Much like a group of unleashed workaday businessmen on an African safari can tell you, the thrill is in the hunt. Once the target is identified the mind goes into an inadvertent overdrive until the target is in hand. Adrenaline courses through the arteries and the synapses in the brain trigger at lightning speed as underlying hopes of buried treasure force their way into your consciousness. It may be nothing more than a penny or it may be a Spanish doubloon from the 1600s. Finding it with a less-expensive detector adds to the thrill. The inward smugness of locating a valuable relic with an inexpensive detector reminds you of the money you saved while getting the same performance, much as taking an elephant on safari with a BB gun would invoke an outward pride of feigned skill while drawing awe from those around you as your prize elevates you to reign from a platform higher than the one you occupied moments ago.

The coin you’ve just dug up is grateful for its unearthing and after rubbing away the soil that entombed it for so many years it can once again warm its face in the sunlight. This coin is a story. A story of the person who held it, what they were doing that fateful day of its loss, and why they were in that particular area. I’ve found coins at the bases of trees where it was obvious that someone had leaned their back against the strong trunk and pulled up their legs toward their chest, inadvertently dumping the coin from their pocket. This is usually the way a coin is lost around trees. Take time to look at the surroundings. Why was the person here? Why did they pick this particular tree? What was this area like back in 1885 when the coin was lost? Did the unfortunate rest his head in his hands forlorn over a lost loved one? Was he sitting with his young fiancé excitedly discussing plans for their long, splendid life together? Did those plans ever come to pass? Did they make love on this spot before he left on the Andrea Doria and never got the opportunity to see those sweet plans to completion? Was that coin to be payment to the justice of the peace for their wedding, and because of its loss the courses of their lives and history itself was changed? The silent coin holds the answers to these questions but we’ll never know them.

Other located items are of sentimental value and caused the person who lost it tremendous grief at the discovery of its misplacement. One such item is the class ring. Nearly every student buys one when graduating school. Many people have been able to dig up a class ring and through a little research comparing the year and initials inscribed to a yearbook for that school reunite the rightful owner with their lost memorabilia. To see their face light up when they lay hands on the ring after so many years warms the heart. Often they can remember the day they lost it, the feeling of emptiness they felt that day flooded back to damn them into reliving the experience for years on end; the beating endured at the hands of an angry parent when they confessed their irresponsibility. You’ve just ended their suffering and the amount of gold in that ring is a mere pittance compared to the joy and relief you’ve just brought to your newfound friend. Through layers of clouded decades gone by they can clearly recall the day they gave the ring to a high school sweetheart, the pain of loss when she gave it back, the feeling of insurmountable despair as she walked off with his best friend proudly displaying his ring around her neck. All of these memories come back like an unwelcome barrage, letting the owner relive these times but put closure to the events, resulting in the gift of inner peace only you and your detector could provide. No amount of money could bring the joy we feel when we hear their story of loss and how being able to touch their old ring has freed them from their demons.

Unlike class rings with dates and initials, most items are unidentifiable as belonging to a particular person and can never be returned. Coins are one such item. Coins are a relic with as much history as any class ring, but yield a much larger group who’d like to claim them for their own. Numismatic value of an old coin far exceeds the face value, and as such, metal detecting proves to be a very lucrative pastime. Coin collectors strive for completing their collection and that penny you just dug up is the exact year and mint they are missing from boasting a full set. It’s an answer to their dreams and they are eager to pay a king’s ransom to possess it. Fair market value be damned, they are obsessed and are willing to pay anything to have it for their own.

Metal detectorists are often summoned to help police with a search for clues. Each municipality has a list of willing detectorists that can be called upon when searching for a weapon tossed from a car during a chase. While most honest citizens would rally to the cause, detectorists have the equipment to find the weapon in the dead of night under bushes or at the bottom of a shallow river. Inadvertent discoveries can help police solve crimes as well, as in the case of a friend who found a ring that contained the bone from the owner’s finger. Bullets, cartridges, and knives do not escape the detectorist and occasionally provide the missing puzzle piece to facilitate linking a criminal with a crime.

Environmental impact of the detectorist has been a debated issue for years. The uninformed see us as scavengers rooting through dirt for items tossed or lost. Some view us as grave robbers willing to dig up a casket to pry gold fillings from the teeth of the deceased. They see us as opportunists feeding off the misfortune of others and will glare distastefully or walk away with upturned noses as though they were passing by a homeless wretch on the street.

The worst aspect of detecting is leaving a scar on the land. Who would grant permission for someone to dig holes in their carefully pruned lawn knowing the area would be left looking as though drunken gophers frolicked in the area? With practice, a detectorist can locate a target, isolate the signal to a 2-cm area, dig up the target with a small probe and leave the grass undisturbed, showing no signs that we were there. This aeration is in fact healthy for the grass and promotes growth.

One of the important items often overlooked by the public is that detectorists play an immense role in keeping the ground clean. It is not uncommon for a detectorist to walk the beach and dig up a pound of sharp pulltabs (known amongst detectorists as beavertails) that would have otherwise sliced into the foot of an unsuspecting beach-goer or opened a gash in the hand of a child digging in the sand. Pulltabs, bottle caps, and torn aluminum cans account for a large percentage of accidents at the beach requiring tetanus shots and stitches at the local hospital. A responsible detectorist will gladly take trash items out of the sand for two reasons; first, because it will save some person the pain of having their skin sewn back together, and second, it is the only environmentally sound course of action. A fledgling detectorist soon realizes that the only act worse than digging up a worthless pulltab is digging up the same pulltab twice. Adding profane insult to the letdown of not finding the relic you had envisioned during the adrenaline-fueled dig would be the defeat of knowing you could have prevented this waste of time and energy by taking the trash with you the last time you dug it up.

Relics, class rings, and old coins are a bonus for the detectorist, but the vast majority of non-trash targets dug up are common coins of no value beyond that stamped into its face. Still, they hold some value, and most detectorists have piles of coins at home, coffee cans filled with the loot slowly accumulated over weeks or months. As a detectorist, I view these coins as minor victories. Each coin is one less low-valued target for me to dig up the next time I’m in that area and it is money I didn’t have when I started my search. Many detectorists find the pile of coins a monument to personal challenge, striving to make the pile grow if for no other reason than personal satisfaction, much as a model builder will complete an intricate sailing ship to sit back and marvel at his own achievement.

I am a detectorist for all of the above reasons, but none more important than the introspect it provides. Walking the shore of a crystal clear lake, slowly meandering through forests of tall trees and dew-moistened grass, and letting the glowing sun warm my skin as I walk by the side of a seldom used road all provide a degree of solace in a turbulent world. A world much more involved in speed and efficiency now than it was when the last human walked this forest or the last horse-drawn wagon traversed this road.

Detecting allows me time to look deep within myself, to ponder the essence of mankind, to come closer to nature, to defend and protect Mother Earth from the dishonor human beings force upon her, and to allow my imagination free reign over my consciousness if for nothing more than a short period.

Hobbies are a way for us to focus our attention away from our daily dealings and trivialities. To escape from the world we have built and become engrossed in another activity to the exclusion of all else, to disperse tension and expend nervous energy built up from our daily dealings in mundane lives. Golf, hiking, tennis, or cycling provides the psyche with this needed diversion, but no pastime outside detecting pays you to enjoy its pleasures.