Advice for Retirement: Invest in a Metal Detector

There’s gold in them thar hills — at least, the hills of Scotland, as a retiree with a metal detector recently discovered:

Amongst the objects is a solid silver cross thought to date from the 9th or 10th century, a silver pot of west European origin, which is likely to have already been 100 years old when it was buried and several gold objects. “Experts have begun to examine the finds, but it is already clear that this is one of the most significant Viking hoards ever discovered in Scotland,” Scotland’s Treasure Trove unit said in a statement.

The Viking hoard is McLennan’s second significant contribution to Scotland’s understanding of its past. Last year, he and a friend unearthed around 300 medieval coins in the same area of Scotland. … The latest find, also containing a rare silver cup engraved with animals which dates from the Holy Roman Empire, and a gold bird pin, is the largest to be found in Scotland since 1891 and could be worth a six-figure sum, the BBC said.

(If, like me, you’re reading the Outlander books, about a WWII nurse who accidentally time-travels back 200 years to the Scottish highlands, this news is particularly apropos and entertaining.) Vikings, man! They came to rape and pillage and they did a lot of burying treasure in Scotland and England too, which means there’s probably more to find.

But even if you can’t fly out to the UK and start marauding, you can still find money just by looking down when you walk: I’ve collected easily $50 over the years that way, as well as a really pretty tiny diamond ring. One morning, when I was a kid, I found $100 in an unmarked envelope hidden in my dresser. No idea what the story was but for a while there I lived like a king.

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