Grenade Found in Private Yard

"A day of landscaping turned into a frightening situation for a man in Thornton when he dug up a live grenade in his backyard. 

Thornton Police had to set up a perimeter around Travis Moore's home on Carrol Court on Wednesday night. The Adams County Bomb Squad responded to the scene and removed the explosive.

Moore says he and his neighbors have no idea who put the grenade in his backyard or why. He and his wife have only lived in the home for about three weeks."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: 9 News, Denver

Lake Close to Home Drained

"Phil LaRocco has waited 35 years for Berkeley Lake to be drained. Like all treasure hunters, he knows great stuff lurks at the bottom of lakes, especially this one.

'I was here with my father in 1976 when the lake was low,' he said, moving his metal detector over the dry lake bed. 'He found 67 gold and silver rings in two weeks.'

Berkeley Lake is being drained as part of a $3.25 million bond project that includes a berm to screen Interstate 70 on the north, with trees and native grasses fringing a walking trail."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Andy Cross / The Denver Post .

10K Park Gold

Last night before bed, I got a call from Digger Magoo determined that we were going to head back up to Cheesman Park in Denver to give it another go at finding that lost wedding set. I picked him up from his place around 10a this morning and off we went. He said he had spoken with her again and might have narrowed the search a little more than what we were dealing with before.

The tempperature was already rising and with no looming storms currently off in the distance we put the coils to the soil.

The first hour was by far the most exciting. Concentrating much of our efforts within a 2000 square foot area closest to where she parked along curb next to the grass, we really felt this wold be the day to score the gold. Well, we weren't wrong in that thought... it just so happened it wasn't the correct item we were looking for.

I got a jumpy low 20s to mid 30s VDI on my XLT, and knowing what we were looking for, I was digging almost anything that was from about +10 - +50. And knowing that the item would be shallow, anything I could dig less than 3" (especially just using a screwdriver) felt like it could be it. Well this one, at roughly 2.5" just so happened to be a hefty, 10K men's class of '73 ring from Evergreen High School in Evergreen, CO. It has some initials in it, we'll see what I can do in terms of returning it. But leaving for work in the Gulf of Mexico for the next five weeks will most likely limit that venture for a later time.

But I tell you what, as evidence on the picture provided by my good friend Troy, I sure was grinning when this came out of the ground. And truth be told, it's my first gold ring, and first class ring I've ever found. Just never can seem to get the coil over all them lost goodies out there.

We swung around for the next two hours and both of us we're able to round up a few bucks in clad. Troy did happen to come across a sterling silver cased nail file. The file part was rusted to hell, but the silver sure looked nice. I did find another key, and even a sweet little pocket spill of 7 RTD tokens. I know they aren't old, but digging tokens is just plain fun, I don't care who you are.

So though we didn't find what we came for, we sure left with our pouches full of keepers. And that gold ring will be in teh back of my mind for future hunts to come. The clad totaled to $2.21 over 33 coins. And if you're curious, that ring, in the air, comes in at a solid +42/+43 on the XLT.

Happy huntin' folks, and may the next dig be a good one.

Cheesman Ring Hunt

It has seemed like forever since I've been able to get out and hunt. This morning around 10a I got a call from my hunting buddy Troy regarding him heading out towards downtown Denver in search of a lost wedding set he had been in contact with a woman about. I agreed to tag along and by 1130a we were on the case.

We met up at Cheesman Park and my first thought was, wow... this is a lot of real estate to cover. Turns out it is about 80 acres worth of old trees and nicely groomed grass that had been a park since 1907, and was previously a cemetery that opened in 1858 (they even have modern-day ghost bus tours through the park).

The hunt started by hitting the area along the southern side of The Acropolis and fountains. As initially all we had to work on was that the rings where lost roughly in front of the structure on the southern side. We hit the area pretty intensely for a couple hours, and besides a couple dollar or more pocket spills I came across, there wasn't much to be said for the area.

Troy got on the horn and contacted the lady to get help narrow down the search. Sadly, the area was still a good 2-3 acres of land to cover, and after an hour or so of no luck, a thunderstorm rolled in and rained us out. Throughout the entire hunt we saw at least four other hobbyists scouring the area, likely searching for the same rings as a Craigslist ad was posted on the subject.

It was a great few hours of swinging the coil, really happy to have gotten out, especially since I don't so often anymore. I did manage $3.49 over 38 coins though, so the day wasn't lost. A '57 Wheatie, small pile of keys, pulltabs, broken sunglasses, and other miscellaneous metal scrap rounded out the afternoon.

One last thing to add. Today was the first time I've actually used my new Garrett ProPointer on a hunt. I've been a true blue Vibra-Probe 570 guys since I started the hobby. I REALLY enjoyed the Garrett, but did have one negative to throw out there. Apparently this is a known issue, but it's something that on my Vibra-Probe it wasn't an issue. I'm very used to jamming the VP 570 into a hole and being pretty rough with it, even slightly bending it in tight spaces to get the direction of a target. With the Garrett, you can't do this. Well, you can, but it causes the thing to false. I added a little video illustrating the point.

Sherrelwood Elementary Hunt

I had plans this morning, plans to finally get out on a real hunt here in CO. The g/f had an early tee-time playing golf with her mother, so I got up at the same time and drove off to the g/f's old elementary school. We had driven past it a few times, noticed it had a nice huge sandy tot lot and a great view of Denver.

I spent a little over an hour at the spot with my XLT. Getting used to this Colorado soil is still a challenge. Targets in the ground really seem to hit higher than I'm used to. For example, pennies seem to hit in the low 70's, dimes in the high 80's and quarters right about 90. Comparatively, in the Virginia soil I learned and loved, pennies generally were in the mid 60's, dimes 80-81 range, and quarters regularly hitting at about 86. But with this high mineralization soil, and the high hitting VDI's, a deep silver program might work as an everyday hunt program for coins.

Take for the day was $1.79 over 32 coins.