Thousands of silver coins redux

Friday morning after Thanksgiving promised to be a beautiful morning. I got out of bed early and decided to spend a couple of hours hunting the oldest park in the city. I got there at 7am and immediately was accosted by a couple of 8 year-old boys and their puppy boxer. They shadowed me for an hour of digging clad and deep trash. Eventually, after a vicious puppy attack on one of the boys and my subsequent rescue of such boy, they left me alone to peace and quiet. I decided to move back to the spot in the park that has produced 7 silver coins. Last time I hunted this particular spot, I dug up some cool relics but no more coins. Still, the spot is choke-full of old iron and I was hoping I had missed something.

Sure enough, not five minutes into hunting there, I got a nice coin signal, not too deep but with a confusing VDI. Still, I hunt by ear so I deemed this signal diggable:

 

At about 4 inches of depth, I pulled this 1943P war nickel, my 8th silver coin from this relatively small spot. Soon after that I dug up a couple of very shallow wheats from there as well; a 1927 wheat and a 1944 wheat. I just cannot get over how many coins have come from this spot. It reinforces my belief that there are thousands of silver coins left at our city parks, all masked by iron or trash.

By the way, the boys returned to the park, this time tagging along their 2 year old brother who began imitating me by stomping the dirt on the holes I dug and, sometimes stomping on the holes even as I was digging them! LOL! He was very funny in that he got very excited every time I dug up a worm from the ground. I asked one of the boys where they lived and he pointed to a Victorian era house across the street. Next to this house, there is a another equally old house that has been abandoned for a few years now but which we cannot hunt due to the fact that the father of the boys always calls the police on anyone attempting to detect it. I don’t think I go to far in thinking that I may have a way to gain permission to hunt that house. We’ll see.

Thank you for looking!

Silver; finally!

I went out today with my Deus metal detector and with the express goal of ending my two week silver slump.

The first target worth mentioning was a  cool Buffalo Nickel with no visible date. I love finding these. I didn’t keep count of them last year but I will this year.

Before I covered the hole, I stuck the pinpointer in to check for additional targets and I got another hit. I was hoping for a silver coin but what I got was pretty cool too.

I feel bad for the little boy who lost both his nickel and his cool pony badge. After I cleaned it, it still had some of the golden gild on it.

After a little while I got a sweet signal mixed with mid tones with a jumpy VDI. I almost didn’t dig it but the sweet part of the signal convinced me to go for it and I am glad I did! Had I kept on walking, I would have missed a 1943 war nickel.

A few minutes later, in a section I’ve hit many, many times before. I got a strong dime signal. Expecting a clad dime, I got a 1961 Rosie instead, only about five inches deep. I sure do love to see that dirty silver disc poking through the dirt!

It’s unusual for silver coins to be this shallow at this park and I sure don’t understand how it is I missed it before.

Not too bad for a 2.5 hour hunt.

Not pictured here are the pulltabs (I was looking for gold as well) and the wine screw caps that sound ever so sweet when they are deep.

Thank you for looking!

Deep War Nickel

At lunch time, I took Maurice, my Deus metal detector, to my deep silver park. I am convinced that most of the 100 coins I’ve decided to find this year will come from this park.

If you have read my blog for a while, you already know about the deep silver park. For some reason, the soil at this park is severely unstable and things sink very deep very fast. Also, recently, I discovered that Maurice reads some of these deep coins but barely makes a peep when it does. To make matters worse, when Maurice finds a deep coin –7 to 9 inches deep, it gives a VDI of 98, which normally indicates iron wrap-around. By the way, the reason why it’s called iron wrap-around is because the VDI scale is actually a wheel. This wheel starts at 00 which is iron and moves up from there to 99. As you know, high conductive targets such as silver and copper, read from the high 80’s (mid-80’s sometimes) to the mid 90’s. The iron wrap around thing happens when the detector detects rusty iron and it assigns a VDI of 98-99 which, in the wheel, is right next to 00. Get it? Well, enough theory for now.

So, Maurice tells me with a faint and sometimes fuzzy high tone that there is something down deep. Then it assigns a VDI of 98 to the thing. Sometimes there is no VDI.  As long as the signal is repeatable I dig it. Until today, I had not dug a coin with this signal but today I dug nine and a tax token (one wheat didn’t make it in the picture). I also dug up some rusty iron items and, as always, trash.

All objects dug were in the seven to nine inch depth range, with the pocket knife being the most shallow at seven inches. I know there will be people who doubt my depth claims but so be it. I am the only one interested in the depth of my coins as it allows me to gauge the capabilities of my machine in my Kansas soil. XP is working on an 11 inch coil and when I can buy it, I will own this park. Right now, the Deus comes with a 9 inch coil.

Meanwhile, I am as giddy as a, well, let’s not be sexist here. Let’s just say I am super stoked. The only thing that will drive me to drink is the wheat to silver ratio at this park. I know the silver is down there; deep. I just need to figure out how to get to it.

Thank you for looking!

My findings as of late

Although I haven’t been posting lately, I have been able to get out and dig a thing or two.

I have been concentrating on a particular spot at a particular park with the long term goal in mind of eventually hitting it with a P.I. machine or maybe even with a BlissTool. To that end, I have been digging up all targets and I am now left with only tiny pieces of foil, which the Deus hits hard at very impressive depths. Still, I continue to be amazed that after almost a year of hunting this spot, I still find interesting objects there.

A couple of weeks ago I was very surprised to find this Wichita Transportation Co. token at about 6 inches down.

Good for one fare

About 20 yards away from this one, on a different day, I found an even earlier version of this token from when the company was called The Wichita Railroad and Light Co. Unfortunately, I misplaced that picture.

At a different park, I found yet another dateless Buffalo nickel. I don’t get tired of them though!

I love them Buffs

And speaking of nickels, one of the things I love to do with the Deus is to turn it into a nickel machine by changing the tones and by using notching. There are countless nickels in our city parks just waiting for me to dig them up.

This is becoming a common occurrence

And I continue my search for more gold even as my friends Patton and Steveouke are cleaning up on the silver coins.

Fall is here and I should be able to get out more often. Stay tuned!

The Goings On lately

I’ve hunted sporadically lately with my XP Deus metal detector.

I went out with the guys from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum to a former Girl Scout camp and found a cool old button with religious (Catholic maybe) motifs. The guys found silver and other cool stuff. I had to leave early for my Karate class.

Then I went out on my own to my old trashy park and found a 24 gram, 10K gold chain. I haven’t determined yet if it is plated or solid. It is almost too heavy to be plated. At first glance it appears to have some corroded spots but under the microscope that seems to be some kind of tar-like material sticking to the gold. I snipped the chain with a wire cutter but this didn’t help as the wire cutters crimped the metal and it made it look like it was solid gold. I just got the idea to break the chain the way I saw someone else do it by bending the chain link back and forth until it breaks. This will surely reveal the true nature of the chain. I sure hope it’s the real deal as it would be a cool $500 for mee pocket!

Last, I procured a nickel program for the Deus from Pescadore from the Friendly and after a couple of times of using in the old trashy park, I’ve collected a fistful of Jefferson nickels. I know there are Buffalo nickels there as I have pulled nine of the them from there this year. I also know there are V nickels since I dug one up near the park this Summer. I am hoping this nickel program will increase my count of cool nickels.

So I am looking for more gold. I need to have enough for both the 11 inch coil for the Deus (due sometime late this year or early 2013) and whatever new machine Fisher comes out with next year. If Fisher doesn’t produce a new unit, I will then get a Garrett AT Gold. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I am 110% happy with the Deus but I really liked my AT Pro and I miss it sometimes. I want to have a water proof machine anyway. As for the Fisher, I hear their new machine may be a multi-frequency  a la CZ-3D. I hope they make it light!

Sorry I didn’t have time to process the pictures I had for this post so I leave you with this photo I found on the InterWebs:

Yummmmmgrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Thank you for looking!

A small CZ-3D study

I went to my trashy, hunted out park to run a little study on the CZ-3D. The site is not, strictly speaking, the kind of site for which the CZ-3D is optimized for. The park did open around 1880 but it has been in continued use since then so although there are still many old coins left, those coins are covered by a carpet of trash.

Nonetheless, I remained undaunted and carried on.

The settings on the CZ-3D were as follows: Discrimination set at zero. Ground Balance at 3.5. Volume at 4.5. Sensitivity at ~4.2. Enhanced mode. Eight inch stock coil.

I detected for two hours and dug only repeatable high tones regardless of the depth of the target. Below are the results

3 nickels
1 quarter
1 dime
3 memorial cents
5 beaver tails
1 round pull tab with beaver tail attached
2 square pull tabs
2 bottle caps
3 wine screw caps
6 pieces of can slaw
1 bent rusty nail
1 piece of aluminum wire
1 unidentified piece of brass

30 pieces dug
8 good targets
22 trash targets

approx 27% of the targets were good. The oldest coin was a 1959 nickel.

Not bad for a spot of the park that I and others have hit heavily in recent months.

Thank you for looking!

1977 Jefferson nickel

This is Jefferson nickel number eight from around the Girl Scout House in Riverside park since I got the CZ-3D a couple of weeks ago. I missed these eight nickels with my V3i. To boot, I’ve re-scanned only about 10% of the area. Who knows how many more Jeffersons are in there, not to mention Buffaloes and V nickels, along with other goodies. I am stoked!

Thank you for looking!

I am number Eight

War nickel

I’ve been using the CZ-3D lately and I am happy with the unit except that I haven’t yet reached very deep with it. As a result, my finds have been less than interesting.

So today, I brought out the big gun. I hit a couple of places this afternoon with my V3i and finally I got some silver out of the ground. The signal was not a signal that I would have dug a couple of weeks ago but since using the CZ, I’ve developed new instincts. The nickel was a 1945 P Jefferson nickel and it was between seven and eight inches down. The signal had wrap-around and the VDI was jumpy but the high tone was consistent all around.

The other coin I dug today was a 1912D wheat cent. I may be turning into a snob because anymore, I don’t brag about wheats unless they are in the 10’s. This signal also wrapped around but now and again, I got a clean hit with a VDI of 72 so I dug it and I am glad I did. The coin was six inches deep.

Anyway, I am still eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 10.5 inch coil for the CZ. I expect great things from it just as I expect great things from my V3i.

Big Bertha comes through!

Nice detail

Love that big P atop Monticello

Old wheat

Dog Poop Town

One day, when I was just starting in the hobby with the Ace 250, I was scouting for locations to hunt and I decided to cut through an apartment complex on my way somewhere else. As I was walking past their courtyard, the first thing I noticed was that everyone in the complex owned dogs. At least it seemed to me that way because of the amount of dog poo laying around. The second thing that grabbed my attention were the  coins that were strewn about on top of  the dirt. As I began picking them up I realized each and every one was a wheat cent, ranging in date from the 20’s to the 40’s. I could tell that these coins had been washed out by the rain.  I was so excited that I forgot this complex was private property. I hunted the courtyard with the 250 but found only old trash.

Eventually I returned with the AT Pro and found my 1899 Barber quarter. I did some research and found that this was the site of one of the first neighborhoods in Wichita.

I went by today after work and hunted for 15 minutes with the CZ-3D before the rain and hail drove me away. I love this place. I call it Dog Poop Town. It is target rich and it is dangerous (I had a dangerous looking guy shadow me from a distance today)

The two ‘relics’ are from the 19th century.

Various and sundry things

Thank you for looking!

The LOST nickels

Knowing that rain was moving in today, I went hunting early in the morning before work. I returned to the spot where I found the Indian Head cents and the Buffalo nickels back in February. The site has been hunted heavily before I found those coins and after. I know in March the spot was hit hard by two Etracs, two V3i’s, one Teknetics G2, an Ace 250, a Bounty Hunter, and an ancient White’s with no tone id. And that’s just the people I know about! At least three of us grid so the chances of finding anything left is minimal.

But the CZ-3D is a totally different animal. It’s not that the CZ-3D assigns a high tone to nickel signals.  I can do that with the V3i and I’ll be digging pull tabs all day long! No, the CZ-3D sees the nickels differently. It also sees all other old coins differently. So this morning I found three nickels that we all missed. My guess is that if I checked these signals with my other detectors, they would have sounded like trash.

So I am happy with the CZ-3d. I’ve ordered the 10.5″ spider coil to get at the deeper coins. I forecast more Buffalo nickels and maybe even V nickels in  my near future, to say nothing of other old coins that may be registering as trash to everyone else.

I missed these and so did everyone else

Thank you for looking!