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You know those codgers, often the subject of ridicule, that walk up and down Myrtle beach at daybreak, hunched over their metal detectors?

I can’t wait to become one. In fact, I’m going to take early codger retirement.

It all began by my fascination with a Facebook page called ‘Metal Detection Finds UK & British Coins.’ Sitting up in bed (when I should have been deeply engaged in a new novel), I was soon entranced with, not just the trinkets being uncovered in British fields, but the history. Even more impressive was how knowledgeable those who responded to each newly posted find were— to the point of being humorously dismissive. Imagine having found so many coins in one’s career that one casually scoffs upon seeing a new photo post, ‘That’s a George II silver sixpence; not particularly rare.’

A 17th-century coin? I’d be turning cartwheels. To actually dig out of the dirt and hold in my hand a 400 year old sterling coin that someone had—what? Dropped while  galloping over that very field? Grabbed from a purse by a highway man? That coin, in its day, would have bought dinner and a night at an inn. Nothing to sneeze at.

As I scrolled down the page, my eyes were on stalks as I skimmed the latest posts: “Beautiful Oliver Cromwell commonwealth half groat from 1649-1660 which I had up today. My first Cromwell coin, so well happy with that.” Another post, with a photo of a gleaming golden ring, still caked with the dirt of a ploughed area, read, “Beautiful little medieval posey ring. Inscription reads ‘not my love but my value’”

Who might have worn that sweetheart’s ring? She must have had the fingers of a fairy, it was so small. Did she weep when she lost it? Did she hurl it at her lover during a spat?

Not everything is a Roman coin or Tudor ring, however. Some bring to mind knights and battles: “Found an equal ended Medieval Mount and would have been attached to leather, such as a Horse Harness or suchlike, and there are many different kinds of Mounts out there,” stated one bloke. And just like our own beach codgers hoping to find washed up treasure from the night before, not everything is of great value. Hopes are dashed as discoveries are said to be “My first thought was a car battery terminal.” “That’s part of a spigot.” “Definitely the cap end of a walking stick.”

“I want a metal detector,” I told Paul.

“That would certainly help find all the old, rusted nails on this property,” he agreed.

“Not for nails,” I replied. “For ancient buried treasure.”

“In South Carolina?” he guffawed. “For what? An old, rusted Quaker State can back in the woods?”

Deflated, I remembered I didn’t live in a country civilized by the Romans before being conquered by a succession of different countries. I might find pottery, or an arrowhead, but a metal detector wouldn’t detect that. Then I remembered.

 

“Hey, this very land where we are was given to the Lord Proprietors by Charles II,” I said, googling furiously. “So isn’t it possible one of those Proprietors might have dropped a sterling sixpence with his mug on it?”

“Far more likely to find a nail,” said Paul.

Maybe so. But I’m going detecting…