<p><strong>My name is Tim Hess.</strong> I'm 46 and received my first metal detector when I was 6. I took several years off but have been pretty serious for about 5 yrs now.</p> <p>About 2 years ago I purchased a White's v3i and absolutely love it.</p> <p>I'm currently not working due to having 2 knee surgeries in as many years. I can only hunt for 1-2 hours at a time but I do this whenever possible.</p> <p>My favorite places are the local properties because of the age of my town. For example, my house was built in 1897 and is one of the newer houses. I'm located in West Pittston, PA. It's a small town located between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton along the Susquehanna River.</p> <p>The story I would like to submit happened just last week. I received a call from a fellow detectorist. She received a call from a friend who was very distraught. Her daughter had a soccer game the day before and lost her necklace during the game. She told her that the daughter was given this cross necklace a few years ago when she was 4. It was the last thing the girl's grandmother gave her before she passed away and the girl never takes it off.</p> <p>I was given the general location of where they thought it was dropped. My friend was working so she asked me if I could help. I immediately got in my truck and drove to the field.</p> <p>I was surprised at the amount of trash and coin targets I was hitting. Most were 4-6 inches deep. Since I was on a sports field I had to ignore all these signals because I don't dig in sports fields because I don't want to take the chance of leaving a low spot where a child could sprain an ankle or knee.</p> <p>I just kept making passes about 30ft long in the general area I was told and watching the depth reading of the targets. On my 4th pass I hit a target that showed 2.5 inches (about the length of the grass). I looked down and didn't see anything at first so I moved the grass around a little and finally saw this tiny gold cross.</p> <p>I called my friend who asked me to go to the local elementary school and ask for the mother who is a teacher there. When I gave her the cross she had tears in her eyes and kept thanking me. I have never been this proud of finding anything in my years of detecting. I just hope that I get to feel it again sometime.</p>