Coin Popping in the Local Park

I took Daria and her friend Minke to the local park this evening and brought along the CScope. I was reasonably certain that digging would be frowned upon in this context, so instead I brought the coin probe and popper that I made last month. Daria and Minke took turns swinging the too-large detector.

Minke struck first, locating a target that once popped, revealed a 2p coin. A couple of bottle caps later, Daria located a 5p coin that I popped without too much trouble. In general, popping coins isn’t simple, especially for a rank beginner. You can end up probing a lot before contacting the likely target. Depending on how thick and clayey the soil is, this can be tiring. When there are rocks in the soil, the task becomes (seemingly) impossible, as you can’t be sure whether you’re striking the target or another object. The activity reminded me a bit of the 21B (old 12B) combat engineers’ course at Ft Leonard Wood. In one of our training objectives, we used long screwdrivers as probes to check a sandpit for ‘mines’. I guess a 5p coin is a nicer thing to probe for than a mine, but the work required is similar. Coin popping isn’t a quick-rich strategy (unless the popped object turns out somehow to be a gold sovereign).  (30 min)