Tis was the night before the monthly club meeting and my finds are lacking something…. see at my club we have a friendly competition that has many categories and one of them Is best American coin… I am missing a silver for this month’s meeting and I really would like to have an entry for each category. I start to formulate a plan as I scour over historical maps trying to guess where people have dropped something more than 80 years ago… soon I am digging and it’s looking up as I pull pennies and nickels from the early 1960’s then a 1950’s nickel and then another… hope… I pull two war era wheats and then nothing but disappointments for hours as I dig 1965 quarters and dimes… I’m starting to wonder if this area has been cherry picked clean of silvers… 2am is approaching and I’m starting to give up hope when I hear it…Its too high to be a dime too low to be a quarter.. Could it be? I hear iron jumping in and out and decide this will probably be one of my last digs before I walk back to the car. I pull out the pick axe and break the hard packed dirt, I pull out the pin pointer in hopes its shallower than my detector indicated but alas there is no return yet.. a few more inches and I check again.. Finally I get a return but it’s weak. I switch my digging to my hand shovel and a screw driver and finally it’s time to take it slow as not to damage anything I may get. I pull out two handfuls of loose dirt and there it is showing its pale glow in the light of my head lamp it’s a silver and it’s a dime.. a 1946 to boot! My night is complete and my goal is met, I fill my hole back and give it a nice pat of approval.. See for me being in a club adds a certain level of friendly competitiveness to detecting for me. I truly hope that everyone finds something great because the best enjoyment I get at the meeting is seeing the amazing things other people find. It really intrigues me how things get to where they are and I wonder about the story it has lived. Why do people wear such expensive jewelry to the beach? How do you drop $3.00 in change out of your pocket and not notice? Why were you in such a hurry? You forgot your beach chairs, towel, flip flops, plastic beach toys and why did you burry all your beer cans in a bag? Why? As long as people keep dropping stuff I guess I’ll continue to find it, whether trash of treasure I’ll give it a home where it belongs.