2012 Finds Total

As the year of 2012 comes to a close, with all its ups and downs, I decided to take my treasure finds and total them up for the year. Here is a compilation of all clad, gold, and silver finds along with their approximate value.

Clad:
Coin           Quantity         Value 
Dollar             1                $1.00
Quarter       125              $31.25
Dime           108             $10.80
Nickel           83               $4.15
Penny          395               $3.95

Clad Total:                    $51.15

Precious Metals:
Gold: 1 Ring at 10K puirty: Amount: 8.175g - Spot price on 12/31/2012 was $1663.57/toz

Silver: 1 Lizard pendant at 92.5% purity (sterling): Amount: 7.260g - Spot price on 12/31/2012 was $30.14/toz

Precious Metal Total: $188.84

Grand Total value of 2012 Finds: $239.99

Not bad for my rookie year! Can't wait to get back out there. In fact, if the temperature just a little over freezing, I WILL be back out there. Until then, have a great new year!

A cache or a spill?

Well, I had the opportunity to take in some time at the oldest park in town. So far my hunts in this park were feast or famine - and when good finds come up in this park, they stand out for some reason. My son was in tow and was a real trooper. He even helped Dad with "digging for pennies." In fact, that was all I was getting out of the ground was either pull tabs or pennies. It getting close to lunchtime when I decided to explore a rough edge patch in the park. I remembered back to what fellow "treasure hunter" Dan Hughes, author and podcaster, said regarding old parks. If you come across some bushes, be an adventurous soul and swing that detector not only around but also IN the bush, as that bush may not have been there 50-100yrs ago. Well, bushes during winter that are not evergreens are easier to approach so I swung around one not too far from where I had found that nice 10K gold ring back in May.

A nice quarter signal showed up around 2/3 of the way around the bush so I retrieved my coin and checked the hold with the pinpointer again. Nice signal again. The next thing I noticed was that several signals were coming not only from the bottom of the hole, but also the side of the hole and the top of the hole. Apparently I had come upon a coin spill of some sort or maybe even a cache?!? It took quite a while to sift through all the signals in the hole - sometimes I thought the signals would never end.  In the end though, I ended up with just over 10 dollars in quarters along with a few Canadian quarter pals as well. 

After I returned home, I checked the dates and ended up coming so close but ultimately had a no go on the silver - the earliest dated quarter I had was 1965. I guess the silver coinage will have to wait until my second season. 

My next post will include totals of all my clad along with current value of all gold and silver acquired. 

Old Fairgrounds

So just before the first major snowstorm was planning to hit the state in about 48hours time, I had an opportunity to hunt the local fairgrounds for a few hours. During the hunt, I gathered quite a bit of pull tabs and some random metal couplings used for electrical work. My most interesting find was one I did not know I had until I got home. When I first pulled this out of the ground, I thought it was a regular washer. Upon further inspection at home, I noticed not only was the "washer" really lightweight, it had markings on it as well. On one side read "OK VENS TOKEN." I had to do a bit of research on this to find its possible origins. It could be an amusement token used for "nongambling" purposes - date of the token is unknown but these token were commonly distributed from 1890-1930. 

Now all I need to do is get an actual coin in this date range!

Half a friendship pendant

OK VENS COUPON TOKEN 

A collection of hunting finds

 Since my detecting has come to a precise premium over the past month of so, I decided to gather all my finds together in one post. These items were gathered from various parks around town when I had a small slice of time to detect between appointments. I came across a few pennies with some patterns struck on them. One was in the shape of a cross, the other in the shape of a heart. Besides the clad shown below, I also found a piece with the inscription "Sweepstakes Bouillon" - R/9313-3.

Been a while

Well, due to work and family priorities, I have not hunted in awhile - hoping to get out this weekend before Old Man Winter really takes hold here in Big Sky Countryand hunting may not be an option. When that is in full swing, I plan to post on indoor activities related to the hobby such library research and online historical references to use. I have a few standbys right now, but I am always running into new ways to approach how to research and use tools not readily apparent to most people. Sometimes that little extra clue or piece of info is even to tip the odds in favor of finding something really unique. Until then - keep swinging.

P.S. I am compiling finds from several mini- hunts over the last two months and will post shortly on those items.

Daddy/Son hunting time

I know I have not posted in awhile - I just started my full-time job so my MD'ing time has become more precious. I had my nearly two year old son in tow for all my adventures over the Labor Day weekend. Got a lot of clad - just over $2 in the process, but the interesting finds were part of a bracelet, a Lewis & Clark two hundred year Great Falls expedition anniversary pin, and two relatively new Matchbox cars. My son was really excited to see those come out of the ground. He likes to look for "hennies" (pennies) now.

On a separate note, I picked up a kid's metal detector at a garage sale for $1. Very very basic. I will slowly incorporate this into my hunts as he gets the hang of it. Very good Daddy/Son time.

Morning Hunts again - that's the ticket!

With the long days of summer starting to get shorter and shorter, I still have a window of opportunity to hunt during the early morning hours. Now my morning coil sweeps across the morning dew on the grass. This past weekend I got around a few hunts in the morning along with another adhoc hunt at a local park with my almost 2yo son. Interesting finds this time around include a toe ring, a pendant that reads "Weather Tamer," and a city of Great Falls 5 cent parking token with the initials "RWM" on it. I am still in the midst of investigating the approximate date(s) of this token, as it obvious is not used anymore by local businesses downtown for their perspective patrons. Clad total was $1.43 with two Canadian cents

Just so everybody knows it is NOT all goodies I gather, I have included some of my junk finds. 

Weekend early morning hunts

In an attempt to beat the heat as of late here in town, I decided to wake up just before morning so I could venture out on a hunt in the cooler temperatures. Ended up going back to the area where I had previously found an old belt buckle. Had to adjust the sensitivity a few times to stop all the chatter. Got mostly pull-tabs and bottlecaps. My good find of the day ended up being a 1953 S Wheat penny. Kind of disappointed that I nicked the edge with my Lesche tool, but I will take a wheat penny any day.

The next morning I ventured out to the local soccer field park again and swung for a limited time in the grass. The dew was really heavy and I did not want to damage my coil as the 10x5 elliptical is only water resistant. Besides  cents in clad, the interesting find of the day was a metal plate (stainless steel?) that cleaned up really.  The plate is slightly curved and labeled with "1097 SALT LAKE CITY DRIVER 1950" There does not appear to be any other features on the back of it. My best guess is that this is an ID badge of some kind. A competition of some sort? What kind of drivers were these for? More questions than answers at this point.

 

Local park....worldly find

So I braved the elements the past weekend and decided to detect in a park used as a local soccer field in the  midst of mid-90 degree heat (not quite so bad as Montana has low humidity - it's a dry hot, like a dry sauna). In a hour and a half, I was able to snag 85 cents in clad along with some pulltabs (you don't know if they aren't gold rings until you dig them) and some random pieces of metal. After coming home, I noticed one "coin" I had gathered had started to leach out its metal inner core pretty bad. The outer portion of the coin was practically unrecognizable so I decided to bathe it in a bit of household vinegar (I know what some of you are thinking, putting a chemical cleaner on an unknown coin. If I was decipher anything out of that mess of a find, I had to chance it and clean it off for better identification).

After cleaning I was surprised to see the following marks. After some research, I discovered I had unearthed  a 1971 German 2 Pfennig coin. Here is a pic of the coin along with what it probably looked like during its better days.

Between the old and the new

Had an opportunity to check out a new location to possibly hunt in town. It located between a historic building and a part of a city park. What made this stick out in my mind was that it was an unmaintained portion of the park. The size of the hill it contained almost suggested to me that the area was once flat but was built up as a spot to put dirt from projects nearby. These projects were likely done long ago given how much vegetation had come up.

In the 20 short minutes that I detected, I found some modern pennies, a nickel, and a belt buckle that I am not sure on the age of - so I am planning on getting help from my metal detecting forum friends so it can be identified.

Prospecting anyone?

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted something and this time I ventured back into the hills of the Little Belt mountains just outside the old mining town of Neihart. In its heyday, Neihart had booming silver and silver operations that was carried by rail freight into Great Falls to the Anaconda smelter for refining. Gold was a secondary product of their work. When I say secondary I mean the ore was treated with cyanide to extract the precious metal.

Anyway, I tried my hand for the first time to use my XTerra in prospecting mode (audio only - no target ID to help me out). I believe I still have to get used to the sensitivity and threshold settings but during the two hour venture on the mountain side I got a better ear for targets. Some more DEET spray would have been handy, as I was sweating pretty good in the humidity. I recovered some .22 caliber bullets and some old wire. Not bad - I will try my hand around the old mine shafts later and check out some areas where some placer gold is said to be around. Ah yes, it is true what they say. Gold is where you find it. And today I did not find it.

  

Some habits never die

This past week, my dad came over to visit and brought some items from memory lane. As we spent time looking through old photos, one in particular caught my eye. It was a pic was me with my very first metal detector when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I remember the Radioshack purchase had an analog meter on it with a needle that would bounce back and forth. There was a knob for power/ volume control and maybe another for sensitivity but that was it. I ventured out with my dad to one of the local fairgrounds properties used for parking. I got something around a dollar in clad and some misc. metal items. The main thing I do remember was unearthing part of a very large sheet of aluminum. It was too big to even attempt to pull out! That is the one experience that left the biggest impression on me. Interesting to see how things have changed in about 24years. Did not take much to pull me back in and I am glad I did.

Some habits never die, they just hibernate.

A great find and another first - still can't believe it

Over the past several days, I have been taking my little guy with me when I metal detect out at one of the oldest park in town that quite the history. Each time I went, I ventured over to the far end of the park away from all the hustle and bustle to an area I thought would have ground that has been relatively untouched since its inception in the 1890s. The spots where I swung my detector had no rhyme or reason to it because I was at the will of wandering toddler who likes to watch people, geese, planes flying in the air, and every single squirrel within his curious gaze.

With this challenging variable, I decided to be really particular about the signals I chose to retrieve - no iffy ones, just ones that were solid and could easily be some form of coinage. One signal I got was about 2 inches outside the ring you see of a recently planted tree in the park, so it was ground that was undisturbed for quite some time. The target ID I got made me think older penny but it would jump down to pulltab range as well. I took my screwdriver out and took a chance at it. As I pulled up some dirt, waved it over my detector and confirmed it was in my hand. As the dirt fell away, I could see the beginning of a circular pattern and I first thought "pull-tab again" - but then I got a sparkle! My was floored and completely dumbfounded - I had found my first gold ring! I quickly checked the inside of the band to verify and I saw the "10K" marking on it. It was a larger men's ring.

What makes this ring stand out though is not the size of the gold ring, but the size of the stone that it holds, it was huge! I was secretly hoping in the back of my mind that this was a diamond but I did not want to get my hopes up. I got it tested over at a local jeweler (thermal test) and it was negative. Still, the 10K band came in at a decent 5.25 pennyweights. Finds like these definitely get you deeper into the hobby!

Living on the edge

There is this new approach to parks that I have started to take with a few good results. The idea came from an ebook I got free through a Minelab owners forum, called "Understanding your X-TERRA" by Randy Horton. In this book, a friend of Randy's likes to hunt along the edge of a sidewalk, where the park or property grass meets the sidewalk. The theory in this approach is that people drop items from their pockets and if it falls on edge, it could roll to this interface and get stuck in the grass matrix. Take it for whatever you think but I plan on testing this out and see what results I get over time.

For now, an "edge" search that I did at a park on the east end of town yielded me one penny and one flower earring. Not bad. There is potential - even for edges that seem like they would produce nothing. Things have not always been like they are now - conditions change and some spots collect dropped items and then become just a piece of grass at the edge of a park where no detectors have gone before.

First Silver....in my own backyard!

Well the weather was better than predicted and since my 19mo son is a outdoors loving toddler, I figured I would have another go around the backyard. Why would I swing coil around an area I have already detected? Well, for one thing, I am more experienced with the slight differences in tones given off by my detector and I had also changed my threshold and sensitivity settings to something less conservative. In the course of trying to keep an eye on my 19mo son, I discovered about  cents in clad, some pieces of aluminum sheeting that I suspect were cut when the house was constructed in 1979, and a leftover piece of a water sprinkler. The real surprise came when I discovered a sterling silver pendant shaped like a lizard. I don't have a weight on it but it is indeed silver as it had the "925" stamp on the underside I was looking for.

First Old Coin...1946 S Wheat Penny!

Had an afternoon to venture some property just a mile outside of an old mining town of Neihart, MT. In its heyday, Neihart was a town that was built up from a boom in mining huge silver and lead ore deposits. I ventured around some and came upon a major dump site (lots of old cans) and picked up a couple 22 caliber bullets still intact. Other than a few other random pieces of metal and a screw cap to some type of heating units (rated at 150,000 BTU from a company called MTI in Perrysville, OH) there wasn't much I was getting of any interest.

 

As I made my way back to the cabin, I swung my detector just off the roadway. Just a mere two feet from the road's edge, right across from the cabin driveway, I got a solid beep that definitely sounded "coin." It was only a 1/2 inch in the soil and I picked it up and saw Lincoln's head. "Oh, just a penny" I thought as I turned it around - that's when I saw the wheat penny reverse side. Oh man, was I excited. On top of that, I brought it in and cleaned it soap and water and discovered it was a 1946 - with an S mint mark! - WooHoo! My first old coin and it was a San Francisco minted wheat penny. This is certainly a first that I will remember for a long time. Looking forward to other great finds in the future in that ol' mining town that dates back to the 1870s.

Been a while

So I have been tardy as of late in my metal detecting pursuits. What can I say? Life is happening. At any rate, I scouted the Fort Shaw property and now have permission to detect it whenever I am ready. In the meantime, I am curious about detecting another's friends property that is out of town but along the Smith River. Need to do some research on the history of the area so I can get an idea of what my be out there.

First set of rings!

Made a faithful return to that good city park that gave so much earlier. This time the real producers were THE EDGES of the tot lot. On two different sides, I recovered not one, but two different rings. Don't get too excited  about the stone, it's good ol' cubic zirconium (there's a chip in it). The target IDs on these didn't catch my eye, but when they were recovered, they certainly got my attention. A button and 26 cents in clad was also had this time.

Getting excited for a potential trip this weekend to a nearby tiny town of Fort Shaw and get a chance to hunt some ranch land. Maybe there will be a relic or two in the mix...

Interesting weekend finds

This past weekend I got some time to hunt at a different park in town. The park is considerably large and will take quite a few visits to thoroughly cover. For this first trip, I kept the hunt isolated to the tot lot along some of the more rugged terrain on the far end of the park. The tot lot yielded a very nice $1.22 in clad in just about an hour's time. In the far end of the park, I got some nice signals which turned up a railroad spike and a kitchen knife with the blade broken off. 

I'm sure there are other goodies out there so as soon as this 6" of snow that just fell in town last night takes a hike and gets a little warmer

My Mason jar totals

Up until this point, I had always taken my finds from the various parks around since I received my detector in early December 2011 and placed them in a mason jar that I lovingly named "Dan's Treasures" with masking tape. However, I never really kept track of my finds - so I decided to empty it out today and do an inventory. When all was said and done, I have collected an even $15.70 in clad. No really old coins to speak of (i.e. no silver finds yet).

Weekend finds

So I had a few hours to hit a new park with the improved weather. Around here though, when the weather gets better during the winter, it comes with a price - gusty winds. Fine by me, it's not like the wind is going to be blowing away what I'm looking for. This particular tot appeared to be hunted not too long ago as all I could salvage was 21 cents in clad. The other things included a Hot Wheels type car with "Sandman" along the sides. Temps will improve for next weekend as well so until then...

My latest finds...three jacks!

My latest revisit to a tot lot yielded a surprise set of finds besides the usual. By a set of swings, I pulled out three jacks just an inch under the wood chips. I thought "mmmm...there's something you don't see everyday." Do kids these days still even play with jacks anymore? Oh yeah, I also grabbed up 38 cents in clad, a charm of some sort, and what appears to be a square button? Weather is going to be improving this weekend and I am hoping to hit some new grounds.

Thoughts on upcoming metal detecting pilot show

A couple guys from Anaconda are part of a two show pilot on the National Geographic channel called 'Diggers' that airs tonight.

Here is the AP report: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/4e395666297947f5a0c42c9c192a99cb/MT--Anaconda-Treasure/

I am curious on how this show will present itself even though I am boiling with excitement. The main concern I have is that they will not show the hobby in its purist state. I guess there is a code of ethics that people in the hobby like to follow. They basically boil down to -
1) Know the law concerning where you detect and ask permission if needed
2) Respect the rights of others
3) Leave no trace with your activities

Also, I hope the hobby is shown for all its ups and downs - as in they show how you will mostly collect junk (pullatbs, foil, zippers, etc) and come across interesting stuff less frequently. If they just show the guys getting great finds with every beep, it will not be representative of the hobby. I understand there is a certain amount of entertainment vs. reality that has to be balanced to keep the show afloat, but I just hope that the way it is portrayed comes across in such as way that you would see the same approach by any other metal detecting hobbyist no matter the experience level.

First Detector

So I received my metal detecting present a few months back - a Minelab XTerra 705 with 18.75kHz elliptical coil. So far it has proven to be a very sensitive machine. Took me some time at the beginning to get a handle on pinpointing. Most the grounds I have been to are the city parks in town. As soon as the weather warms up in the mountains, I am anxious to check out old mining town areas for relics and possibly other goodies.