Wasted $75 on a "beginner" trowel set from a museum gift shop in Santa Fe that bent on my second dig day
If you're just getting into fieldwork, skip the pretty catalog sets with the leather roll and buy one $20 forged trowel from a real supply house, because mine folded at the tip like a spoon halfway through sifting a shell midden and I want to know if anyone else got burned by gear sold as archaeology tools that are really just souvenirs.