My First Find
by Ross Martzall
(Ephrata,Pa)
Hi,my name is Ross Martzall and I had a friend get me into metal detecting in 2006. We started going out about 2 or 3 times a week and then my friend stopped going along. I continued to look for places to detect and once I would get permission I would be off.
Well that summer,2006, about a month after I started I was detecting in a park near my home, again after getting permission to do so, but didn't have much luck the first couple times out. Then one day one of the people who take care of the park who knew me and saw me there every day had suggested a place to try so I thought what the heck,I can't do any worse there. Well I was right, after going to the area he told me about and after just 5 minutes of detecting I discovered a round piece of metal but with all the dirt on it I really couldn't tell what it was.Well it was getting dark by this time and I decided to call it a night.
I went home and the first thing I did was run the tap water and get the dish soap out to try to clean this a little bit to see what it was and to my surprise it was a 1804 Half Penny!This was my very first find of any value so to speak but I had to get my wife to tell me the date because I was shaking like a hunter ready to shoot his first buck. I took it to a coin dealer to see if it was real and sure enough it was.He offered me a good amount of money for it but I turned it down and now it lays safe in a safety deposit box at my bank.With that be my first find there is no amount of money that would get me to sell it to anyone. I don't have the equipment to take pictures and put it on here but I wish I did,then you could join in my excitement of finding it because even 2 years later when I talk about it,it seems like it was just yesterday I found it.
