Metal detecting gifts, with every joke explained

Dimes from 1964 and earlier are silver, and finding one is a big day. Big enough that everyone gets told.

It is the orange road-work sign everyone knows, but the worker is kneeling at a small hole with headphones on and a metal detector beside him. The plaque underneath says how long you will not see him.

It is the famous statue of the seated thinker, redone as a detectorist. Most finds come out of the ground as a crusted lump, and he will sit and study one for an hour trying to work out what it was.

"Hunted" is the hobby's word for a place someone has already searched with a detector, and near home that is nearly everywhere. So the shirt puts him in the famous 1969 moon-landing photograph, on the one piece of ground nobody has searched yet.

It is the groundbreaking photo every local paper prints: officials in hard hats holding gold shovels. Freshly turned dirt is where old things come up, so he is in the middle of the picture, running his detector over it before the ceremony is done.

It is the old desert-island cartoon: a castaway, one palm tree and a rescue ship going past. He has his headphones on and his back to the ship, digging up what his detector just found, which is what he says every time you call him to leave.

It is the famous old Dutch painting of a girl glancing over her shoulder, but her pearl earring is an old pull tab from a drink can. On a detector a pull tab sounds just like a gold ring, so the ring he keeps promising usually turns out to be one of these.

Old houses mean a century of dropped coins in the yard. If the car slows down at every farmhouse, this is the one.

The shirt asks: "So... mind if I dig a few holes in your yard?" Detecting a yard means asking the owner first, and here the owners are the sternest couple in American art.

From the first hard freeze until spring, the ground is too hard to dig. This is the face at the window all winter.

The shirt says "There was a house here in 1872." Old coins turn up where a house once stood, and old maps laid over new photos show where.

Strangers walk up and ask the same three questions on every outing. The shirt is the price list: "Find anything?" $1, "Any gold?" $5, "Lose something?" $10.

A postcard that says "5 A.M. Wish you were awake." Low tide uncovers sand that is usually under water, so beach hunters are out at dawn while the family sleeps.