Chipk
Elite Member
Well I've been detecting for two years now and it's been fun and occasionally rewarding. I've found over 3 dozen rings of which 6 were gold, 20 are silver and the rest were costume ( including a stainless steel with a CZ found today. ) I have a healthy collection of matchbox cars and trucks, tent stakes out the wazoo and lots and lots of other buried trash and treasures. I started with a pair of Ace 250s and have added a brace of ATPs, an xTerra 705 and a TESORO Sand Shark.
It's been a busy 2 years.
However what I've really found has been clad. LOTS of clad. Silver coins are hard to find here (3 silver dimes and a pair of buff nickels) but clad is plentiful. Pennies seem to carpet the ground here and quarters and dimes are plentiful. I avoid digging pennies most of the time because I hate taking the time to dig them since it takes so many to make much of a score so I concentrate on quarters and dimes.
In my bedroom I have a large Tupperware container. When I get home from a hunt, I rinse off my found clad and dump it in the container. Once it gets full I start tumbling and dividing it by denomination into smaller Tupperware containers. When they start to fill up I count them out and roll them. The rolls had been stored on trays in a closet.
I have a trip to Costa Rica in November and I decided I need to get these coins organized and deposited in the bank. Plus they were taking up valuable closet space. So last month I started a marathon tumbling effort. Cleaned up the coins and started rolling them. They started adding up.
Well 3 weeks ago I opened a special savings account so I could keep these funds separate from my other funds because I want to gauge how successful I have been in my hobby. At that time I deposited about $500 in clad. Then today I made another trip to the bank. I walked in carrying 2 very heavy baskets of quarters, dimes and nickels. My wife carried a third basket of rolled pennies. This deposit was over $800. The tellers told me they now had enough coins to last the whole month or more.
Amazingly I found two containers filled with cleaned quarters and dimes that had been missed and still need rolling. Plus I have about $30 worth of damaged coins that will have to go to the Federal Reserve to be redeemed.
Plus I save all my non-coin finds including the scraps of aluminum, copper and brass. I have a collection of plastic drums where I sort these and take to the recycling centers. Each of the last 2 years I have cashed out for $80-$85 each year. Trash also adds up and pays off.
I've gotten a lot of sore backs and legs, sunburns and insect bites during the last two years. I've burned up a lot of batteries and gas following this passion. So I'm still not in the black yet. I doubt I'll ever sell the gold and silver because I enjoy looking at them and renewing the excitement of finding each one of them. But I never went into this for riches (although I wouldn't mind ) but for the pleasure that I get from finding somebody's lost treasure. But it IS nice to get a little back....
It's been a busy 2 years.
However what I've really found has been clad. LOTS of clad. Silver coins are hard to find here (3 silver dimes and a pair of buff nickels) but clad is plentiful. Pennies seem to carpet the ground here and quarters and dimes are plentiful. I avoid digging pennies most of the time because I hate taking the time to dig them since it takes so many to make much of a score so I concentrate on quarters and dimes.
In my bedroom I have a large Tupperware container. When I get home from a hunt, I rinse off my found clad and dump it in the container. Once it gets full I start tumbling and dividing it by denomination into smaller Tupperware containers. When they start to fill up I count them out and roll them. The rolls had been stored on trays in a closet.
I have a trip to Costa Rica in November and I decided I need to get these coins organized and deposited in the bank. Plus they were taking up valuable closet space. So last month I started a marathon tumbling effort. Cleaned up the coins and started rolling them. They started adding up.
Well 3 weeks ago I opened a special savings account so I could keep these funds separate from my other funds because I want to gauge how successful I have been in my hobby. At that time I deposited about $500 in clad. Then today I made another trip to the bank. I walked in carrying 2 very heavy baskets of quarters, dimes and nickels. My wife carried a third basket of rolled pennies. This deposit was over $800. The tellers told me they now had enough coins to last the whole month or more.
Amazingly I found two containers filled with cleaned quarters and dimes that had been missed and still need rolling. Plus I have about $30 worth of damaged coins that will have to go to the Federal Reserve to be redeemed.
Plus I save all my non-coin finds including the scraps of aluminum, copper and brass. I have a collection of plastic drums where I sort these and take to the recycling centers. Each of the last 2 years I have cashed out for $80-$85 each year. Trash also adds up and pays off.
I've gotten a lot of sore backs and legs, sunburns and insect bites during the last two years. I've burned up a lot of batteries and gas following this passion. So I'm still not in the black yet. I doubt I'll ever sell the gold and silver because I enjoy looking at them and renewing the excitement of finding each one of them. But I never went into this for riches (although I wouldn't mind ) but for the pleasure that I get from finding somebody's lost treasure. But it IS nice to get a little back....
