On a pleasant warm summer day, I arrived home from work early. I was pondering my afternoon metal detecting trip and my wife asked, ""When are we going to try the old wayside park?"" I figured well why not tonight? It was a short 15 minute ride down the road. On the way there I thought about what treasures or trash I may find. I pulled into the park and unloaded my Minelab Equinox 800 and strapped on my sweet military toolbelt equipped with my Garrett pro-pointer, grave digger hand digger, and my favorite Kellyco finds pouch. All purchased from Kellyco!

I began swinging the coil around all of the hotspots like park benches and grills, only to find pull tabs and can slaw. At this point I wished I would have brought along my Minelab 6 inch coil too work through all the trash targets. I decided to shift gears thinking the walk way to the restroom may hold some coins.

As I started along the vintage path in this vintage wayside now a town park, I started getting some coin signals. Most were all modern clad coins except a 1922d wheat cent which is a great find. The trail quickly fizzled out.

I turned my attention to the large maple trees that looked to be at least 100 years old. I found a set of keys, more pull tabs, and miscellaneous hardware. I was feeling discouraged, but it was too late to go anywhere else. As I was detecting back towards the car I circled the last tree, the Equinox chirped loudly with a 39 on the display. In my experience so far a 39 was some kind of large sheet metal or garbage. I hoped for a silver US half dollar. I cut a nice plug next to the old maple and peered down the hole. I didn't see anything so I prodded around with the pro-pointer. It was still a bit deeper. I carefully removed another 4 to 5 inches of soil and again looked down in the hole using the pro-pointer's flashlight function. I could make out something green. It wasn't a coin and wasn't the sheet metal that I expected. As I gently retrieved the unknown item, I asked myself what is this thick heavy piece of copper doing here. My wife Sarah asked what I was finding and I told her she just some kind of old copper. When I said old copper I thought of the old copper culture native Americans that once lived in our area. So I gently brushed off the rest of the loose dirt and discovered I was holding a 7000 year old native American copper artifact. I'm so happy with this find. Never give up on a spot until you have covered everything is what I learned.