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Copyright by Lynn Mills.
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     Some where, some time in the late 1960's I was looking through a Heathkit catalog. Heathkit was a company that produced electronic projects in the form of kits that could be assembled at home, in the garage, shop or in my case the kitchen table. This made electronic instruments affordable to even lower income people like me. An item in the catalog caught my eye. I looked at it for a long time. I read and re-read the description several times. $60 was barely affordable at the time and had it not been for Heathkit a metal detector would have been out of reach completely. The order was sent off and from then until it arrived I would lay in bed at night and daydream about treasure and old coins. Assembling the Heathkit GD-348 Metal detector seemed to take forever but was actually only a couple of days. The green machine worked perfectly and soon I was scanning the lawns around a church that was about 40 years old at that time. Before long I was finding all kinds of wheat backs. That was natural of course since wheat backs were still being minted then. What I did notice is that many of the wheat backs were older, 1920's and 30's, darkened from being buried but still in good condition with very little wear. This gave me the assurance that many of the coins had been lost while still fairly new. The number of coins I was finding told me that this was a virgin lawn. What a joy and how sweet it was when I popped my fist silver coin out of the ground. It was still as bright and shiny as the day the quarter was lost. I took a face value of twenty plus dollars from the church lawn. Dimes, quarters, half dollars, buffalo nickels and even a WW ll silver nickel, (35% Silver). I found other things of course. Pocket knifes, bottle caps, house keys, boy scout badges, paddle locks, jewelry, Browne pins, pull tabs and tin foil. GD-348
Heathkits
GD-348
metal Detector
Still working

     One day I was searching a very large grassy area that was the playground by the old, brick, three story grade school I had attended as a boy. I wasn't finding much. A group of young boys were following me and one of the said, "you won't find anything here. Too many people have already searched here." Just at that moment I got a very strong signal from my detector. My first thought was that it was a garbage can lid. I knelt down and immediately popped a silver dollar out of the ground. You should have seen the  looks on their faces. My groupies left me and busied themselves digging holes in the grass with sticks looking for silver dollars.
My second silver dollar was found at a similar three story grade school in another town. We always found coins under the swing sets and I used to say to my wife that the coins were some poor kids milk and cookie money. She never failed to smack me hard on the shoulder when I said that. While searching around the swings by the school I found my second silver dollar.
    The most enjoyable find though was the gold high school graduation ring I found in a church lawn. We identified the high school and called. The principle talked with us and we told him we had found a ring and wondered if anyone had lost one. He said there had been a note about a lost ring on the bulletin board last year and he would check to see if it was still there. After a long wait he came  back on the phone and gave us the phone number of a girl who had lost her ring. A quick phone call and soon the young lady was standing in our living room. She explained that her and some friends were attending a church function last year. and that she had lost her ring while throwing snow balls. Her initials on the ring left little doubt that it was hers. The look on her face when we gave her the ring was all the reward we needed. That was an incredible experience.
Minelab Explorer
Minelab
Exploer

   
    A friend and I  were detecting on a residential lawn across the street from the house I had grown up in. I hit one silver coin after another and they were all in a long row. As I thought back I remembered as a boy seeing the Checket's, our neighbors, sitting in lawn chairs lined up right where I found the coins. Apparently the coins fell in a neat row from the pockets of the men who sat in the chairs. It was a fun concentration of coins to find.
Some tips 
    I have done a lot of detecting and have graduated to a minelab explorer. It goes deep which in this day of over worked sites is a necessity. One common mistake I see most coin and relic hunters make is that they go too fast. A person doing a minelab spot said to overlap each swing by 1/3 of the coil diameter. I will state very emphatically, that is too fast! If the target is deep there is a good chance you will miss it going that fast. I advance the coil by 3 to 4 inches at the most. Even when I used my old Heathkit detector I consistently found more keepers than my detector buddy who used a White detector. Another buddy  asked me if I thought there might be some thing wrong with his metal detector because I worked an area he had just  gone through and he didn't find anything but I found a couple of coins and a gold ring. After checking out his metal detector we decided it was working fine and that he was working the area way too fast. To further bolster my claim that most people move too fast when searching I refer back to the row of silver coins I found. My buddy had just worked that area and missed all those coins and I came right behind him and found the cache. Next time you watch a TV add for White metal detectors notice how fast the guy is moving. Observe how much ground he advances over without sweeping it. The target you pass over may be the find of a lifetime so sloooow down!
    Some thing I enjoy doing that you may or may not enjoy is marking my targets with a golf T. I paint the T's with a hot florescent pink color and mark half a dozen signals. Then I go back and dig the targets when I tire of swinging the detector. My children loved this method when they went with me because they get to dig the finds.
    Contact me with stories, comments or questions. I would really enjoy hearing from you.     
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Some of my other pages
Science

Fishing


Quackery
Cartoons
By
Lynn Mills
Odds and Sods
And a little tongue in cheek

Matter state change and lightning!
When you breathe out water vapor you might
be helping to create lightning!
FishTackler®
Registered TM for sale! Click here for Info.
Cartoon 1
Strip Poker
Incredibly beautiful Drying Soap Bubbles
About Me Do Fish See Color? Cartoon 2
Left Overs
Energy Demand Verses Global Warming!
Black light UV LED
to convert a 3 or 4 cell flashlight
Fish the Strike Zone. Cartoon 3
Are You Asleep?
Bee Wars 200,000 Bees verses 3 men &
a dog! A true story.
Make Wild Fires
Go Away!
Triple spinner Bumble Bee  Cartoon 4
Panty Hose.
A long shot coincidence or Number please?
Where Does Lightning Come From? How to make Freeze Dried Night crawlers
or if messy isn't your thing...
Cartoon 5
Tantrums
How to Unlock Gridlock  This one earned
me the, "delightful nut" award
CJ
Acid etching Limestone Fossils Order Freeze Dried Night Crawlers. Cartoon 6
Bermuda Triangle
Panning for gold in western WA
3D Through the Eyes of T Rex Triple Blade Pop Style Fishing Spinners Cartoon 7
How Was It?
A Virgin Lost Gold Account
The Amazing World of Silica Gel
All you need is a laser pointer and silica gel.
FishTackler® Home Page Cartoon 8
Rocking Egg
Grooming the Environment, a Green Thing 
What is Ultraviolet Light? Triple Spinner Chartreuse Chaser Cartoon 9
Remove Your Clothes
Outdoor Survival Tips that may save your life!
How to Make an Ultraviolet Light How to Fish With GloWings™ Cartoon 10
God's Great Computer.
The amazing EZ garden
Purify Your Drinking Water The Scarlet Minnow    Cartoon 11
Shear Delight
My memories of Bountiful, Utah
1947 - 2007
Science Fair, Phone on a Wire Cartoon 12
Wet the Bed
Grow tomatoes indoors
Subduction Zone Volcano Postulate. Cartoon 13
Basket Ball
Tips for your Halloween Haunted house
or spook alley
The Mystery Clock, how does it works?     Cartoon 14
Lovin the Rain
Spook Alley page 2 
Like SciFi? Read
Blue Dot .
    The Camp Fire Ghost!            
"Photo"
Is it real or has it been altered? Can you tell?
    Metal detecting stories and tips.        
"Photo"
How to erase unwanted objects
                      
How to make a barometer        
How to make a smoke ring cannon                  
The 3 States of Matter and the laws governing
Charge and heat seperation