"And there we see two of the nicest words, One Dime. Boom! Do we smell a Trifecta in the air?, or did we just swing the coil in some poop?"

Back in January of 2025 Los Angeles county was plagued with massive fires. Even where i live, we were told to evacuate as we had fires on three different sides. The areas hit the hardest were the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. There was definitely a surge of detectorists offering their services or skills to help families recover anything that might have survived. Many had the purest of intentions, but we heard stories of others trying to profiteer on the misery of some. Because of that alot of curious folks suddenly changed their minds.  We were lucky that one family trusted us to come out and help.  We came out in mid April. The fires were out, but the danger was not over. Many of these homes were at least 100 years old, and with that age, comes lead paint and asbestos. Basically the fires had pulverized these toxins into ash, and with every step and shovel, those toxins were airborne. We masked up, and wore a disposable coverall and got to work.  In your mind you think a house just burns straight down. What we learned is that the fire took hold on one side of this 2 story home, as that side burned and collapsed all the interior furniture and slid to that side of the house. Think of a boat sinking and everything rushing to one side. Knowing that, we ran a magnet fishing magnet through the ash to try and uncover any signals worth investigating. We were looking for 2 wedding bands, one gold, one platinum.  We focused in an area where we started finding coins, possibly from a bedside table. Soon we found a small box of coins, a mish-mash of coins that had been tucked away somewhere in the house. Looking at the stuff we were finding and the condition those things were in, it became apparent that the house would have burned at such high heat that the rings we were looking for were most likely puddles now.  The owner was there the entire time, sifting ash and digging through what was once the basement. The very basement where all the family heirlooms had been stored. Items and boxes passed down through family members converging at their house. Some finds were just heartbreaking. Dozens of 1800 glass print photos melted and fused together. A project to digitally scan that never happened and now will never know what those images were.  We spent the better part of a day sifting and detecting, this was a one time deal. In the coming days the entire plot was going to be scrapped and the top 6"-10" of topsoil would be removed and driven off to a toxic dump site. We never found the rings, but gave the homeowner some peace of mind that she tried everything and everyone in recovering whatever could still be there.   

We did not find an Indian this year, but we are doing better, more consistent it's almost like the time we've put in is making a difference? Nonsense! It's clearly the constant upgrades.