Sand Hunter
Full Member
I recently came back to detecting after a few years hiatus and have noticed a lot of posts on the forums about the lack of Gold & Rings found on the beach. I’ve seen some posts saying that the detectorist used to find 70 or so rings in a typical season, but now they’re lucky to get 5 or 6. Lots of others are reporting that they’re only finding junk jewelry, and even that their clad finds are down.
I’ve been thinking about this, comparing my beach hunting several years ago, how it used to be, against how things might be today and came up with several possible reasons why this is happening. I know some of these have probably been mentioned or discussed, but 1 of the reasons I thought of, which I consider to be a BIG reason, I haven’t really seen anyone else mention, so I’ll throw it out to add to the list.
First off, we all know that the price of Gold & Silver, has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. I’m very happy about that, as for the last 3 years, I’ve been converting my 401K funds every year into physical gold & silver, also got my wife to do the same. I got tired of checking my 401K account and seeing red arrows pointing downward, and I just don’t trust the stock market or even the bond market, which I always considered to be a “safe haven” when the stock market was getting weird. I mean, if my investments are volatile or have been going down, then why bother. I could lose my money in a casino just as easily, and have much more fun while losing it, lol.
But IMO, the rise in the price of gold & silver has done a couple of things that can affect metal detecting:
Of course, the great thing about the beach is that I’ve always considered it to be a giant piggy bank. What we don’t find today, we might find tomorrow. Every shift in the tides and every storm has the potential to move sand, making targets appear within reach, or it can also dump sand, moving targets out of reach. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about beach hunting, is persistence. We all know that the sand can change constantly throughout the day and evening. There’s been many times I’ve gone to the beach and saw large cuts or troughs that formed that weren’t there the day before. So, persistence is very important, gotta be the right person at the right spot at the right time.
And then, there’s a great tip I picked up from Terry Shannon on one of his videos. I’ve had this same idea over the years but never acted on it, always tried to go with what I thought was a “sure thing”. But now that I’ve seen some of his finds using this tip, the next time I’m at the beach, I’m gonna give it a try.
I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, probably missed a few reasons, but these were the ones the popped into my mind as the most logical reasons why finds might be down at beaches we’ve done well at in the past.
I’ve been thinking about this, comparing my beach hunting several years ago, how it used to be, against how things might be today and came up with several possible reasons why this is happening. I know some of these have probably been mentioned or discussed, but 1 of the reasons I thought of, which I consider to be a BIG reason, I haven’t really seen anyone else mention, so I’ll throw it out to add to the list.
First off, we all know that the price of Gold & Silver, has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. I’m very happy about that, as for the last 3 years, I’ve been converting my 401K funds every year into physical gold & silver, also got my wife to do the same. I got tired of checking my 401K account and seeing red arrows pointing downward, and I just don’t trust the stock market or even the bond market, which I always considered to be a “safe haven” when the stock market was getting weird. I mean, if my investments are volatile or have been going down, then why bother. I could lose my money in a casino just as easily, and have much more fun while losing it, lol.
But IMO, the rise in the price of gold & silver has done a couple of things that can affect metal detecting:
- I don’t think this is a secret, but I think more & more people are probably keeping their gold and more expensive jewelry in their room safe while they’re out on the beach. I don’t think the general public thought much about this years ago, but there’s been a lot of talk about gold & silver over the last 2 - 3 years, so just about everyone knows that the prices of precious metals have been skyrocketing. And where they may have worn their jewelry out on the beach in the past when the market was “normal” and nobody was talking about it, they’re now realizing their jewelry is much more valuable, and much more expensive to replace. So, I think a greater number of people want to safeguard their good stuff by keeping it in the safe in their rooms. I’ve always done this, I always take my wedding ring off and stash it before heading out to the beach when I detect, because I wear gloves and know it only takes a quick moment of distraction for that ring to come flying off if I pull that glove off without thinking, or when I get my hands wet while working the wet and water. You know what isn’t the only thing that shrinks when hit with cold water, fingers shrink too, lol.
- Higher prices for gold & silver mean more people buying detectors, to try their luck at finding something valuable. There’s a lot more “competition” out on the beaches these days, but I think most of those detectorists are newbies or are on vacation. I’ve seen some of them detecting without a scoop, a trowel, or some type of tool they can use for digging. They’ll get more dangerous with a few more years’ experience, but you can usually tell beginners by their lack of preparedness and the way they swing their coil. Some of these guys have their coil ½ foot off the sand and are swinging from side to side in a large arc, like they’re swinging a golf club. So, their coil is only over the sand for maybe 1 second before shooting skyward, but even then, it’s a ½ foot above the sand, so there goes their depth. But God bless them, they’re out there trying, but it’s apparent that they’ve never received instruction on how to use a detector, or why it’s important to keep the coil close to the sand to get more depth and to keep the coil at an even height from the sand when swinging using a horizontal arc, not vertical arc, basic detecting stuff. They probably never cracked a beach hunting book or watched some instructional videos on YouTube. Just a few minutes of simple instruction could make them a lot more dangerous, lol. I just smile, give them a nod or a wave when passing by, and keep going. But just like they say that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, some of these guys are going to find some stuff, in spite of themselves. In the past, where you might have 1 or 2 other guys out on the beach, maybe there’s now 8 or 10 or 12. Greater numbers of detectorists increase the odds that they’ll find something, which will lower the odds that we’ll find it instead. We’ll have to work to find the deep stuff, but they have a chance at finding the easy, fresh drops, just as much as anyone else, even when swinging their coil like a golf club, lol.
- Seems more and more people these days use their credit cards, or their cell phones to make purchases, so the need for cash and/or coinage has decreased with technology. All the parking meters down at the resort areas and beaches in DE, except for the State Parks, take credit cards. Go to main street in Rehoboth, find a parking spot, and you’ll notice that they no longer even take coins or cash, they’ll only accept credit cards. So, the days of me stopping at the bank to get a roll of quarters to feed the parking meters have come to an end. Now, I too use my credit card when I need to park at a metered spot. Well, at least I no longer have to walk around with a couple pounds of quarters in my pocket. So, without the need for people to get those roll of quarters or to have a bunch of change in their pockets, that will reduce the number of potential coins spilling out of their pockets when sitting at the beach.
- More detectorists (see #2 above). Get a dozen guys out on the beach hitting the dry, and any easy clad that’s lying around and not too deep will be scooped up quickly, even if they’re swinging like a golfer.
- Let’s go back 6, 7, 8 or more years ago. Back then, I didn’t care who was on the beach searching, because I owned the wet & water. There could be a dozen guys wondering around on the dry and it didn’t matter to me one bit. Because I’d just take my Minelab Sovereign Elite down on the wet and even into the water a bit, and I had no competition. Every now and then I’d see a guy swinging an Excalibur in the water or on the wet, I really didn’t run into too many other Sovereign owners. But all the guys working the dry seemed to be using Garrett Ace’s, maybe an AT Pro, I saw Tesoro’s, Bounty Hunters, a few Whites and some other brands. But all the detectors I saw the other guys using were SF detectors just a few years ago. And I had my Sovereign SMF BBS, so I could hunt the dry, wet, water, wherever I wanted to go. But if those guys running their SF detectors tried venturing down onto the wet with me, their detectors would start screaming and chattering like a cat that just had its tail stepped on. They’d last a few seconds, maybe a minute, then it was back up to the dry sand they would go. So, it was usually just me, maybe 1 other guy, hunting the wet and into the water. That’s where I wanted to be to find the heavy stuff. I might work the dry, mainly the towel line, if the tide was high or if I was waiting for the tide to drop. But as soon as it started dropping, I’d start at the top of the wet and work my way down, following the receding tide.
- But now, it seems that’s all changed and now everyone seems to be swinging high-tech SMF detectors. I just picked up an X-Terra Elite myself to augment my Sovereign. 7 or more years ago, the Sovereign’s and Excalibur’s ruled the wet, as far as VLF’s go, along with a couple White’s, and of course the PI’s. I don’t ever recall running into many hunters running PI’s when I was out on the beach, it was always predominately VLF’s. But now, the surge in lower priced SMF detectors from brands like Minelab, Nokta, XP, and probably some other brands has now brought SMF technology to the masses, at very reasonable and sometimes downright low prices. So, in the past, where I may have been the only guy swinging an SMF detector on the wet and into the water, many more guys are now also swinging waterproof SMF detectors and now have the ability to follow me down to the wet and into the water. So, all the guys with SF detectors can spend their time on the dry, but now a larger number of guys with SMF detectors can venture into what used to be my almost exclusive territory. Now, they also can search anywhere on the beach, just like I’ve enjoyed for over 10+ years with my Sovereigns. They may not have the experience, and that counts, but at least now they have a machine capable of hunting wherever they want, just like me and my Sovereign. Oh, how I miss the old days, lol.
Of course, the great thing about the beach is that I’ve always considered it to be a giant piggy bank. What we don’t find today, we might find tomorrow. Every shift in the tides and every storm has the potential to move sand, making targets appear within reach, or it can also dump sand, moving targets out of reach. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about beach hunting, is persistence. We all know that the sand can change constantly throughout the day and evening. There’s been many times I’ve gone to the beach and saw large cuts or troughs that formed that weren’t there the day before. So, persistence is very important, gotta be the right person at the right spot at the right time.
And then, there’s a great tip I picked up from Terry Shannon on one of his videos. I’ve had this same idea over the years but never acted on it, always tried to go with what I thought was a “sure thing”. But now that I’ve seen some of his finds using this tip, the next time I’m at the beach, I’m gonna give it a try.
I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, probably missed a few reasons, but these were the ones the popped into my mind as the most logical reasons why finds might be down at beaches we’ve done well at in the past.
The only way we'd ever see a "every coin = old" again, is if mother nature ever goes back into dunes, which haven't seen wet-salt-water in 100 yrs. again. Ie.: to cut into virgin dunes.
