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 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.

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. 

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