Metal Detecting at the State Fair with my Dad

Dad and I made plans to go metal detecting this past weekend since it looked like it would be one of the last weekends of good weather before the ground freezes over and it starts to snow. We are still both trying to figure out the best places to go detecting and neither of us like to ask people to detect their yards so we usually end up at some type of park. I know the state fair grounds have been around for a really long time so I was hopeful we had a chance of finding some old stuff.

Dad got there before me and had already found quite a few coins before I got started. It only took a few minutes to realize it was going to be a great day. I think I was there for less than 5 minutes when he pulled out a wheat penny. I couldn't believe how many signals there were. I thought my detector was acting up or getting false signals because there was so much trash, but it ended up not being the case. Every time I dug a choppy signal it just turned out to be multiple coins within a small distance from each other. I felt like I did a lot more digging than swinging which usually is a good thing.

For a long time we just kept pulling out pennies, dimes, and quarters over and over. At one point I lost track of time and reached into my bag to pull out all the coins I had found and was surprised by how many were in there. It adds up quickly adding 1 at a time, next thing you know you have a handful.

A few hours in I heard dad say "You have to be shitting me!", it looked like he had found something exceptionally cool. At first glance it looked like a really old U.S coin with stars around the edges and an eagle in the center..... our best find ever!

He was cleaning it off trying to figure out what it was when he flipped it over and saw the other side, "No Cash Value", it was just a token. Even though it ended up not being anything great, it was a fun few seconds when we thought he had found the jackpot.

For the second day in a row, I found a 1965 quarter. I always get excited to see a coin from the 1960's hoping it will be silver. 1 year too late to be silver but again, still gives you that extra level of excitement for a bit while you try to read the date.

We detected for 4 or so hours when we decided to call it quits and take a look at all of our finds. This trip was by far the most I had found in a single day hunting and dad even beat me on how much he found as well. Between the two of us our finds took up most of the tailgate of his truck when we laid everything out.

I was surprised with how much we found. I thought for sure the park would have been picked over by dozens of other detectorists over the years and there wouldn't be much left to find. The shear number of things we found, including a wheat penny and 1965 quarter give me hope that we will be able to go back and find something really cool on the next trip.