My baptism into metal detection
by Tyler from SD
A couple years back in 2009, only a year and a few months after my wife and I moved into our first house. I was enjoying a nice 45 degree November day with my doberman throwing a plastic pop bottle attempting to teach the unruly guard dog some fetch. Since we all know what cold does to hands and rings after a lofty throw I noticed an emptiness on my hand and the all to familiar sound of real metal hitting a solid object, without looking I knew the wedding band had gone on a lofty voyage. So I froze, knowing the fresh snow melt would allow the ring to be easily pushed into the ground and become very uneasy to spot. Since I'm right handed and of course the band is on the left, it couldn't have possibly gone to far so I pretended to throw something, paying specific attention to my left arm/hand thinking this would most definitely point me in the right direction, of course this would prove futile, that ring could have bounced anywhere. Shortly thereafter I had a 2 million candlepower spotlight attempting a trick I learned in recovering small screws from computers on carpet, holding the light source parallel to the ground so the beam would only catch objects which protruded up in contrast to the surroundings. Once again temperatures and light leaving quickly I called it quits and retired to the warmth of the house informing my wife to not drive in the driveway close to the potential drop zone as to not bury or relocate this golden ring of love.
After a nights sleep and the next days sun uninterrupted by the all to common November clouds I set out for a couple hours I gave up there has to be a more straight forward way of doing this. A thought from no where I though wait, metal detector, yes! I called several places looking to rent a metal detector (knowing the price of one that is good) I figured a quick rental for a day would do the trick. After first sight of the detector I had an immediate gut feeling that this was not going to turn out as planned, but we have all done more with less, so set out I swept the whole drive way several times to no avail. Something had to be wrong, the machine was on, it was fairly simple, on-off and a sensitivity dial, set to most sensitive, I wanted to get this ring no matter how much garbage I dug up. I tested it on a set of keys with the typical gob of metal junk attached and sure enough, the device was broken. I returned the defunk detector back to the pawn shop, after proving my case that it was broken got my money back. And while leaving noticed and Ace hardware store across the road, knowing they had anything from a shotgun to duct tape in there I checked it out, and sure enough there was a Whites Prizm II detector that caught my eye, at $250 it sounded like a steep price at the time, but considering the ring cost $350 it was a fair gamble especially considering I could return it for my money back.
After reading the manual and getting the detector ready to rock, I decided to start where the ring was lost. Looking down at the then unfamiliar controls to turn the Prizm on guess what I saw... There it was, a few inches under my nose, quickly picking the ring back up in complete disbelief that I found my ring after all that I never said a single word, I didn't know whether to swear or jump for joy. I decided to keep the metal detector and it has proven to be one of the most rewarding hobbies ever, I have found a coin stash that my great grandfather hid in a barn back in the 30s, over $3 in coins dating from prior to that era amongst other ventures, which wouldn't have happened without my dog named Ace, and of course the hardware store.