Eat your Wheaties, get a Merc

Don't just swing anywhere

Lately I have been hunting in parks that are adjacent to some of the more historical landmarks in town. The focal point of the hunt has not been on the "center of the action" spots that most everyday people would think would be the place to swing your coil. Instead, I look at an area and see if there is any evidence of recent soil disturbance. What you aim for is areas that have not gotten any attention from the maintenance crew. These grounds tend to hold the older coin at a shallower depth than most other areas where there is often many rounds of topsoil removal and reseeding.

The Wheaties keep coming

Lately I have not shied away from the obvious "penny" signals. Sometimes these come out of the ground as old wheat pennies, and sometimes come out of unexpected places. I recently pulled a 1926 Wheat out of a pile of silt that had piled up from a wall drain - only 1 inch from the surface! Oldest one to date, 1919, came from a strip of grass across from the ol' swimming hole.

 

The first Mercury Dime, quite the surprise!

While on my hunt right next to an old train depot, I got an unusual VDI signal coming from my XTerra 705 that I have not seen before (at least one that was this consistent). Keep giving a solid "46" from all angles I approached it so I decided to check it out. About 5-6inches down, what I initially imagined to be just some type of "can slaw" ended up being a nice shiny silver piece for me. Imagine my surprise when I took it out thinking it was a silver Rosie and it ended up being my very first Mercury dime - dated 1942! That find made my day. After some research, I discovered 1942 had a small portion of Mercs that were minted with a "2" stamped over last "1" in "1941" - these coins are worth about $250-600 depending on the condition. Closer inspection revealed I did not have this error coin but it was exciting for a brief moment to think I found something potentially rare.

Have some other finds to post from other hunts, so stay tuned.

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.

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. 

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!