A day at the beach: “A trait like this is incredibly rare. It feels like fate I guess'
There are two reasons why beaches are good places to detect metals. The first is that people drop things, so you can find things like modern jewelry - but that's not my biggest interest. The other is that over time the sand moves and the sea washes away parts of the beach, allowing you to reach deeper places. And people have been going to beaches since the dawn of time, so there's all kinds of stuff there.
When I was a kid, my grandfather took me with his metal detector on the beaches in Devon UK and we would find odds and ends, nothing crazy. Then, a few years ago, I took up this hobby again with my partner, Emma, who is just as much of a detective as I am.
Sign up to receive a weekly email with our best reads
We had moved to Australia about two weeks before going to Balmoral that day. We didn't have a car yet, so we decided to kill a day by going scouting near where we were staying.
We had been on the beach for about half an hour and mostly found pieces of lead when I heard a faint signal from my detector. Very, very weak; I could barely hear him. So I threw the first two or three inches of sand, which is normal technique if you want to get close to a target and clarify what you're actually hearing.
I started getting a tone from my machine that matched the silver coins, so we dug about 55cm. And then we found a little silver threepence. At that point, we were like, "OK, let's take a closer look here".
There are two reasons why beaches are good places to detect metals. The first is that people drop things, so you can find things like modern jewelry - but that's not my biggest interest. The other is that over time the sand moves and the sea washes away parts of the beach, allowing you to reach deeper places. And people have been going to beaches since the dawn of time, so there's all kinds of stuff there.
When I was a kid, my grandfather took me with his metal detector on the beaches in Devon UK and we would find odds and ends, nothing crazy. Then, a few years ago, I took up this hobby again with my partner, Emma, who is just as much of a detective as I am.
Sign up to receive a weekly email with our best reads
We had moved to Australia about two weeks before going to Balmoral that day. We didn't have a car yet, so we decided to kill a day by going scouting near where we were staying.
We had been on the beach for about half an hour and mostly found pieces of lead when I heard a faint signal from my detector. Very, very weak; I could barely hear him. So I threw the first two or three inches of sand, which is normal technique if you want to get close to a target and clarify what you're actually hearing.
I started getting a tone from my machine that matched the silver coins, so we dug about 55cm. And then we found a little silver threepence. At that point, we were like, "OK, let's take a closer look here".
What's Your Reaction?
