I use an E-TRAC, but my friend told me about his success with his Minelab Explorer SE, so I have written this up and include pictures. It is a lovely sucess story. David Rees - Wiltshire, UK
Story It has not been a particularly good time of the year for me personally, and I have been recovering from a minor operation but something happened which made me feel really good about myself. In early December I had a phone call from a lady who I do gardening for. She told me that her neighbour the Rev’d Renée Coulson, Vicar of Seend, Bulkington and Poulshot had lost a set of keys while walking her dog over fields in the Wiltshire village of Potterne. The keys were of her house: her car and her daughter’s house and quite difficult to replace. She had taken the liberty of giving her my name and telephone number as a local Metal Detectorist who is always happy to help anyone find lost metal objects if they know within reason where the object was lost. It was not until the middle of January that I had a call from Renée to ask if I would walk with her across the three fields where she had lost the keys. We arranged to meet on Saturday 21st January which we did and started our walk. I started detecting with my trusted Minelab Explorer SE machine and the first field was maize stubble which was quite sparse and it would have been easy to see the keys if they had been in this field; unfortunately no keys. The second field was completely different and very challenging as the grass was at least six inches long and it was not obvious where the footpath ran. With these conditions I did not hold much hope of finding the keys at this point. Renée walked down the field trying to retrace her steps and I followed a short distance behind between the tractor tracks which roughly followed in the direction we were heading. About halfway down my metal detector let out a high pitch sound which was definitely a target. At first I could not see anything due to the long grass but as I parted the grass there were the keys in all their glory. I shouted to Renée who was absolutely delighted considering the keys had been lying in the field for over a month. What an unexpected result! Renée was so pleased she asked me if she could buy me a drink at the George and Dragon in Potterne to celebrate the find; I duly accepted and everyone there was happy and keen to hear the story of the find. To find the keys gave me such a good feeling and it was just as nice for me as it was for Renée which made me feel a great sense of achievement in helping her. Of course there was a lot of luck in even passing over the keys let alone finding them, but it was meant to be. I felt very honoured when Renée told me she would mention it in her sermon the following day. Quite an experience! Roger Vanstone - UK