Hi Dancer !
I have one of the highly praised Lesche trowels (The standard model with root cutter teeth on one edge.) , but since it's all metal, except for the plastic grip-tube on the handle, I have occasionally scratched a coin with the tip of the trowel...
Yikes ! ..Imagine how tragic that would be if it happened to be an old valuable coin worth a chunk of money !
The following covers only
some of the basic procedures I use for target retrieval and there are many other small details that would make this post too long to explain, but will come to you naturally in any event.
My previous procedure for retrieving targets has been to use the Lesche trowel to cut a three-sided trap door plug about 3-1/2" to 4" square and then slide the blade of the trowel down and under the trap door to pry up and fold it back.
I spread a 12" x 24" plastic drop cloth alongside the hole to kneel on and dump any dug dirt on, as this prevents spilling dirt into the grass and making a mess of things. When I'm done it's easy to lift the plastic sheet and pour the dirt back into the hole, press the trap door back into place, etc., etc., leaving no evidence that anything was disturbed. This cleanup method may not be necessary if you are hunting in the woods, but leaving no evidence of your digs when hunting public parks or private lawns is an absolute.
Next I use my pinpointer (Vibra-Probe) to see if the target is in the trap door plug or in the dirt on the plastic sheet and if not, I check the sides and bottom of the hole with the pinpointer. Once the target has been isolated, I dig around
that area with the tip of the Lesche trowel. I think this is the stage where I am scratching coins !
So, I plan to buy a trowel made of strong but flexible space-age plastic and use it at the final stage of digging out the coin.
Hope you find some of this information helpful for your method of target retrieval.
Good Luck !
ToddB64
The Eldorado is one sweet machine. 
