About the author

Mary A. Shafer

<p>Mary Shafer is a fulltime freelance writer who got actively started in the metal detecting hobby in 2004. It would have been sooner, as she received her first detector as a Christmas gift in 2001, but she was unable to figure out how to get started and this book wasn&rsquo;t yet available to teach her how.</p><p>She lives and works in upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania, some of which has been settled since the late 1600s. This fact alone makes her area ripe for the avid metal detectorist, and indeed, some of the coins she has found since rela- tively early in her activity as a digger helped sharpen her interest in the pursuit.</p><p>Mary doesn&rsquo;t consider herself an expert digger by any stretch, but has been digging long enough to know a few helpful things while remembering her challenges getting started in the hobby. After looking around and still not seeing a beginners&rsquo; guide that could be quickly digested and help newbies get out there and start swinging their detectors, she thought it was time someone wrote one. Hence, this book.</p><p>Mary is a proud member of Carla Autin&rsquo;s &ldquo;Women Diggers&rdquo; group on Facebook, where she enjoys sharing her finds and those of her fellow &ldquo;dig sisters,&rdquo; and learning from them all.</p><p>Mary hosts her own Facebook digger page, &ldquo;Metal Detecting and Treasure Hunting,&rdquo; at facebook.com/MetalDetectingAndTreasureHunting, and she blogs on the topic at this book&rsquo;s official website, Detecting101.com.</p>