Tom_in_CA

Geotech is right : Do not waste your time on ghost-story camp-fire legends. Just like O.I. : They sound *ssseeooo* compelling. Whenever fabulous treasures are discussed, we subconsciously put critical thinking aside. After all, you don't want to get laughed at all the way to the bank, do you ? But the moment you put it to scrutiny, they fall apart. Just ask yourself "says who ??" at each junction. As for the genre of 1960s/70s treasure magazine lore: Yes, each edition was packed full of "lost mine" and "stolen stagecoach" loot stories. So fun ! In fact, a buddy of mine even submitted one of those stories. Just so he could get the $100 author-article acceptance fee. It was entirely made up fancy. But hey, toss in a few faded newspaper clippings, add some real names and dates, add a drawing of a miner posed next to his burro, and ...... by golly ...... it must be true ! We got a good laugh wondering if anyone ever actually went searching for it.

That LC is in nice shape. And judging from the pile you had to wade through to find it, you earned it !

And thank you for the info. on Italy. As for the "ok to detect" but "can't keep antiquities", then actually, SO TOO do we have a similar situation here in the USA. But with much less-years-criteria. For federal land here (hence, doesn't apply to state or county or city lands, unless brought in by specific inclusion) . Our "ARPA" law would not disallow md'ing, UNLESS you were disturbing or taking antiquities. And that's generally interpreted to be 50 of 100 yrs old objects. So: You can hunt for modern coins in areas with such language. Eg. : fresh loss jewelry, nuggets in natural form, meteorites, etc... But just not old coins. Not unlike what you describe for Italy (the WWII helmet, versus the 2000 yr. old statue) HOWEVER, as for ARPA (aka "cultural heritage" issues) : As long as you're not snooping around obvious historic sensitive monuments, and not being an utter nuisance , traipsing through an archaeologist convention, then : Let's be dreadfully honest : Is anyone out roaming our deserts, forests, and beaches, armed with a calculator, doing the math on the ages of coins that we find ? OF COURSE NOT.

I will not address the part of your post about "Greece", but in-so-far as Italy goes : I corresponded with a hunter from Italy before. And he had no problem md'ing. And no ..... the state didn't come to him and take all his finds, etc..... So I was the "devil's advocate" and linked him to "dire sounding laws" (that sound like what you're saying here) in those European compendiums that people compiled decades ago . You know, the ones that purport to list the laws of each European country, and often contain "dire sounding" info. He just chuckled and said that all the dire things you read there only apply to public land. Not private land. So "farmer Bob" is free to do whatever he wants on his own land. And that, besides, when he & his buddies go detecting, that ...... quite frankly ... they are so far out in the boondocks that there's no one one around to care, in the first place. And so he and many others detect Italy, no problem. And actually , we too, here in the USA, can also not technically keep things we find on public land either (if we wanted to fret ourselves silly enough). Because technically, it would fall under laws/rules that forbid "harvest", "remove", "steal", etc.... In other words, in the same way that I am forbidden to go take home the park benches, harvest the sod or sand for commercial sale, etc... SO TOO would the same verbiage also apply to coins and rings in the park. Now does anyone really care, when it comes to routine benign parks, forests, beaches ? OF COURSE NOT ! But if I asked enough lawyers and bureaucrats "can I ?", I'll bet I can find someone to tell me "no". And then I could publish that finding in a compendium of laws, and announce : MD'ing isn't allowed. Which is why you sometimes have to read between the lines on those compendium guide links.

Actually, no, it's not a joke. And actually, the evolution of how these laws is easy to see . They exist in various wording, in all 50 states. 1) The evolution : Born out of wandering cattle laws of the 1800s. So that if someone's cow gets out of the owner's pasture, it's not the next guy's lucky day to "find" that cow, and simply keep it. See ? 2) And as for this being "a joke" in modern times, let's do a thought experiment : Let's say you are downtown with your wife, out for a romantic dinner at a nice restaurant. As you get back to your car, your wife immediately realizes she doesn't have her 2 carat diamond solitaire wedding ring on ! She remembers that she took it off in the restroom, when she had gone to wash her hands minutes earlier. So she rushes back to the restroom at the restaurant. But it's now gone. Ok, you tell me : Who does the ring belong to ? Your wife ? Or the lucky person who had gone into the restroom next, and "found" it ?? What if your wife dropped it on the sidewalk ? Or the beach ? And it's found a mere 5 minutes later before you had time to retrace your steps and pick it up ? Why would the laws be any different for us on the beach then ? See how these aren't ridiculous laws ?

Actually, all 50 states have "lost & found" laws. That evolved out of wandering cattle laws of the 1800s. Typically stating something like : If you find an Item worth $100 (or $250 or whatever) or more, that you are required to take it to the police station. And if no one claims it after 30 days, then you are entitled to go back and get it. And there might be storage or processing fees for you to pay if you want to claim the item. Or the cost of them running a classified ad in the local paper, etc... And if they tell you "someone claimed the Rolex watch", they are under no obligation to tell you who claimed it (d/t privacy law concerns). So ... you almost have to wonder if the Rolex watch might ... uh ... disappear in the bureaucracy of that desk, eh ? 🤔 And these laws are for good purpose. So that you can't walk away with the mountain bike that you "found" leaning up against the park bench. Or if a Brinks armored car crashes along the freeway, you are not welcome to "find" wads of cash. Thus: Do they apply to the fumble fingers rings, watches, etc... that we md'rs find ? (assuming they're over the value of the L&F law criteria) ? SURE ! That's why all us guys that post show & tell, of our latest rings, are rushing down to police stations everywhere, turning them in. Ok ? 🙄

Yes it's *possible* that someone insured a high-end ring , that included "loss or theft". It's conceivably possible. And if the owner lost it, and the insurance paid out, then yes : This would mean that the insurance company now owns the ring. But even if all these factors fell into place, it would mean that insurance companies are "trolling" our geeky md'ing forums. Watching our show & tells. Waiting to jump and say "That's ours". And for some reason, I highly doubt that insurance companies are reading our geeky niche forums, for something that was lost 5 or 10 or 20 yrs. ago. Just doesn't seem likely. About the only time I think the L&F laws could come into play, is if someone had micro-laser etched (invisible to the naked eye) some sort of insurer's mark on a diamond. And then if the md'r went to try to hock the diamond, the *theoretically*, it could be traced ? Again: A highly unlikely set of events. Does ANYONE know of some prior owner or insurer, jumping out of the bushes and saying : "That's mine " ? I see show & tell of nice rings (even very-high-end-rings) all the time, on beach hunt md'ing forums. And don't ever recall any stories of someone claiming "That's mine" Does anyone here recall such a thing ?

From the title of your post, I wasn't sure what platform you were talking about. But yes: I *have* seen some history FB pages (geographic specific locale chit-chat pages), where sometimes md'rs have come onboard, showing off something they found at "such & such stage stop", or whatever. AND YES ! : The purist archie types might BRISTLE with disdain. Yes. I have seen that reaction. But as we all can agree, Not on md'ing hobbyist chit-chat pages.

Exactly. The only times I can recall any busy-body griping that an md'r should "donate something", is when it's connected to provenance somewhere. But to simply show off an old coin or rare buckle or whatever ......... No ...... I do not know of any md'rs who have been bugged to "donate it" to anywhere or anyone. Half the fun of md'ing is the show & tell aspect. So by all means : Show & tell. No one's gonna hunt you down and say "donate it" to anywhere.

Great pix. Love the capture of the hunt site. And great play-by-play.

Cipher, the title of your post is : "Why I Tend Not To Post My Finds " But what you are talking about, would only happen if you paraded cool historic finds in front of purist archie types. And only then-so, if you're telling where you found the stuff. What you are talking about does not happen on md'ing forums like this. Many of us post our show & tell on md'ing forums ALL THE TIME. And no one gets in touch with us saying : "You should donate that, blah blah" So I think what you meant is, that you don't do your show & tell to purist museum archie type people. Right ? And actually, most museums these days do not even say those things. They are OVERWHELMED with donations, from sincere well-meaning citizens. And unless you had something phenomenal (George Washington's personal wrist-watch), no one is going to be saying those things. About the only people that would say those things, are purist archies. And those types are NOT hanging out on md'ing forums ! 🤣 So: Post away ! Let's see you're bragging rights 🧐

Good show. Good pix !

Welcome to the exclusive and elite gold coin club. The "holy grail" hole-in-one of md'ing. Congratz !

When it alludes to "small plastic articles" (that it aims to pick up), I was initially skeptical. Thinking that they meant plastic bottles , etc.... But was surprised that the video does indeed show coin/ring sized objects. Eg.: cigarette butts, etc... Because with all the decades of beach cleaner machines that are already being made, they are only for bigger items. Eg.: McDonalds bags, cans/bottles, etc.... There is a singular particular mechanical beach cleaner machine, with sifter screens that can be adjusted small enough to snare down to coin-sized items . At the operator's settings in the cab. But to do so means they cover much less space in a day. Because it slows down the machine much more, puts a big drag on the engine, etc... So even the rare cities with those machines rarely put it in that setting/mode. The reason why today's beach cleaner machines don't pick up coin-sized items, is that it would mean that the machine starts picking up pebbles, leaves, seashells, matted clumps of sand, etc...... Stuff they DON'T need to pick up. Therefore the beach cleaner machines are never a threat to our hobby. But I see that this one, in your link boasts ability to get down to "micro" trash. I don't see how any municipality anywhere is ever going to adopt this. Because there is just so-much-more bigger fish to fry on the beach, than "micro-plastics". And the time/energy/cost to go after "micro" just doesn't seem to be high on any city's financial radar right now. Interesting link though !

Good story. And I'll bet that the reason they are intertwined like that, is that someone "took them off for safekeeping" . Like, prior to going in for a swim, or prior to playing volleyball, or whatever. I've heard this story before, when someone relates how they lost their jewelry, is that they "took it off for safekeeping", and handed it to their friend to hold. Or hid it in their shoe by their beach blanket, or ... whatever. Kind of ironic that someone takes off their jewelry for safekeeping, when , in fact, they would have been better off leaving it on ! Doh 🙂

Nice job !

Strick is right : Get on California gold rush relics FB site, and these are the type sought-after niche that the guys there love. And yes, we find stuff in our CA gold rush sites that came from Australia as well. Since : You guys had a gold rush there at approx. the same time (?). Thus some of the miners went back and forth, USA to Australia and vice-versa. So it stands to reason that you will occasionally get stuff that came from us, towards your direction gold rush. Very interesting !

Good observation. Yes, it's very annoying when someone's show & tell video is like the Bass-fishing-channel. Where "every cast is a lunker". So when my buddy and I do videos, we include shots of both good and bad. Also beneficial when the videos capture audio of both good and bad. That brings the viewer into it, and is music to the hard-core md'rs ears 🙂

So what we do, to avoid this bias, is to test each other by purposefully marking some bad ones. Just to see what the other person says. Or to mark out a 3 ft. square area, and see what they can isolate in a larger spot. And even once they *do* hear it, then to make sure that they're not simply getting the same beep-type elsewhere, and digging junk .

One time I had a dealer telling me that a certain machine was going to utterly kick-butt in the turf. So he & I agreed to meet up in a certain park that ....... for the right ear and skill ..... was known to still have some deepie silver and wheaties. We met up and began to compare flagged signals. And I noticed that each time I showed him a signal (that I suspected to be a potential deep silver or wheatie hiding in the junk), he's concur : "Yup, I hear it loud and clear", etc... So at first, I was impressed. But as the morning wore on, I began to notice that he had not shown me any signals, so far, that were turning out to be deep coins. He'd flag an occasional clad or pulltab or whatever. So I began to suspect that he was merely concurring with whatever I pointed out to him, and merely repeating my evaluation. In other words, it's VERY EASY to be shown a flagged spot, and THEN to hear something. And if someone else (who has a reputation for finding deep silver in junky parks) says "This sounds good", then it's VERY EASY to subconsciously amp up the evaluation in-your-mind, and simply agree : "Yes I hear it, and yes I would have dug that, and yes it sounds like such & such". Heck, the guy would even un-plug his headphones, show me the same signal, and I couldn't deny that, yes, it was giving a beep on the spots (maybe even a nice loud beep !). But then I noticed that the moment he moved off yonder in any other direction, he'd get the same exact beeps elsewhere, with no tell-tale difference. Hence not a good cherry picking machine. So I played a little trick on him: I purposefully chose a shallow zinc penny or tab or a one-way-nail-false, and called him over. I painted a rosy picture that I thought it was going to be a super deep wheatie or silver. And sure as heck, he agreed with my assessment word-for-word. The point being : You have to have 2 persons who can *honestly* (without subconscious bias) be asking themselves : "Would I have truly heard this on my own". Needless to say, I never went out tech.-comparing with that dealer again .

This is why it's beneficial to have a buddy system, where each of them flags signals with competing machines. Then makes their evaluations , and then ..... see the results. And will be honestly asking themselves "... Would I have heard that if it hadn't been pointed out to me ?"

Another great video. Love the live digs. Love the Great Coat button @ 4:07. Question for you : In retrospect, could your Equinox or Deus 1 have gotten those signals ?

Or ..... wait ..... maybe a different story ?

This subject, and I believe the same source/link, came up here : http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=294750&highlight=Coronado And I put my thoughts on that one.

thanx for the acknowledgement . The brainchild friend of ours will make the next batch to drop the word "California". As soon as the current order (50 hat minimum order) is passed out. When we make another batch with the revised wording, we'll do another forum prompt. This beats-the-heck out of the lame "looking for my dad's boyscout ring that he lost here in 1965". Eh ? 😏 Hey, we md'rs have to do-our-part to save the environment !