5 Amazing Finds with a Metal Detector

The fine art of metal detecting gets a whole lot sexier when you read about what they found, like the retired businessman who unearthed the mother lode of Viking gold and silver artifacts dating back more than 1,000 years. Derek McLennan's find in October 2014 in Scotland, hailed as the country's most significant, was comprised of 100 items including a ninth century solid silver cross, a silver pot, gold objects, a rare silver cup engraved with animals that dates from the Holy Roman Empire, and a gold bird pin. It wasn't McLennan's first big find, either. The year prior, he found about 300 medieval coins in the same area.

His efforts were handsomely rewarded. Three years later, he was awarded the equivalent of $2.5 million. He'd passed along his find to the Queen’s and Lord Treasurer's Remembrance, which makes rulings on items deemed not to have an owner, according to The Independent, and they set the price of his payment.

You just never know what these modern-day prospectors might discover. With that in mind, we rounded up some of the more significant finds that have us thinking that maybe it's time to get a metal detector after all — name-calling be damned.

1. The great hoard

In July 2009, metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert decided to try his luck in farmland close to his home in Staffordshire in the English countryside. He came across an artifact, and bingo. Over the next five days, he found enough gold objects in the soil to fill 244 bags. An archeological expedition was hatched, and all told, the "Staffordshire Hoard" was found to contain some 3,500 pieces representing hundreds of complete objects. The cache of gold, silver and garnet objects from early Anglo-Saxon times represents one of the most important kingdoms of the era — and was valued at around $5.3 million.

A decade later, archeologists have put what they've learned about the extensive find into a book, "The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure," which also has an impressive online component with details and images about all 700 objects.

2. Definitely not a beer can

When Mike DeMar was diving off the coast of Key West in 2008, he thought he had come across some trash, but … not even close. "I thought I was digging a beer can that the metal detector hit," said the 20-year-old treasure diver. "I couldn't see any gold until I pulled it out. The sediment cleared away. The gold started to shine. Time just stopped down there under water. "I thought: 'Oh my God.'" The gold, nearly a pound of it, was in the form of a 385-year-old chalice from the Santa Margarita, a ship that sank in 1622. It was valued at about $1 million.

3. Loving cup

Ringlemere Cup, treasure found with metal detector
The Ringlemere Cup got its name from the place where it was uncovered in Kent. The notable dent in the cup was the result of modern ploughing equipment. 

While pursuing his hobbies of amateur archeology and metal detecting, retired electrician Cliff Bradshaw discovered the Ringlemere Gold Cup, a Bronze Age vessel found in the English county of Kent in 2001. Although it had been damaged by a modern plow before he found it, it's still a remarkable find, and one of only seven similar gold "unstable handled cups" found in Europe dating to the period between 1700 and 1500 BC. It was purchased by The British Museum for $520,000, which was split between Bradshaw and the family who owned the farm where the cup was found.

4. The Boot of Cortez

In 1989, a prospector from Senora, Mexico, purchased an inexpensive metal detector at Radio Shack and took it to the desert. After days of finding little more than assorted junk, he hit the jackpot: a gold nugget weighing 389.4 troy ounces, or 26.6 pounds! The gold nugget was so big that it even earned the name, "Boot of Cortez." It's the largest nugget ever unearthed in the Western Hemisphere. In 2008, the Boot of Cortez was sold at auction for $1,553,500.

5. Argh, behold the booty

In 1952, maritime historian and pirate specialist Edward Rowe Snow headed to a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia armed with a metal detector and a mysterious old map. Not only did the detector lead him to a stash of 18th-century Spanish and Portuguese doubloons, but he also found a skeleton clutching the coins.

Original Story: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/6-incredible-treasures-found-with-a-metal-detector