this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 51 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Found my wifes disapproval, even before I even had a chance to buy the detector. It wasn't just cool, it was cold.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

And that stopped you from buying?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Sorry for chuckling at your disappointment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I have an actual answer. I bought a metal detector and naturally I set to work in the backyard to see if I could find anything cool. Well I don’t know if you think rusty nails and bottle caps are cool but I sure found a lot of those. I did find a lot of good time to practice though.

Fast forward a few months, I had branched out to local parks and such and hadn’t revisited the backyard. We were having some landscaping done which included digging up some tree stumps. For a lark I ran the detector over one of the holes a stump had come out of and I got a hit. Not just a hit but a hit that registered the same as a pre-1964 quarter. Silver.

After a little digging I pulled up a pair of vintage ww2 aerial gunnery wings! (Note: these aren’t the ones I found but they are very similar)

Not sure how I had missed them or what they were doing there but best I can figure is that since the house dated to the late 1950’s some kid grabbed his dads wings from the war and managed to lose them in the backyard and was never able to find them. Sad for dad but cool for me I guess

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What are gunnery wings supposed to do? Are they like a badge, a decoration, something that goes on a car, or something else?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I think they’re like pilot’s wings but are what the guys who operated the defensive machine guns in a b-17 or b-29 were issued

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's really cool! I wonder if there's a way to find the previous owners of the house, that'd make for a really fun story if you were able to track down the original owner somehow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

It’s been on my to do list but getting to the county tax records has been a schlep

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I took a metal detector to the beach once and all I got was antisemitic slurs. I’m not even Jewish; those bigots just assumed so.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Me and my BF have had a similar experience, I had my recording equipment and he had his metal detector, and I guess both of these things are semitic stereotypes because we were both hated upon for these two things. Neither of us were Jewish, I'm a Christian (more or less if one wants to argue the semantics) and he being an unspecific mix of things.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Copper chisel chips on old mining piles, copper replacement agates, lots of small copper specimens that are slowly filling my house. I gave up on the sweeping metal detectors once I got some nice handheld probes that you can shove deep into loose dirt and rocks while digging.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm getting the sense that you found copper...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

The easiest way to find coppers is to get naked on the high street.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Not me but someone who did it in our yard back when I was a wee lad: a gun. Don't worry. Someone did not drop their gun willy nilly in our lawn, at least not recently. The thing was a very rusty 80-year old revolver. He also found a decent amount of tax tokens.

Digging in my current yard has not resulted in anything as fun: 150 beer bottles, an animal skull (still not sure what species), and a wine bunch of oyster shells.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What metal was the skull made out of

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

Boneium, duh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That honestly sounds like the kind of revolver someone could sell.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Insomnium. Beautiful, melodic solos, decent riffs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

As in a CD/record or an actual band member?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

He’s just found gold, so he’s going through a range of emotions.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Using a metal detector here in Sweden requires a license from the government.

This is to prevent scavaging archeological artifacts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

This is true, they have however debated the issue and might loosen the restrictions:

https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/motion/forenkla-regelverket-for-anvandandet-av_H902681/

TL;DR and for non-swedes: the suggestion argues that hobbyists should be allowed to use metal detectors more freely. The motion was initally approved by Riksdagen but later voted against as there already work in progress on matter of simplifying the rules regarding metal detectors. So change might come, hopefully sooner than later

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

They might as well just require a license for people to go searching for things. And what if the artifact is made of wood?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Untill someone makes a wood detector I don't think they are worried about it.

The point is that a metal detector is specifically made to find stuff easier, and significantly cuts down on manpower needed to find stuff, increasing the risk of scavanging.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Do they have a license to stop dogs from being trained on the scent of certain materials?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Nope, not to my knowledge.

I have never heard about that being a problem or even a thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wood doesn't survive from the Viking age to the present

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What about other materials? I should've been broader than wood, but what if for example it's a gemstone? Not everything is going to be metal I assume.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

If you ever go to a museum and look at what artifacts they have from the dark ages, it's like 99% metal stuff. Just statistical I guess. I think even a gemstone would normally be attached to a piece of jewelry and not just loose on its own. The other big one is pottery and other earthwares, but I guess the idea of that law is to protect whatever they can.