Metal Detecting

The economy is down, the price of gold is up and I've got a kid who needs to go to college someday. So one hot Sunday afternoon, I did what any sensible working stiff might do: I rented a metal detector and hit Coney Island.

For years, I'd seen leathery old men scanning the sand with their wands, and I'd heard tales of treasure hunters finding Rolexes gone missing on the beach...

Full Article: Scavengers scan beaches seeking valuable trinkets; reporter digs up coins... - NYDailyNews.com

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They are known in the trade as "grot pots" – buckets and Tupperware boxes that amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists fill with battered, corroded, base-metal coins and other finds. And in these murky vessels our history is being rewritten.

As the money that funded an unprecedented explosion of professional archaeology during the economic boom years runs out, public hunger to peel back the past beneath our feet is helping to fill the gap. So the grots are identifying lost villages and settlements, Roman forts and temples, previously unknown trade routes; even mapping the slow ebb of the Roman empire from Britain...

Full Article: Digging deep - The Guardian

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