Don’t call Doug Snyder a metal detector. Call him a relic hunter. That’s how the Cary husband and father would prefer his hobby to be defined.

“Old-timers think you’re out there looking for their gold,” he said. “Mostly, I just want to see what’s out there.” In seven years, with a $235 metal detector bought from eBay, Snyder has collected a kitchen table full of Civil War bullets, buttons, belts, locks and all manner of old, cool stuff buried under the dirt.

The trick, he said, is convincing people to let you look.

“Do you own an old property?” reads the letter Snyder hands out around Wake Forest, Cary and Morrisville — the places he usually hunts for treasures buried underground. “Would you like to see what relics it holds?”

Snyder is hungry for hunting grounds and would detect every day, if weather and work permitted. He’s always on the lookout for willing property owners, and so far he’s had good luck.

He owes that to a strict code of ethics: Always get permission, never leave holes and always try to find the piece’s original owner. His affable personality doesn’t hurt either.

“Once I had my foot in the door with one property, people began to trust me,” he said. His letter also offers references and promises that he’ll haul off any trash he uncovers and leave the yards as he found them.

He’s used to being meticulous, working in quality control at The Body Shop’s headquarters in Wake Forest. He jokes his sense of smell is damaged from sniffing all the competing aromas at the company, which manufactures things like soaps, perfumes and body butters. Good thing he just needs his sense of hearing for relic hunting.

“I grid off small areas and walk very slowly, taking baby steps,” he said, jumping up to demonstrate with his detector. “Little teeny baby steps, sweeping, sweeping, listening for faint signals. You have to be methodical and patient.”

And he doesn’t go for the fancy equipment. Even though some detectors cost up to $1,500, Snyder has stuck with his original eBay bargain all these years.

“I’ve been out with these guys with their $1,200 machines,” he said. “Sometimes they can’t even detect bullets with all their knobs.”

Interviewing Snyder is not a sit-down affair. He was in constant motion, pointing to frames stacked on the table, full of finds that he laid out in advance. He carefully cleans, classifies and stores everything in shadow boxes or labeled containers. Except the $4,000 rare Confederate officer’s belt buckle he found earlier this year. That he keeps in a safe deposit box.

“I about died,” Snyder said when he realized what he had unearthed in the yard of an 1847 house in Wake Forest. He’d scored at the site before, first finding two Indian head pennies, one a double-stamped gem worth $125, and later a $1,500 officer’s button.

“At that time, it was my best find ever,” he said. “I thought, ‘there’s no way I can top this.’”

Then this spring, he beeped on the rare Confederate buckle. Since it was getting dark, he threw it in his bag and headed home. When he discovered what he had, he knew he had to return and do some more detecting.

“It’s actually only half of a wreath-style buckle,” he said. “If I can find the other piece, it’ll be worth $8,000 to $9,000.”

He still hasn’t found the other half, but it isn’t for lack of trying. “I was ready to rent a back hoe,” he said. “I’ve been all over that yard.”

Snyder researched the property and found out the original homeowner built a house next door for his daughter.

“For all I know, it could be sitting under that house,” Snyder said. The hope of one day finding it is all part of the excitement.

Snyder is the first to tell you he doesn’t do this for money. For one, he has no plans of selling the half-buckle, preferring to keep it in the family as an heirloom.

Also, he gifts most homeowners with a keepsake shadowbox from their yards as a thank you. He’s donated countless relics to the local museum in Wake Forest and hopes to do the same for a future Cary museum.

“That way people can enjoy it,” he said. “What good is it doing staying in the ground?”

He checks craigslist, the popular online classifieds Web site, for lost jewelry, and shows up to detect for wives or husbands who’ve lost their wedding bands, no charge.

So far, he’s found three. He gets such a kick out of how relieved the spouses are that he documented some on video and posted them on YouTube.

But what mostly keeps him outside, patiently swinging his trusty detector, braving the heat and bugs up to eight hours a week, is his imagination.

“I got hooked with my first Civil war bullet,” he said, noting they’re worthless and other detectors have buckets of them. “I just kept thinking about these troops and this massive war... that’s what really got me.”

To contact Snyder, call 827-7983 or e-mail dougsnyder@bellsouth.net.