Back In mid September 2022 I ended writing my last story about a hunt I did in Oshawa Ontario. It ended up being a very successful hunt indeed.

Well it’s Now November 10th 2022 and the last month and a half has been full of adventures and excitement for me within this awesome hobby.

First. I decided to find a local coin guy that could help identify A few of the items I had found over the past 2022 season. A guy by the name of Dean. Dean took in my Mexican coin, & 2 rings.

I had these items with Dean for over a month. I hadn’t heard anything back about any of my items, so I decided to ask for them back because a gold road show was passing through town and I could go and get an assessment done infront of me for free.

I took in all the gold rings I found and silver pendants approx 7 items, and all my older Canadian and American clad coins as well.

I carefully separated all the coins into years and bagged them separately. Well to make a long story short, turns out unless you have a collector for your clad, no one is interested in them lol. All the coins came back home with me. The gold and silver were sold to the road show guys. For $435.00 (7 pieces)

and the Mexican coin, well that was a different story. I had been offered $500 by one of the road show guys out of his own pocket. The company he worked for would only offer the value of the copper itself with they figure wasn’t even $0.05 because the size of the coin is so small. lol .

The guy told me that the coin was copper and looks to be more rare than the same coin from the same year that was also made from gold or other metal that were gold plated. Making this particular coin very rare. I declined the $500 offer and took it home with me where it sits in its own box in my treasure chest lol.

I found that coin very near the Robinson museum in Oshawa which was from from right around that time line

And the coin, which was traditionally used in weddings back in that era where a token like this coin, they were given (by a groom) to the father of the bride as a part of the dowery and a token of respect.

Well mine was found right on the public beach. I wonder if there was a wedding in the Robinson family with a Mexican groom ? Guess I’ll never know. Lol

Ok Moving on.

In October I decided to try and look for other local Detectorist in my area. There are lots of YouTube videos of guys from my area but I haven’t seen another Detectorist since I started swinging a coil. So I created a Facebook group to try and attract some attention to the area and maybe get some folks interested in the hobby and maybe even together so that we can have some people interested in a great hobby out together instead of always hunting alone.

So I started the DIRT DIGGERS OF KINGSTON Facebook group.

We have had a couple people meet up already and 21 local detectorists join the group to date. Some beginner’s and some veterans to the hobby. Many questions in the group that get asked such as what specific items are that have been found by another member usually get answered by one of our veteran detectorist members lol.

I have got a few people interested in the hobby and I’ve even taken some new people out to see if it’s something they might like to get into? Introducing people into a hobby like this makes me feel good so it’s something I can see myself continuing.

Through the Facebook group page I ended up purchasing yet another metal detector from a local Detectorist. This one is the Minelab Equinox 600. I bought it used “obviously” & for a decent price ($650 CDN) this machine new is ($1000 CDN).

It was apparently used 1 time and still had new packaging on it, even if it was used more than advertised, it was still in new condition and I am pleased with the purchase. I Tried to offer the previous owner a tutorial on how to use it incase they still wanted to keep it instead of selling as she had told me she wanted to sell it because it was too complicated for her to use.

That did not seem to matter and she just wanted to get rid of it. Well it was a good deal to me and it gave me a waterproof mashing to add to my quickly growing collection of metal detectors.

I put the new to me machine to work quickly and have gone out with it to learn the machine every chance I get. This machine definitely has a bunch more settings on it to fine tune searches in an array of different soil/sand conditions but so far it has been well worth the learning curve.

I have been out a handful more times lately but have been staying mainly to playground areas, old schools and the odd small local beach. I have not found anymore gold items lately but have found many old coins some silver coins and some very interesting relics too.

My favourite silver coin was a 1943 American MERC Dime. this dime is 79years old to-date.

Starting a YouTube channel

So so have been watching a lot of YouTube channels regarding metal detecting. So I decided to start my own informative channel to help show people what is involved and what they can expect when first getting into the hobby. You can check out my YouTube channel at the following link

https://youtube.com/channel/UC3IVwu3l1V3Ui-OoideTakA or just look up “ Swinging Coils “ on YouTube and it should come right up.

So lastly for this blog entry is… I have now become part of THE RING FINDERS community. This is a community of metal detectorists world wide that are willing to help find peoples lost valuable items. Wether it is a ring, or piece of jewelry, watch, cell phone, car/house keys. Ect…. The idea is people can call a local to them Detectorist and essentially hire them to find their lost item. You pay what it’s worth to you to have it found.

There was a process to become a Ring Finder but I think it’s a great service and hopefully over time may help pay for the equipment I’ve purchased in order to enjoy this hobby to the fullest potential. I’ve already sold some items but I would much rather find the owners of those items and see the smiles that would re-unite people with their lost treasures.

You can check out a Ring Finder near you if you’ve lost a special item at the following link

https://fr.theringfinders.com/. ( if the link doesn’t seem to fully work when you click on it. Type in “The Ring Finders” in your Google search bar. It should work fully that way instead)

I hope you’ve enjoyed my continued learning experiences of this amazing hobby. Please leave a message or hit like if you enjoyed this blog