Very special finds were not made today on the fields and meadows between the A28 and the railway line at Hooghalen, but that is not the point of the metal detection competition that was held there. It was a competition to hand in as many tokens and metal waste hidden in the ground as possible.
The more tokens or weight of metals, the more lottery tickets with a chance of winning a participant will receive. But it was mainly for fun, to meet each other outside of Facebook and to exchange experiences.
See here in a nutshell the reason why the tractor towing yard at Hooghalen was strewn with people with a metal detector today. Justin Nuruwe from Assen is the organizer and he is happy with the large turnout of about 200 participants from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Poland. Anyone who thinks metal detecting is a hobby for middle-aged gray men is wrong. Many participants are under the age of forty and there are also many women of all ages, from young to old. And some children eagerly join in the search.
As soon as a beep sounds, the participants put the large metal detector away and start digging. Judging by the equipment, most are already nice pros, because further searching in the hole or on excavated sand continues with a special hand-held detector. Brushes are used to clean unknown and rusted objects that have been in the ground much longer than last week’s tractor pull. A couple of people in their thirties from Poland find half a Dutch cent and a silver dime.
“That’s because these are landfills,” says an experienced sixties. “The peat excavated here went to the West as peat to be used as fuel, and city dung and shit came back to feed and raise the fields that were created here. That’s how all those objects such as hairpins, thimbles and coins come here. justly.”
A German boy in his early twenties has less luck after brushing: “Müll”, is his brief observation. A Dutch woman in her late thirties digs up an ice object weighing one kilo just after the start. “Handing this in immediately, that counts nicely.”