Editor's Note: These are the top stories Stratford Today posted this year.
It might not seem like treasure hunting in the traditional sense, but Brian Rath has made quite the pretty penny from his new hobby.
Rath, who only got into metal detecting for fun last fall, has been steadily unearthing some interesting little treasures in some of the most unlikely places in Stratford.
His latest find is an 1876 Canadian penny that he dug up at St. Joseph’s school on Sunday and it has become part of his rapidly growing collection.
“I’ve hunted there several times before, and I just figured I’d sweep over the same areas,” he said.
“My metal detector just got an update so it has a deep target finding feature. I cranked it up to the max and swept over the same area that I’ve swept like five times before. The new find came up just like a regular penny, so it was hard to tell the difference. You just have to dig them all and that’s the joy of it – it’s my hobby that pays for itself.”
In addition to coins – one of which is an American Indian head penny and another is a US nickel that dates back to 1830 – Rath has uncovered some impressive silver rings, a band from a goose and other assorted items.
Typically he’ll spend an hour or so a day through the week on searching and sweeping, and that gets upped to about five hours a day on weekends. He’d love to expand his searches to places outside of Stratford at some point.
“The Indian head one really surprised me because I wasn’t expecting to find any American currency that old around here,” he said of his find near the city’s skate park. “It was near that first ramp into the actual skate park, just a couple of inches off to the side of the path. But I’m always finding loose change – nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies and toonies. Like I said, this hobby pays for itself: I’ll have around a hundred dollars at the end of the month, just in loose change.”
When he first began, Rath said he was using a more basic detector than his current model and was finding all sorts of gold – so much so that he was able to afford his upgraded gear. And while the extra money is a bonus, Rath prefers the hunt just a little more.
“I stick to Stratford for now, mostly because of the gas prices. But I’ve been driving my e-bike around and finding places to go,” he said. “I’ve been wishing to get out to some beaches and stuff like that … I’ll get that chance eventually.”
