You know I didn’t think of it until now, but we are going to the Ocean beaches in August. Have to make sure the metal detector is on the pack list.
A friend and I built a metal detctor in high school. We took it to the local beach ... and located buried discarded cigarette packages by the tinfoil they contained. Found no money or rings.
I once visited Bondi Beach in Sydney Australia during their winter (Bondi is a very popular and crowded beach during their summer.) There were several people on the beach running in and out with the waves and staring down at the sand and shallow water while they were doing that. One of them told me he’d found a bit over a dollar in change that day doing that. Poor man’s metal detector.