Relic Hunting - Fisher Labs F 75 User Manual

F75
Comprehensive Operating Manual & Guide to Metal Detecting
Detecting Activities (continued)
38

Relic Hunting

Relic hunting is searching for historical artifacts. The most common
desired objects are battlefield debris, coins, jewelry, harness hardware,
metal buttons, trade tokens, metal toys, household items, and tools
used by workmen and trades people. The most common unwanted
metal is iron (nails, fence wire, rusted cans, etc.), but some iron and
steel objects such as weapons may be valuable. If you are at a
site where you may encounter unexploded ordinance, use
caution.
Most relic hunting locations are in fields, forested areas and
vacant lots where digging holes will not damage turf grass, so
having a detector with good depth sensitivity is important.
Some places are so littered with iron that it is necessary to
discriminate out iron in order to be able to search, even though
you may miss some potentially valuable artifacts.
Before you go relic hunting, obtain permission from the property
owner. If you intend to hunt on public land, check first with the
administrator to make sure it's not illegal. Certain kinds of sites, on
both public and private land, are protected by law from relic hunting. If
there is a metal detecting club in your area, some of the members will
probably know what the laws are in that area and which sites are, and
are not, off limits.
Relic hunting is most rewarding if you have an avid interest in history. In
many cases, the value of a relic is not the object itself, but the story
it's a part of -- what historians call context and archeologists call
provenance. A few pieces of rusty metal can tell the story of life
in a specific place, or that of a specific family or person from
hundreds of years ago. They can capture our imagination and
help to give context to our lives today.
The value and context of a find can be readily lost without proper
documentation and storage. Add finds to your collection with care.
Take the trouble to understand the site you are searching and keep
track of where you find things. Describe exactly how and where
items where found. Consider including a sketch of the site with your
finds. Organization techniques might include storing together all
finds from the same site. Alternatively, if you have an interest in
specific items, like buttons, make a button collection, and within
that collection, document the circumstances surrounding each
button found. If your finds are mixed together, without categorization