Today my friend, Pablo, from Durango, Mexico, invited me to go with him across the border to try our luck on some old abandoned house sites in Sonora. My MXT has been sitting all lonely and collecting dust for some time so I decided it would be a good opportunity to give it some much needed exercise, as well as have a "dress rehearsal" for my impending relocation to Honduras. Mexico is littered with abandoned farms and houses, most with huge holes dug by "treasure hunters" with absolutely no rhyme nor reason for their decisions of where to dig. Few people in Mexico have metal detectors, so I'm totally perplexed trying to understand any reasoning for the locations of their treasure hunting efforts.
My MXT worked like a charm, as usual, though I didn't find anything of any import. The ground was dry and crumbly, but quite easy to dig. What struck me most was not a lack of trash, there was plenty, but it seemed different. Wads of aluminum foil were common, as well as a number of electric light bulb bases, some blobs of lead, pieces of iron, some identifiable, most not. Looking back on it, I think the biggest difference was the almost total lack of pull tabs, even though there was other modern trash around. Six hours of swinging a coil around formerly inhabited locations and I came up with a total of four, certainly not more than five, pull tabs.
We found a few really hammered centavo coins from the sixties and a few old metal buttons, but certainly nothing to brag about. It was, however, a fun and interesting trip that got me away from my usual detecting haunts.
My MXT worked like a charm, as usual, though I didn't find anything of any import. The ground was dry and crumbly, but quite easy to dig. What struck me most was not a lack of trash, there was plenty, but it seemed different. Wads of aluminum foil were common, as well as a number of electric light bulb bases, some blobs of lead, pieces of iron, some identifiable, most not. Looking back on it, I think the biggest difference was the almost total lack of pull tabs, even though there was other modern trash around. Six hours of swinging a coil around formerly inhabited locations and I came up with a total of four, certainly not more than five, pull tabs.
We found a few really hammered centavo coins from the sixties and a few old metal buttons, but certainly nothing to brag about. It was, however, a fun and interesting trip that got me away from my usual detecting haunts.
