The coolest? That would be a girls compact from around 1920. It had a porcelain top on it that survived being underground for nearly 100 years. It came out of spot right next to the curb at a grade school in Snohomish, and was about 14" deep. Took it home and cleaned it up, and decided to pry it open 'cause I heard something sliding around inside, and found a 1913 Buffalo nickel.

Cumulatively, it would be the gold rings that had the most value. A few years back the wife and I were in a tight spot, and I had to sell pretty much all my good finds to make a house payment, so I gathered up all the gold rings and sold them for the gold value. There were 29 of 'em, mostly 14k, which brought over $2000 cash.

Individually, I found a rare "Green River Whisky" token that brought over $600 on it's own.

Rather than glamorize it, I should tall ya that I've dug a ton of trash over the years. Bottlecaps, canslaw (when the big mowers chop up an aluminum can) pull tabs...ad nauseum. Ya gotta dig some of the trash to get the good stuff, but decent discrimination in the machine can save a lot of that time. To me, if a signal is "iffy", I dig it anyway.

You'd be surprised at how many times I've knelt down, thinking I wa digging yet another pulltab and popped out a gold wedding band instead! Unfortunately, the signal return from a pulltab and a gold ring are very close, so, when in doubt, dig it out.