Metal detecting in Australia has it’s limits for finding historic artifacts like you can find in other countries. So when I arrived in the Netherlands, I was excited to have the odds in my favour. But, I got the shock of my life when I found one of my oldest coins during my first time treasure hunting over here…on the beach! (Scroll to the bottom to watch the video).
When I arrived, I jumped on some Dutch metal detecting forums and asked who was keen to go treasure hunting. This is how I met Rob, a local who lives on the beach and spends a lot of metal detecting his local area. We set a time to meet at his local beach Zandvoort, I took the train to meet him and go for the first time metal detecting in the Netherlands.
![metal detecting on a dutch beach](https://web.archive.org/web/20170413170948im_/http://bonditreasurehunter.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Dutch-beach.jpg)
If you’ve never been to the Netherlands, there is one beach that is so gigantic that it stretches the entire length of the country. It’s a very daunting site considering I only had an 11 inch search coil to cover it all. I noticed that a lot of the locals here take off down the beach in the hope of covering as much beach as possible. Totally different method to how I detect.
So while Rob took off down the beachI just stuck with my slow and low method. I must admit I felt like a dog off a leash just wanting to detect off into the distance, but I stuck with my guns and covered a small area thoroughly. At the same time I felt bad for meeting up with Rob but not hanging out so I would speed up to catch up with him to make it a bit more social.
After about an hour I got a high tone on my CTX 3030 metal detector which is what I brought over with me. A high tone on the CTX 3030 means a copper or silver target. It was only a light tone so it wasn’t going to be anything big.
![Silver coin found metal detecting](https://web.archive.org/web/20170413170948im_/http://bonditreasurehunter.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Screen-Shot-2016-07-20-at-8.08.48-PM.png)
After digging it out, I could see it was a coin but wasn’t sure what kind. I called Rob over to take a look. Rob cleaned it up and could tell that the coin was a 1893 silver 10 cents or a ‘Dubbeltje’ as it’s called in dutch. I couldn’t believe I found one of my oldest coins ever on the beach. I kept thinking that the coin has been down in the sand and waves for potentially over a hundred years just waiting to be rescued.
Here is the video I made of this fun session I had with Rob on my first time metal detecting in the Netherlands. I hope you enjoy watching 🙂 BTH