep an eye out for it.  Haha...no problem!

Whew!  It's good to be alive!  :)

Ok, so you never know what you are going to find with detecting even before you get started!  I headed over to the old baseball field and started digging.  Beep!  Pulltab.  Beep!  Pulltab.  Beep!  Pulltab.  Agggh!!!  So this is how it's going to be today, huh?!  I hate pulltabs!!!  But I silently acknowledged that this part of the park had not been dug yet (or at least not dug with a detector like mine!).  Even though I was finding pulltabs, I was finding pulltabs!  All about five inches deep.  So treasures were here...I just had to get through the trash first.

I ended up finding the typical late-year coins, but nothing special.  Then I stumbled upon a penny.  I dug it up only to see something I didn't recognize mixed in with the dirt.  What did I have?!  The excitement is so silly sometimes!  I brushed it off only to see Queen Elizabeth!!!  I had found my first foreign coin!!!  I flipped it over and cleaned it off quickly realizing that this was just a simple Canadian penny, but, hey, foreign is foreign, right?!  ha!  It was dated 1992.  Hey, I'll take it!

Hello Queen!  My first foreign coin!

A 1992 Canadian penny.

The field wasn't producing that great of finds, and for whatever reason, I was itching to hike a little bit, so after maybe 30-40 minutes, I decided to head for the hills.  I don't know what it is, but I just love detecting in the woods!  I think it's just the fact that I am in nature...I am hiking.  I am up and down hills.  The scenery is just phenomenal...and the best part is I'm only 15 minutes from downtown Cleveland!

I started just traipsing through the woods.  I mostly found old beer cans and pulltabs again, but I just kept on wandering.  I knew of an old structure up here from research, so I tried to find the location, but I just couldn't make it out.  I ended up hiking down to the river, but not before I startled a couple of friends!  I think I woke them up from their slumber.

These gals were too friendly!  We just stared at each other for a little bit.

I decided to give the river a shot for metal.  I figured why not?!  And before I knew it, I had found myself another spoon!!!  While close to the ground, I also found the head to a golf club!  Crazy.  The spoon reads, "Tradition STAINLESS U.S.A. MONIQUE".  I didn't last too long in the river, so I headed back to the hills.

The spoon embedded in the river bottom!

The location of the spoon.

I headed back into the woods.  I found a few more deer and then found some metal along the base of a tree.  It took me forever to pull out this tiny piece of metal from amongst the dirt at one point, but I'm glad I gave it the time.  It was yet another bullet, this one having a pretty sudden stop at the end of its life.

Yet another bullet!  I wonder what this one hit.

Another lil' guy I woke up!  They were surprised to see me here!

Another interesting find on the side of the hill was the heel to a shoe.  It was actually found not with the detector but by just being close to the ground again.  I ended up back at the top of the hill which is a popular part of the park.  I had a couple of ladies stop and ask me about the hobby.  I told them about the house and stables that used to stand on top of this hill.  Of course, the questions ALWAYS come back to finds.  Today had been a rather slow day, so I told them mostly pulltabs and money.

I started to make my way over to the the grassy knoll, but I had a beep amongst some trees first.  I dug a hole only to see something else catch my eye.  I found a flash drive laying there in the grass!  Oh, this should be interesting.

Once in the grassy knoll, I dug up a VERY large plate of metal...two feet by one foot maybe.  I left it at the park to be picked up by the park crews.  It was large!  Shortly thereafter, I happily found two late-year quarters in the same hole.  I then focused on the wood benches on top of the hill.  One ended up being very kind to me!  Coin after coin.  A young family and little boy were quite interested in what I was doing, and I could hear the parents telling the boy it was ok to ask what I was finding.  "Are you digging for treasure"?  "Yup, I sure am!"  And with that, I pulled out the quarter to show him the treasures that I was finding.  The dad was interested in how it all worked, so I threw the quarter on the ground (instantly picked up by the little boy...ha!), but after being thrown back on the ground, showed them how I get a BEEP! with a coin.  They loved it.  The hobby was appreciated by more than me today!

I hit up another bench (several coins), then headed back down the hill.  I ended up finding NUMEROUS CO2 cartridges just by sight and not the detector, so I picked all of those up.  It appears someone just dumped a load there in the woods.  I then headed back down to a different part of the river and another ballfield.  Just pulltabs, but ANOTHER conversation with a dad and his little boy!  We ended up talking for 10 minutes, both of them very interested in the hobby.  He even asked me what type to buy, how much, and the name of the website!  I think we'll soon have two more detectorists out there!

After 3-4 hours, I was ready to call it a day.  It wasn't my best day, but it's so good to get outside!  The finds from the day...

Pulltabs galore!  A golfclub head, a shoe heel, CO2 cartridges, a flash drive (not shown), and coins.

The first pull-tab ever made.  Circa 1964.

And, of course, the interesting finds from the day...

1 spoon, 1 fishing weight, 1 flash drive, 1 bullet, 1 button, 1 bridle piece?, 12 pennies, 7 dimes, 3 quarters, 1 Canadian penny

I think this is a horse bridle piece.  Notice the wear on the right side.

Of course, one of the first things I did when I arrived at home was to check out the flash drive.  I plugged it into my computer and found quite an array of items.  A young man from the area had his English class papers, Government class papers, and more on the disk.  The more consists of how to make hash (drug), bombs, fraud people, pick locks, etc.  I kid you not.  It was interesting, to say the least.

I actually thought I had a worse day than I did.  I was surprised to see the 23 coins after I laid them all out.  Another great day to get out, a phenomenal day for spreading the hobby, and $1.47 more in cash...plus one cent in Canadian.  :)

I'm amazed at how each experience is so drastically different.  You really never know what you're going to find.

Silent Satisfaction

As more people learn about my detecting, I've been asked what I do with the finds.  Well, quite frankly, I keep 'em!  I just had the conversation again today.  It's possible I would sell a $1000 wedding ring if I found one, but I think I would dump the money right back into the hobby.  Because that's just it...it's a HOBBY!!!

I'm not detecting to make money.  I'm detecting because it's fun to see what's below the surface!  It's enjoyable.  It gets me outside, the very place I'm happy to be!  It's my version of collecting cards, restoring cars, or carving wood.  It's an activity that I just love...for, well, it!

My finds started to accumulate rather slowly.  A few pennies here, a nickel there, a quarter and pennies here.  But I've now been detecting for a little over a month, and I've watched this pile across from my kitchen table steadily grow.  It started small, but after each dig it grew bigger and bigger, and it started to looked more and more like something you would find in a treasure chest!  So I started shopping...for a treasure chest!  :)

I went to Goodwill, Wal-Mart, and Hobby Lobby.  I looked on eBay.  I needed a treasure chest to place my booty in!  I have found a few, but I just wasn't overly impressed with the quality (cheap wood) or the looks (not pirate-y enough!).  Well, I was perusing craigslist this morning when I saw an ad for something totally different...a display cabinet.  Hmm...that would be kind of neat.  I wonder what my finds would look like in an open-air display rather than just a pile...

So I cleared off a table in my dining room and started to take apart my pile piece by piece!  The finds had previously just been sitting in a lump on top of a paper towel on the table.  But now I decided to see exactly what I had.  So I started spreading them out on the table, and 10-15 minutes later, I was pretty happy with what I saw...

My finds from the first five weeks!

It's been quite fun!

Valuables are flanked by intrigue.  Were any of these bullets aimed at someone?!

Coins galore!  But you won't find a single silver in there!  Aggggghhhhhh!!!

I'm starting to find old coins!!!  Woo hoo!!!

I could tell you all about my finds, but they didn't have much life sitting there in a pile.  If you asked me about any of the rings, for example, I could tell you when and where I found it.  The same with the Wheatie pennies.  But I guess I didn't really know how much I had found until I made this display.  And I must say...I am quite happy for my first month!

I realized two things after looking at my display...

#1--I still love this hobby even though just a month into it.

#2--I am going to need a bigger table.

(I said no to the display case, although I am going to keep looking!)

Entering a New Decade!!!

I was pretty eager to metal-detect today, as I was supposed to head out with the gentleman I had met in the park last week.  We coordinated a time and place, and I just waited.  Well, about a half hour beforehand, he let me know that he was calling it off due to rain.  I had already started getting ready, and while it had rained earlier in the day, yes, I wasn't going to let that stop me.  So I decided to head out on my own to a park just a few blocks away.

I was actually quite surprised to see that while some areas were wet, the soil just wasn't that bad.  The digging ended up being rather easy!  Agh, we should have gone out!  Oh well.  The park is rather large, and I ended up finding the routine pull tabs and clad coins.  As each area has its quirks, this park also became renown today for shredded aluminum cans...obviously the victim of a lawnmower or two.  Those became very frustrating!

Within just 15 minutes I hit my first unique find of the day!  I pulled up a very shiny spoon!  It looked like it had just been washed yesterday, and the print was simple to read!  "Hampton Silversmiths Stainless China 71."  The spoon seriously looked like it had just been pulled out of the drawer!

A beautiful spoon!

Hamton Silversmiths Stainless China 71

The fun was short-lived, however.  I wasn't having much luck around the bleachers (the guy told me he had hunted here before, go figure) or close to the road, so I headed right smack-dab in the middle of the football field.  After picking up a good signal, I dug what turned out to be a HUGE find!!!  As in large, not necessarily exciting!  I could see the end of something, but I had NO idea what it was...only that it didn't want to move from its slumber in the ground!

I realized at this point I had something HUGE on my hands!  It didn't want to move!

And this is what I pull up!  It is soooooooo HEAVY!

Underneath the 10-yard-line is what appears to be some sort of gas line assembly.  I couldn't swear by it, but that's what I thought it was.  But this thing is HEAVY.  I even wondered if it hadn't fallen from an old plane, as they were flying directly overhead on short final for the runway!  Whatever it is, it wouldn't fit in my pouch!  But I picked it up on the way back.  :)

The football field wasn't giving me much else, and I'm confident that another detectorist has already swept that area, too, so I decided to head on over to the old baseball field and try my luck out there.

And I'm glad I did.  My first hit rang up as a nickel, and I dug up its shallow grave.  But I was surprised to see that it wasn't a nickel at all...but a penny!  I brushed away the mud and saw the beautiful wheat-back.  Yay!  I flipped it over and tried wiping the mud from the front.  I fully expected to see 195_ but my eyes told me something different.  Wait a second!!!  Is that a 5 or a 3?!  The residue was caked on, but on one of my wipes with my thumb, I made out an unquestionable 3!  Agh, what year was this?!  I was so excited!!!  After a little more rubbing, I had in my hands my oldest coin yet:  a 1939 penny!!!  I had just entered a new decade of coins!!!  I was thrilled!

My oldest coin yet!  A 1939 penny!

Of course, as with all of my other hunts, the only bad thing about finding a good find is that it reignites you AND makes you fully expect to find more!  Well, that just wasn't to be yet again!  The outfield of the ballpark produced mostly dimes, although I did get a bit excited when I thought I had found a unique coin!  I could tell it was a quarter-sized coin in the hole but with letters and identification I didn't recognize!  Well, needless to say, my excitement was short-lived...

This was supposed to be a rare and unique United States coin!  GRR!!!

You never know what you are going to find!!!  I shouldn't be surprised, though.  I guess center field is a good a place as any "where a kid can be a kid."

Right field gave me yet another unique find.  I was surprised to find another BULLET!!!  This now makes my fourth one, but what is odd is that this one is in a residential area!  It appears to be later-model judging by the missing tip (I think the tips are made with plastic now?), but this is in right field of a ball diamond!  Just a couple hundred feet away from the backs of houses!  I would love to know the story on this one.  And once again, I'm just shocked at how heavy these things are!

Puts new meaning to the term, "And he fires a bullet from right field!"

After more junk and one last penny, I decided to call it a day.  I picked up my huge piece of metal on the way back.  Once back at home, I cleaned up the contraption, and I actually think I know what I found!!!

The finds from the day.  Junk, coins, a spoon, half a key, a bullet, a token, and a master brake cylinder?!

A reservoir, a fill line, a piston...I think it's a master brake cylinder!

The huge piece of metal cleaned up rather nicely.  And I think it's a master brake cylinder from some early vehicle!  There is not a trace or thought of plastic anywhere to be found, and the reservoir itself is solid metal, too.  So I am guessing it's from an early vehicle.  I suppose it could be from a tractor or an airplane for that matter!  The trademark symbol is visible though not known followed by S 3.  But that means nothing to me!  Quite a unique find from the football field, that's for sure.



The interesting finds of the day.  1 spoon, 1/2 a key, 1 bullet, 1 token, 11 pennies, 2 nickels, 7 dimes.

My oldest coin yet!  A 1939 penny.

The bullet missing the tip.

I would quickly learn though not surprisingly that the spoon is basically worthless.  It's from a set that you can pick up from Wal-Mart or Target.  It appears to have been dropped just last week!  Although it was about three inches under the ground, though, so who knows how long it's been missing!

I had another decent hunt, but once again, silver remains elusive!  But with pennies now from the 30's and 40's, I know I must be doing something right!  If someone can lose a penny, then he or she can certainly lose a dime, too!  My time is coming, but after 200 coins with no silver, I'm ready already!!!

Another 91 cents.  Another bullet.  Another spoon.  And yet another day to get outside and enjoy the weather!  I was admittedly eager to try out the $1500 detector and a bit disappointed we didn't head out today, but in the same breath, I'm glad I headed out on my own.  If I hadn't, then I would have never found my first 1930's coin!!!

So now I guess it's time for the 1920's...or silver...  :)

My First Pre-World War II Coin!!!

I had to work this morning.  As in all the morning.  I woke up 4:20 A.M. to be at work by 5:00.  Ugh!  But I was in bed just after 8:00 last night, so I actually felt pretty good.  I didn't do anything but read while at work, so I told myself I'd take advantage of the 54-degree day and do some detecting when I was done.

So I headed home at 1:00 o'clock and heeding the more-experienced detector's advice from last week, looked up some addresses of abandoned schools slated for demolition in Cleveland.  I had checked out a few of them online last week, but I mapped them this afternoon and then chose two that were near each other to head to.  (Google Maps is sure nice having, because at least two of them were now just fields of dirt already torn down!!!).

Both were about 20 minutes away, but I chose two that were within a few blocks of each other.  And in typical Cleveland fashion, both ended up being in a part of town that seemed to be struggling just a bit.  The last road that I drove on to get to the school was full of houses with boarded-up windows.  This was no surprise to me, but I certainly had an extra dose of caution going into here.

I was disappointed to find that the first school had a 10-foot-high security fence erected around it.  I found an area where kids had cut a hole, but I figured it wouldn't be wise to be seen behind the fence.  Agh, so frustrating!!!  So I drove the couple blocks to the other school and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was wide-open...and HUGE...and beautiful!!!  It was MUCH bigger than I had anticipated.  I chose this particular school due to the fact it was built in 1922.  I wanted old coins!!!

Half of the massive school.  Built in 1922.

So I started detecting.  It was next to a pretty busy street even though it was in a neighborhood, and this was the first time I actually could have benefited from headphones!  The loud noises sometimes drowned out the beeps!  And oh those beeps.  They wouldn't stop!!!  I honestly thought my detector was acting up or low on batteries or something as it just kept beeping!!!  But sure enough, it's because the ground of the 91-year-old building was just FULL of metal objects!!!

My first find was a quarter.  Not a bad way to start the day!  But it was dated 1996.  Not exactly what I was looking for!!!  The beeps kept on coming, but the finds were pretty dismal.  Once again, plenty of junk.  Metal pipes, foil, several nails and screws, and the like.  I would find an occasional penny, but the day just wasn't going as planned.  With a school this old and it seemingly being undetected before, I just knew silver was in the ground somewhere!!!  But nothin'.

I had another beep pretty close to the school building itself.  I dug it up to find a penny.  It was pretty shallow, so I didn't think much.  I cleaned it up with my fingers, and I recognized that back!!!  A Wheatie!!!  I cleaned up the date and was thrilled to find a 1951 D penny!!!  Woo hoo!!!  Now that is what I am talking about!!!  62 years old...wow!

I LOVE seeing this sight!

A gorgeous 1951 D penny in great shape!

Now that's when you get excited.  I had been detecting for 40 minutes by this point with those dismal finds, so this was an attention-grabber!  There WERE old coins beneath the surface...just hiding!  I searched the area right around that first penny, and I had another read on a coin.  I dug it up to find another penny!!!  This time I was floored!  It cleaned up beautifully and showed the date 1944!!!  Here was a penny that was made during the height of World War II!!!  Here was a penny that just the previous year would have been made out of steel due to copper being used for the war effort!  Here was a penny that was 69 years old!!!  Now I was excited!!!

A 1944 D penny with beautiful clarity!!!

The dismal day just admittedly turned better.  I can't remember if I said it out loud or not, but that's exactly the thought that went through my mind.  Another ho-hum day was now getting fun!  I had a nice piece of history in my hands!  And what is more, if pennies are being lost from the 1940's, then surely silver is, too!!!  I dug with a renewed sense of vigor.

A little over 30 minutes later, I found another penny in roughly the same area!  This time I pulled up a 1958

My third Wheatie of the day!  A 1958 D penny.

The clarity on these pennies is amazing!

I once again ran into that feeling of, "It's going to be a good day now!" only to quickly find out that my best finds were (almost all) in that span of forty minutes.  But with that renewed passion, I kept on swinging the coil.  Plenty more junk, then something very, very interesting!!!

Can you tell what it is?!  A ring?!  A watch?!

One of my most unique finds to date took me completely by surprise.  I had been finding nothing but coins and junk, but when I rolled over this mound of dirt, I saw a piece of jewelry!  I pulled it out of the ground only to find out it was not just a ring...but a watch, as well!!!  Obviously, it was not working, and it had a chipped screen, but the band was in great shape!  What an odd find!

The very large ring watch!

Decided to quit at 6:00 of some unknown day and year.

With the finds seemingly getting worse and worse, I decided to walk all the way to the other side of the school building to see what I could find.  And just like that, my first hit was my best find of the day!!!  I pulled up my oldest coin yet!

My oldest coin yet!  A 1940-S penny!  This is Pre-World War II!!!

So my day wasn't quite over yet!!!  Woo hoo!!!  I was getting tired, and my body was starting to call it quits, but what a find!  This was a perfect day.  I would end up finding one more Wheatie to bring my total to five for the day.  But my day wasn't quite over yet...

As I would find what I thought might be my first gold!!!  I dug up this earring shortly after the 1940 penny!  It cleaned up so easily which made me think it could be gold, but on closer examination, it looks a little oxidized and flaky to be gold.  But what a thought for just a moment!  I could bypass silver and just go for gold!  :)

The earring as pulled out of the ground.

She cleaned up very easily!

 I told myself I'd find another coin and then call it a day (I always tell myself that!).  Well, after finding more junk and then a late-year penny, I said that was it!  So I headed for home.  I was shocked to see that it was 6:51 P.M. when I hopped in my truck!  I had been at the school for nearly four hours!

With the night approaching and the sun trying to beat through an overcast layer, I took these dark pictures of the finds for the day...plenty of junk, nails, unknown metal, a Close-Up toothpaste tube, a nearly full bottle of lip gloss, concrete anchors, pull tabs (only two...yay!), 33 pencil eraser tops (the metal portion obviously), 35 pennies, 1 nickel, 3 dimes, 1 quarter, 1 earring, and 1 ring watch!

Needless to say, I did a lot of digging!

 I did find it interesting about the pencils, though.  Trust me, these were just as frustrating as the pull-tabs!!!  It would be a solid short signal (like a coin), but then I would find these!  They were obviously in the ground long enough for the wood and even carbon to disappear (how long is that?!), but the metal remained.  33 of these little boogers!

Pencils, pencils, pencils!  The wood was long-gone on most of them.

Of course, I had to pull out all of the valuable stuff from the day!

The valuables.  35 pennies, 1 nickel, 3 dimes, 3 quarters, 1 earring, 1 ring watch, 1 necklace chain, and an unknown metal with a flower design (I think copper).

Not a great day in terms of value.  But sure interesting!

But by far, the most satisfying finds of the day were the Wheaties.  I more than doubled my Wheaties to date from three to eight!  The finds:  1940 S, 1944, 1951 D, 1952 D, 1958 D.

So beautiful!

The school soil kept 'em all in GREAT shape!

I won't lie, I was exhausted when I arrived at home.  My back hurt, my knees hurt, and I was hungry!  But what started as a slow day ended up being one of my most productive days!  And that schoolyard has only been scratched.  I'm confident that silver exists beneath the surface.

History is hidden in the soil.  A coin from a student before the war.  A coin from a student during the war.  And numerous coins from students after the war.  This building will soon be torn down and its memory lost to those who remember its days when it stood.  Well, for me, I'm glad to be one of those who remember, if only on the outside below the surface!

Five Wheaties!  A good day indeed.

Competition!

I headed back out to the Metroparks today and decided to hit up the other baseball diamond that's just across from the one I searched yesterday.  The weather was decent, and I wasn't out there 15 minutes when I noticed another guy metal-detecting the ball diamond I just did yesterday!  We had a pretty good amount of space between us, but right then and there I knew these parks were gone over with a fine-tooth comb.  Even with the finds yesterday, I really had the impression that someone had been there before...the beeps just weren't as steady.

I decided to just let him be...and me be...and turned around a bit short of the walk I would have done.  But he kept searching the very areas I did yesterday, and I began to wonder if he had searched my area yesterday, too!  After finding a quarter and a penny, I decided to make the walk over and introduce myself.

The guy was as nice as could be and was more than talkative.  We talked about detecting, about our experiences, and about our detectors.  I have a $215 detector and his was $1549.  Needless to say, his has a lot more bells and whistles to it.  He told me he has been detecting for 30 years!!!  He and his brother detect, and his brother just found his 1300th silver coin!  This guy hadn't found that many yet, but he says he finds them all the time.  We talked for a good 15-20 minutes and ended up exchanging numbers.  He has an extra metal detector (the expensive type) and invited me to go with him sometime.  He also told me that I was swinging my detector too fast.  I wasn't sure I agreed as I had found over 175 coins by this point, but I listened to one who has gone before me.

This is the first time I've seen another guy detecting, so it was interesting to me.  I'm glad he was nice as could be, though, and I'm actually looking forward to digging with him!  I headed back towards my baseball diamond after our talk, but I was kind of getting restless with the weather.  So I decided to take the detector with me down by the river along the trails.  I searched for a few minutes there and found a penny, but I was ready to call it a day.  It was just too nice to be metal-detecting!  I was pretty easily distracted by a cute little girl out for a run, so I stopped by to say hello to her.  Long story short, I traded in my detector for a pair of running shoes.  Cute girls do that to guys.

27 more cents.  Maybe a half hour of actual detecting if that.  And a sun that needed to be enjoyed in other ways!

Key Finds Today.

I had no intentions of metal-detecting today.  But after grabbing Starbuck's and then grabbing groceries, I realized I had had some time to kill before a meeting tonight!  So I finally headed out around 1:00 P.M. and told myself I had to be done by 4:00.  :)

I headed to a new part of the Metroparks today...a widely-used baseball field and picnic area.  It's only 1.7 miles from my house, so I figured why not?!  It's so nice having these parks so close.

And what a beautiful day it was, too!  I was down to just a hoodie and jeans...and almost took my hoodie off due to being so warm!

I like parks.  Parks=people=money.  That's basically how it works.  My first find was actually not money, though!  I found my first automotive key!  It appears to be a mid-to-early 1990's Chrysler product.  Someone had a bad day after the softball game.  ha!

My first car key!

My real focus today was a ring, though.  That was just my goal for the day.  In a park, someone is bound to lose a ring while playing frisbee...or football...or softball.  I just walked back and forth across the baseball outfield.  Various coins kept popping up...with the tricky foil and pull-tabs, too.  They register the same frequency as gold, so it's either bypass all the pull-tabs and miss out on gold...or pull up all the pull-tabs and be left with...well, pull-tabs!  I hate those things!

But I was searching for gold today!  I would dig up the foil and pull-tabs.

The ball diamond ended up giving me a decent amount of clad coin.  I would end up finding another key, as well.  Someone was locked out of his house that night!  Probably the most unique find was a lipstick container...at least that's what I think it is.  It appears pretty old and has a funny conical top.

Another key!

A rather odd contraption I pulled out.  I think it's a lipstick container?

From the ball diamond, I started to head to another part of the park when I noticed a horseshoe area.  Hey, it makes sense...when you throw a horseshoe, you might lose a ring, right?  I kid you not, no sooner than a minute inside the horseshoe area, I had a beep.  I dug up the fairly shallow hole to find my favorite sight ever...A RING!!!  I couldn't believe it!!!  I was nearing the end of my day, and I was pretty sure I was only going to come up with coins and foil.  But I found my ring!  At first I thought it had a stone on it, but it is just a heart-shaped ring with an "M" in the center.  But a ring is a ring!  I couldn't wait to clean it up!  That's now my fourth ring already!!!

I found a ring!!!  Woo hoo!!!

It's a heart with an "M" in the middle.

The location of the ring.  A perfect flinging distance from throwing horseshoes!

I didn't find anything else in the horseshoe pit, although I sure dug up every beep!  I then moved to the swings area but found nothing in either place...fairly disappointing.  I was ready to call it a day.  I had a date to get to!

The finds from the day...

I hate pull-tabs and foil!!!

And now for the interesting and valuable finds of the day...

2 keys, 11 pennies, 4 nickels, 2 dimes, 1 quarter, 1 ring, 1 lipstick container

My first order of business when I returned home was to clean up the ring.  I was eager to find some sort of marking on it!  The color was interesting to me, too.  It looked kinda silver, kinda gold!  But the more I washed it, the more golden it became.  But I could still see silver color underneath.  It didn't clean up all that well, either.  And I never did find any markings on it.  So I think best-case scenario, I have a gold-plated ring.  Worse-case, it's a worthless ring.  I'll try cleaning it again sometime to see if I can see any letters.  I really need to purchase a magnifying glass to help out!

The "cleaned-up"ring.

It has a tinge of gold-colored covering on the outside.

The supposed lipstick container is a different story.  I was able to find markings on the bottom.  It reads, "House of Westmore Inc. Distributor, Hollywood, Made in USA."  After a quick Google search, I learned that the Westmore Family is renowned in Hollywood for their make-up connections.  From George to Michael, the Westmore's are the go-to people for make-up in Hollywood.  So I really have no idea what I have here, only to say it's tied to famous people in Hollywood.  I'm sure they sold a product line at some point, though, and this is tied to it???  Whatever the case, it's a very unique piece.

The unique and antique lipstick holder!

In terms of money, today was pretty dismal.  I found only 76 cents in three hours.  In terms of satisfying, I must say I'm very happy to have found another ring!  It makes me so eager to search more parks!  I tell you, this hobby can be so up-and-down.  A bad day is followed by a good one.  A boring couple of hours is followed by an exciting find.  You just never know what you will dig up next.  I really don't think the ring is valuable, but it's satisfying, nonetheless.  I'm now up to four rings in just over a month!  That's incredible.

I was glad I headed out today.  Three hours is perfect, too.  Not too short, not too long.  Just a nice way to spend an afternoon.  As far as the coins, the oldest find today was a 1962 nickel.  Nothing special.  My first silver coin remains elusive, but I really didn't think I'd find one today at a modern park.  But I'm quite happy with the ring!  A good day indeed.