Tips for Metal Detecting Tot Lots
Tot lots, for those that don’t know the nickname for park play areas, are a quick and easy place to metal detect. Ideally, hitting them when no one is there is best, which is early morning or at dusk. They can produce clad coins and costume jewelry, and occasionally gold or silver. Make sure the local bylaws allow detecting in tot lots before you start. Below are tips for metal detecting tot lots.
Best Tips for Metal Detecting Tot Lots
- Grid the tot lot. Try to leave a tot lot cleaned out by gridding it and hitting every section.
- Use the smallest coil. With a smaller coil, you can get closer to the metal structures and the cement with rebar.
- Go slow and listen to faint signals. Gold could be there. Remember, kids raid moms’ and grandparents’ jewelry and wear it to the park feeling special, and then lose it in the process of playing. Moms helping toddlers have jewelry grabbed and broken off by toddlers’ hands, or it simply falls off with weight loss, application of sunscreen, antibacterial gels/sprays, or moisturizer.
- Remember, if you want gold, you must dig trash, foil, pull tabs, and nickel signals.
- Don’t bother digging through the liner, which you will find beneath the sand or wood chips. It is mostly can slaw and trash left by the installers.
- Tot lots with rubber mulch made from recycled tires can be difficult to detect because embedded metal may cause false signals.
- If grass is growing through the wood chips, it may indicate the area receives less foot traffic and fewer dropped items. If time is limited, you can avoid detecting these areas.
- If your area has a lot of detectorists, consider leaving a marked penny, maybe painted a color, at the bottom of the slide. This way, you can see if someone has worked the tot lot since the last time you detected it.
Optional Tool for Identifying Coins and Small Finds
TOMLOV Coin Microscope
LCD digital microscope equipped with two additional LED side lights, to look at coin dates and coin errors.
Best Places to Metal Detect in a Tot Lot
- Where the slide ends.
- Under monkey bars or anywhere children hang upside down or climb.
- Rocks kids climb and/or jump off.
- Under the swings, especially the baby swings as well six feet on either side of the swings or anywhere kids land when they jump off swings or structures.
- Anywhere parents sit or put their bags down while their kids play.
- The area where kids and adults put their bikes when they visit the tot lot.
- Near the equipment poles. To do this, lower your sensitivity and use a small coil.
- Areas leading to drains.
Happy hunting, and we look forward to seeing your tot lot finds. Below are some of my recent (last three weeks) interesting tot lot finds and where I found them.
Real Tot Lot Finds and Where They Were Found
Men’s 14K Wedding Band – Found under a baby swing.
Women’s 14K Wedding Band – Found under a swing
with Minelab Manticore
Ring – Found at the entrance of a tot lot with a Minelab Equniox
Butte City Vintage Bus Token – Found in a modern park. I presume grandparents gave it to grandkids, and they lost it playing at the tot lot with a Minelab Equinox
Ring – Found at the bottom of the slide with a Nokta Legend.
Ring – Found under monkey bars with a Minelab Equinox
1980’s Pin – Found in the middle of the tot lot, between swings and the climbing structure with a Minelab Equinox
Unicorn Chain – Found below climbing rocks with a Minelab Equinox
Friendship Necklace – Found under the monkey bars with a Nokta Legend
Joanna Jana Laznicka, a Czech-Canadian residing in Southern California, is passionate about all things associated with metal detecting. She mainly detects on the West Coast, from Southern California to Northern British Columbia. As the founder of Focus Speed, her goal is to bring quality content to metal detectorists.
