I have started working on a full length video on Beach and water hunting. Lots of video on how to read a beach, equipment, tips and techneques to improve your find rate.

Thinking outside the box. where and when to hunt. Excaliber sounds for gold, Plus a peak at my collection and some good stories.It will sell for 20.00

If you are interested in buying a copy please e-mail me at rpg61@msn.com I will reply to all e-mails when the DVD is ready.

UPDATE: With my fall England trip and the repair of my Excalibur II the video has been delayed. It will be finished and ready to ship early spring.

Something for the hunter that has everything, except enough gold!

2-3-12

This will be a long post today as I have a few things to share.

I met up with Mark this morning at the giving beach. we spent 3 and a half hours detecting in a 30foot x 20 foot area.

This area is littered with iron and lots of lead, the signals are often very light, and once you disturb the area targets seem to appear.

I managed exactly 75 of those little lead balls, 3 wheat pennies, a nickle, a dime, a corrod ed skeleton key and a few other pieces of metal.

Mark the gold whore snagged a gold ring, pretty one with some fillagree work and several small stones, and an anniversary bandthat turned out to be gold filled.

I don't have the weights or pics yet but he assures me he will send them out tonight!

Here's the good part. while we were in the water he found a merc dime and said he thought it was a 16 but it was gray and he really couldn't tell

Well I got the call about an hour ago.

It is a 16D

And to make matters even weirder it is his 4th one found while detecting!

So all you hunters that are annoyed with all the good stuff that I find, be glad you don't see all that mark finds!

That is my cross to bear in this life!

The man can not get me down! tomorrow is another day!

Congradulations my friend on one hell of a hunt!

2-2-12

What a great morning, got off from the firehouse and headed straight for the giving beach!

was about an hour brfore I got my first good target a 10 gold filled earring, then I worked a washed out area that has produced lots of lead

and some small gold. Dug lots of targets mostly small lead.

then I got my find of the year so far a 14K wedding band. The inscription is what makes this a phenominal find

V.K. 2-23-1910

This ring was obviously lost early as the ring and inscription show little wear!

21 days untill their 102nd anniversary!

My oldest ever inscribed ring!

1-31-12

Temperature got up into the 50's today, so I spent 3 1/2 hours in the water.

Plenty of targets mostly midrange or low tones here's the total haul. Plenty of pull tabs and the little lead balls

The good stuff

14K very tiny womans ring, 0.8g-------silver WWI US Navy ring (Mark got one of these last month)

Crackerjack Rifle with paint still intact. I love these crackerjack prizes

Jade elephant

This was an eyeball find, I thought it was a wad of gum or a piece of colored glass

1-29-12

Treasure on the Thames the National Geographic Show I did last spring.

Has a webpage on Nat Geo AU website

Treasure on the Thames, Lucky Muckers

Lots of great still photos from the shoot. Airdate and preview not up yet but should be coming soon.

1-28-12

I met Mark at the beach this morning. Hunted for about 3 and a half hours. The water is 38 degrees and the wind was whipping a little.

I managed a silver ring with a carved tigers eye stone and a 1945 silver washington quarter.

Mark got a nice little 14K gold cross, 1.0g a small silver ring and a silver rosie dime

Mark was out yesterday as well and got a 14K wedding band,0.9g he's suppose to send a pic.

1-26-11

Had the logo I came up with a couple months ago put on hats today.

Silver and gold on dark color-------------------------------------Black and gold on light color

I think I like the silver and gold on dark better.

1-25-11

I received notification from the Colchester museum today that they are interested in acquiring my mideval Hawking whistle.

I found this in England in March of 2008 it is from the 1500's to 1700's. One of only two examples known.

The other one is in the whistle museum.

I sent a letter last spring asking if the Colchester would be interested in me donating this piece.

This is a piece of history that needs to be shared and not just sit in my display case.

I will be bringing it with me this March to present to the curator of the Colchester Museum.

1-10-12

Hit the beach again for about 3 hours got a 1942 merc, and 2 thin gold rings.

10K antique gold band,0.8g -------------------------- 10k twisted wire gold ring,0.2g

1-9-12

Ventured out for the first hunt of the year. managed about 40 coins off the dry sand including a buffalo nickle. no jewelery today at all

9-16-11

Cara came and picked up her ring. She wrote a very nice thank you letter.

14K white gold 2009 Class ring

8-5-11

George came by the firehouse to pick up his Platinum wedding band. He will forward a letter.

There is always hope!

8-3-11

Got off from the firehouse and headed down for some sand shooting. The waves were a little too rough so I just hunted dry for 2 hours.

Got about 5 dollars in change. Then I went to the church my wife and I belong to, to do some demolition in their new space, when I was done at 2pm I checked my e-mail and had another lost ring ad on craigslist. It said platinum ring lost on or near the vollyball courts north of the bridge. I sent the person an e-mail asking for more info and got to the beach before he called back,

Not knowing what court he was on I looked over the 20+ courts and came up with a game plan. On the 4th court I got a very smooth low tone and there it was when I dumped the sifter. It only took 15 minutes. 950 Platinum ring with inscription. 9.3 grams over 500 dollars just in scrap.

When I returned to the car George had called twice. I called him back and he started to tell me where he was playing and I interupted him saying I had found it already. He is coming to the firehouse on Friday to pick up his ring.

950 Platinum wedding band. 9.3grams

8-2-11

Went out real early for 3 hours before the firehouse. From 3 to 6 am.

6 or 7 dollars in change a small silver ring, and what I thought in the dark was a gold wedding band. Who wears gold colored stainless steel!

Jason came by to pick up his ring.

Another happy return. 14K white gold band 11.0grams

7-30-11

Wall Street Journal article. will be in Sat 7-30-11

Metal Detectors Hit the Jackpot

Sales are way up as gold prices soar; hauling a pound of jewelry off the beaches of Lake Michigan

In 1985, Ron Shore began selling metal detectors from his Chicago basement. The shop limped along for two decades, and five years ago, with the price of an ounce of gold at about $650, he nearly closed it. This year, gold has soared to more than $1,600 an ounce, and Mr. Shore, 66, is on track to rake in $1.2 million in sales. "It's been gangbusters," he said, noting that his retail business—which sells detectors priced from $150 to $25,000—has doubled every year for three years running. In December, he quit his day job with a graphic-arts firm. "I couldn't keep up with it anymore," he said. With the price of precious metals on the rise and the economy stuck in a weak recovery, the metal-detector business is booming.

"It's the get-rich-quick mentality, or find some extra change to put in the gas tank," said Mike Scott, sales director for First Texas Products of El Paso, which last year sold $15 million worth of its gold-prospecting metal detectors, marking the third consecutive year that sales of the product have tripled.

With the economy in a slump and gold at record highs, more people are supplementing their income by hunting for treasure - with metal detectors. WSJ's Jack Nicas reports from Chicago.The top U.S. retailer, Kellyco Metal Detectors in Winter Springs, Fla., saw annual sales climb 63% from 2005 to 2010, to $24.8 million. The store projects sales of $26 million this year.

The phenomenon isn't limited to the United States. Minelab, an Australian company that sells high-end metal detectors for as much as $5,600, sold $118 million worth last year, more than double its sales of $46 million in 2009. Minelab partly attributes the jump in sales of the premium detectors to a gold rush in Sudan, where droves of modern-day prospectors with gold fever have traveled in search of fortune. The company projects continued growth this year.

Metal detectors began largely as military devices, said Stu Auerbach, who opened Kellyco in the early 1970s, when simpler, cheaper versions of the devices hit the commercial market. Sales remained steady for decades, he said, until they started to spike five years ago.

The hobby's rising fortunes have made a virtual celebrity of "Chicago Ron" Guinazzo, a Chicago firefighter whose weekly YouTube videos of detecting tips and treasures have drawn nearly 850 subscribers and 278,000 views. Mr. Guinazzo got his start with metal detectors in 1983 when he used one to look for his missing high-school class ring. He never found the ring, but since then has unearthed countless others, along with gold coins and dentures. For a dying woman, he once found an urn containing her late husband's ashes.

Mr. Guinazzo, 50, said that he and his partner Mark Slinkman, 40, hauled a pound of gold jewelry off Chicago beaches last year. They attribute their success to a mastery of the nuances of their detectors' beeps. (Different metals and depths elicit different tones and pitches from the machine.) The two use a Minelab Excalibur, a $1,300 device made for underwater detecting "We've built a rapport with our machines," Mr. Guinazzo said on a recent morning, smoking thin cigars with Mr. Slinkman as they leaned on their Excaliburs along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Nearby, Lamont O'Laughlin, a 51-year-old electrician, swept his detector listlessly over the sand. "Just coins," he said of the day's haul. "Those guys find all the good stuff."

Concerned that national archeological treasures will be looted, many countries, including France and Italy, ban or restrict metal-detecting. But some have made peace with the amateur treasure hunters. More than a decade ago, the British Museum began recording artifacts found by the public, creating a registry of the finds for archeologists, said Michael Lewis, deputy head of the program. Detectorists, as they call themselves, have contributed most of the registry's 700,000 finds, he said, and archaeologists have since largely dropped their complaints.

Historians and detectorists have also teamed up in the Hamptons on New York's Long Island. Since November, detectorists have paid the Southampton Historical Society $100 apiece for a weekend of searching on the society's private land. Detectorists have brought home Colonial-era coins and musket balls, and the program has brought in nearly $10,000 to help the society restore old barns.

For most hunters, real treasure is elusive. Mr. O'Laughlin and his brother, Casey, 50, have been detecting for decades but usually find garbage or lost change. "You barely find enough to pay for the batteries," Casey O'Laughlin said.

Javier Castrejon said that he bought a $250 detector last year, thinking it would pay for itself, but quickly realized otherwise. "Mostly I find nails or buttons," he said. But the 33-year-old said that he enjoys the new hobby and, "being laid off, any extra change helps."

Mike Bach, an 80-year-old actor, bought his first detector last month and, after two days, bought another for his 72-year-old wife, Darlene. The Bachs say they fell for the hobby's adventure, not its returns. "I've racked up about $1.85 in quarters and pennies," Mr. Bach said after a recent day of detecting. "But it's addictive...like prospecting."

By JACK NICAS

7-10-11

Midwest Historical Research Society Picnic is today at 10am. I'm the hunt master and will be running a poker hunt and red, white and blue penny hunt for members.

Lots of good food and fun.

UPDATE!

got a call from a guy that lost his wedding band at a northern beach, told him I could meet him tonight. Took about an hour! 14K white gold wedding band 5-7 grams

He was kind enough to write me a check for 150.00 and said he will forward a e-mail thank you letter.

Also snagged a silver dolphin ring and a 14K gold plated ring.

7-7-11

Should be a fun day.

I'm giving a presentation to 15 4th grade students at Northwestern University. This is the 3rd year I have done this presentation. The class is one of Northwestern's Center for Talent Development summer classes.

Treasure Hunting: Treasure hunting is part geography, part history, part science—and all fun! Students explore the world of treasure hunting from pirates and geocachers to archeologists and historians, examining the motivation for searching, paths to discovery, and skills necessary for success.

I will be showing some of my finds from parks, beach and my England trips. Taking the kids down to the beach after lunch and let them search with a detector for Indian head pennies I recovered from various parks in Chicago.

14 future Treasure Hunters.

Had a blast with the kids. They were full of questions, mostly what it was worth!

7-4-11

I met Ron Shore from Windy City Detectors at the beach to search for a lost ring. The woman had lost 4 rings from her pants pocket after changing. She found 2 of them right away and spent a week with a rented detector looking for the other two. I started just casually walking the beach as she had not arrived yet.

She showed up at about 9am and I had her reenact the entire process. Iron was present everywhere, I decided to use only the pinpointer as I had a fairly small search area. She had changed in a little alcove behind a rock pile and carried her pants to a spot along the parking lot wall, where she started to fold them and saw one of the rings drop. I checked near the wall with no luck and decided to try where she changed. 5 minutes later I had her ring in my hand. I set up my phone on the wall and caught the return on video.

Another Happy return!-------------14K white gold, 2.5ct Diamond ring returned! Still looking for the matching anniv band identical to the one in the picture.

The ring was her engagement ring from her Fiance who past away in 1988, either the stone or the whole ring was his grandmothers. Lots of sentimental value!

UPDATE!

1 PM return to the beach because I forgot a pinpointer, pinpointer was still there and I found the other ring!

14K white gold 2 carat total wt, 3,6g

6-17-11

UPDATE:

I have been editing the video of the last 8 days of beach hunting. while editing the chain portion i got to look at the video close-up and the mark on the chain is 18K and in a oval underneath the K mark 950pt.

This thing is Platinum with an 18K clasp!
32.4 grams of 950 plat is 1800 instead of 1200! Holy crap!

I caught up to mark on all counts today!

What a banner day. Just goes to show, I walked the shoreline of this beach yesterday. Today it was like a different beach!

I scored 1 platinum chain, 4 gold and 2 silver, Mark got a men's 14K white gold band

14K kids initial ring, 1.2g-------14K claddah ring, 1.2g------------18K and 950 Platinum chain, 32.4g----------14K with black stone, 1.7g-------14K medallion 1.8g