Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreports.blogspot.com.
If you ever wondered why some people find more than others or why you aren't finding more, the discussion I'm going to start today will help you answer those questions.
I once developed a rough formula for metal detecting success. Today I'll start with that rough formula and in the future refine and expand on it. That will provide a framework for discussing the various factors that determine success.
Here is the rough formula I threw out there a few years ago. S = L x T x Sk x D x E.
S is the measure of success. L is location. T is time spent detecting. Sk stands for skill level. D, the detector used, and E is amount of effort. I talked about the effort factor in a recent post (1/9/18).
In the above formula, the factors were listed left to right in order of approximate importance. Location, time on task and skill are therefore all shown as more important than the detector (D), which comes fourth in the list. There might be some changes to the order in my revised formula, but the detector is one of the most overrated factors. Yes you have to have a detector that works, but if you have a detector made by one of the major brand names, how you use the detector (skill) is more important than the detector you use. I don't want to get into this too deeply now, but as I've said before, I'd trust the wise old Indian with a bow and arrow to come home with the bacon over the city slicker with the best rifle money can buy. When people are not finding much, the first thing they wonder is if there detector is good enough. I have to move on, but I'll return to this some time in the future.
Where was I? I hope you can see from that little discussion how the formula forces you to think more clearly about the factors involved in success even if it all seems very obvious at first glance. Things seem obvious until you are forced to think about them more clearly and precisely. You might agree or disagree, but thinking it out can be helpful in either case.
The first thing I need to do is talk a little about success. It can be defined in many ways. When I originally developed the formula, I was thinking of long term success as measured by the total number of finds, but as you know, not all finds are equal.
While quantity can be relatively easy to define, quality is not as easy. It can be the total economic value, but even that is a bit of a guess. But some people do not seek the most economically valuable targets. They might be more interested in history, for example. Some might like to find "old" things or things that tell a story. So success can be defined in many ways and in different ways for different people. One person might highly value a find that has no real economic value and might routinely target things that are not at all interesting to other people.
Each person has to define success for him or herself. I do think you should try to quantify success though. There should be some measure of value, however you define that for yourself: not just a total number. You can find tons of low value finds that are not as valuable as a single high value find, therefore your measure of success should probably be a weighted quantity.
I once conducted a poll on what people wanted to find. A few people told me they weren't looking for anything in particular but hoped to some day stumble onto an amazing treasure, maybe like a chest of gold coins or something. That is like winning the lottery. If you are seeking one of those once-in-a-lifetime finds, that isn't what I'm talking about today. You can still increase the odds somewhat by putting in a lot of time (or buying a lot of tickets) but chance plays a bigger factor than the type of long term strategic hunting that I'm talking about today.
It seems I've never been able to convince people of the importance and effect of simply keeping a good running measure of success of what they are trying to accomplish, whether it is weight control, blood pressure, or metal detecting. Regularly monitoring performance has a definite effect upon performance. People who weight themselves every day will be aware of where they stand and any trends, and that will have an effect on behavior.
You might be aware of studies such as when the lighting was changed in a factory, and they wanted to see if improved lighting led to improved productivity. It seemed to. When people knew there was a study of their performance (that they were being observed) their performance improved. I forget the name of that. I think it might be the Hawthorne Effect.
Anyhow, I encourage you to keep track of your performance in some quantifiable way that is meaningful to you. When I began detecting, I kept track of the number of coins I was getting. I posted some of my early records not too long ago. I could see the totals increasing over the weeks and months. Later I quit recording clad coins and started recording only gold and precious metal finds. That is what I was targeting then, and I kept good records of the number and type found, where and when. I've shown some of those records too. But that goes to show how success might be defined differently not only by different people but also different years for the same person.
Your measure of success might include multiple types of targets. Hunting treasure coins and shipwreck artifacts on the beach is very different than hunting modern jewelry on a resort beach. I'll get more into those types of differences some other time.
Things can change a lot over a few decades of metal detecting. There have been times when I went hardcore and times when, because of a change in circumstances, I only hunted infrequently and very casually. The time of my most intense detecting ( Perhaps I should say extreme detecting, although not in terms of the amount of time spent because that was very limited due to my teaching and consulting work) was quite a few years ago. There were years when I detected often, andalso many years when I didn't detect much at all. It varied a lot. There were years when I picked up hundreds of pieces of gold and others when I only picked up a few, but the amount of time spent was different. Total number of finds or a total value of finds is not a very meaningful number when you are not spending much time. Since I now spend so little time detecting (because of a variety of factors that I won't get into now) a measure of efficiency seems like a more relevant measure. How much is accomplished per unit of time? That is what I would want to know.
Just to illustrate what I mean by that, I have probably not detected much more than a couple hours so far this year. I actually spend more time checking beaches and taking photos for the blog than I spent detecting. Most of that was targeting modern targets. Some of that was on a mid 1900s site. Less than an hour was on targeting shipwreck coins. In those two hours I picked up two pieces of gold - both modern jewelry. They were both on the small side and not too valuable. Was that success or not? In terms of total finds, I'd say no. If the amount of time is considered, it wasn't bad.
You'll note that the second factor in my original formula was T (time spent detecting). If success is defined as some total number of finds, total time spent detecting is definitely one of the most important factors. For comparing success for times when a lot of time was spent with times when little time was spent, I took time into consideration, by comparing success per unit of time. How much was found per hour of detecting. That makes it somewhat, though not perfectly comparable.
I'll quit there for today and pick up with the factors determining amount of success in the future.
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The surf on the Treasure Coast will not be big this weekend, however the wind will be from the north on Sunday and Monday. That is good. On Monday the surf is supposed to be up to 5 - 7 feet. That combined with the north wind might do us some good.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
