(beeping) (soft music) - Just a piece of an old can, but you got to dig everything, if you don't dig everything you're gonna miss the good stuff.

(soft music) My wife years ago bought me a metal detector and she paid way too much money for it.

It just wasn't any good.

That was downtown in Frazee at the local meat market, and a guy had a metal detector for sale.

I brought it home and I went out in my yard every time it got over the ground, it made a noise.

So I took another step and it made a noise.

I got so angry, I drove all the way to Fargo, to Treasure Shore, and I got the very best that he had.

I come back went out in the yard same place and I got over the ground, it made a noise.

What it was is my line from my propane tank, going into my furnace.

The other one was just fine, but it worked out really good.

I had the top of the line detector, so I started out right away finding some good stuff and it just kind of escalated from there.

We spent our summers in Frazee and our winters down in Melbourne Beach, Florida on the Treasure Coast, and I detect down there virtually every day.

In Minnesota, I detect the Otter Tail River, and then I've got this Red River Ox Cart Trading Post, I go out there on occasion.

Now I just kind of got into a bunch of cellar holes.

The first thing you do is you're going to figure where was the most activity, and it takes a while to figure that out between the house and shed for the animals, there's gotta be a lot of activity back and forth there.

So that's the first place that I detected.

I went over it I think three different times, and the third time that I went over it, that's when I found those three nickels.

This is a V-nickel, it's dated 1893.

This one is dated 1902.

And then I got a Buffalo nickel, and that one is dated 1913.

You could go to a coin shop and buy these for probably about 20 or 30 bucks, and it made my whole day just finding them.

(laughs) Detecting in Florida, I'm a detecting the beach.

The key is being able to read the beach.

If we get a wind coming out of the north, it'll actually cut the beach, or if your wind is coming in from the east, they have what's called rip tides, and these rip tides will actually kind of burrow right into the shore and it'll go out and it's taking stuff out with them.

And by detecting those areas, you get down to where the old stuff is.

The beach is very highly mineralized, so a lot of detectors will not work on the beach.

You have to have a detector, what we call multi frequency, so it can move back and forth in the frequency chain and not false out, and you'll want to use a great big coil.

Now it's just the opposite when you're hunting in yards or cellar holes and stuff like that, you want to use a smaller coil and you want to use a detector that you can turn the frequency up to try to get to depths.

Now, this could be a coin.

This could be a silver coin.

I've done real well, I have been real fortunate.

Up here I found many, many rings.

In Florida, I'm looking for Spanish treasure, Spanish coins and Reales and the gold coins are called Escudos and the artifacts.

I get excited about the littlest things I really do.

I was just showing that this can apparently they didn't have can openers in them days.

This was opened with a knife and I have no idea what was in it, but it can be kind of interesting to see what they had.

My very favorite thing is my first Spanish coin.

It's a 1701 Spanish two Reale.

Couple of years ago, I was really lucky and I found probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast.

If you look in the front here, it'll have an M meaning it was minted in Mexico, G that's for the assayer, and we're able to date this coin by the assayer.

He only worked from 1544 to 1548.

They believed this is probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast if not the oldest, it's one of the oldest.

Part of the fun is just doing the history, trying to look up the stuff.

I have an email list I send out of my adventures and I try to tell a story.

People come back and they really appreciate knowing the history and the story of it.

Everybody was asking, well, why don't you write a book?

Why don't you write a book?

So I did, Detecting the Treasure Coast, this is kind of a how to, it gives tips for beginners.

Then of course I showed pictures of all this stuff I found and it came out really well.

So I wrote the second one, Detecting the Ottertail, which is a whole different ball game.

I'm in the water and wading the river.

So I was able to give a lot of tips on detecting in the river and that went real well also.

So I wrote the third one and I'm now working on the fourth one.

When I'm treasure hunting, I don't have a care in the world.

I can't believe how excited I get when a gold ring pops up and a Spanish coin, when I find one of those Reales, I want to show somebody.

A couple of guys say on my books, that I wrote too much.

I give too many tips in that, and really I want people to enjoy what I'm enjoying.

There's a lot of treasure stories that are never going to be told.

The guys find a rare treasure, they didn't want to tell anybody they're afraid the government's going to come in and take it, or somebody's going to steal it, and I just don't feel that way at all.

It wouldn't mean anything to me, if it was sitting in a safety deposit box, I want people to be able to share the things that I do and enjoy the things that I do.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful hobby, and since I started metal detecting, I've been able to go on archeology digs, I've been interviewed and that stuff, and I've written three books and that's kind of a big deal for an old guy like myself.

I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it.

I'm pretty well-known out there.

(laughs) (soft music) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.