Sophomore season yields first silver!

So as a follow up to my set of hunts I made that resulted in the discovery of the old button. That same park that gave me my first gold along with other interesting finds ended up giving me my first "deep" signal. I can understand now what the veterans speak of when they refer to "deep" signal. Some people refer to deep targets as giving a "narrow" signal - I guess this is one way to describe it. The signal is narrow in that it barely exceeds the threshold limit set by your machine and its detection area is rather "narrow" or "smaller" than compared to a target that is shallower. (Not sure if any of this made sense, as I have been frustrated myself with trying to understand what others have used to describe how deep targets are picked up). If anything, the only way someone can understand how a deep target is picked up by their machine is purely a matter of experience with detector and knowing what it is trying to tell you.

Anyway, back to the point here - my XTerra gave a consistent 38-40 signal and I immediately thought "here's another dime." After I extracted it from about 6-7inches down, I was surprised on how clean it looked fresh out of the ground. Well, to my surprise I read a "1947" on my very first silver coin. It certainly highlighted the hunt and just like finding my first gold, it made me want to find more of these awesome coins.

Glad to have another first checked off my list of finds - not a bad start to my sophomore season of detecting. Hopefully a sign of things to come.

The mystery button...

One of the interesting items that I came across in my hunt at the 1912 house in my last post was what looked like a rather large button. My initial impression was that the button had some sort of baseball pattern with a letter "E" in the middle.

Mystery button

I posted on a few metal detecting forums to get some feedback on what this relic might be. Although I did not get any solid info - one member did observe that the image on the button was not an "E" but rather part of an image of a belt. Using this to base my research on, I scoured the internet, looking for anything that looked close to what was on the button. Many, many, many images poured through later,



I discovered the very same design on a smaller button for sale on an auction website, offered through someone who had business that dealt with all sorts of button, along with other trinkets. I emailed the owner and was surprised to get a rather quick reply. She indicated that she will consult with her other "button friends" and let me know what she found out. A few days later, I got the following response

** I believe it is made of brass. Nice size too. It represents a belt buckle, and I would think probably dates between 1910-1930. Unless it has a backmark you would not be able to tell who made it **

Very cool! This is perhaps the oldest relic I have found to date. Will continue with this site - even sweeping through with slightly different sensitivity/threshold settings.

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 

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.

Welcome to my blog!

Greetings!

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a former engineer with a chemistry background who has a big interest in history. I set up this blog as a way to track my humble beginnings in metal detecting. When I was around 11 years old, I got a metal detector from my dad - some generic Radioshack type with an analog readout for a signal. My first hunt was on the parking lots of my local fairgrounds. I found a bunch of modern coins and also unearthed part of a large sheet of aluminum. Not much of a haul but it was enough to spark my interest. My interest waned as high school started. It was not until recently that I recollected back to that time in my youth and it reignited my interest in the hobby. I hope my writings will not only help the novice, but also the experienced metal detectorist.