The ground normally doesn't stay frozen for long periods of time here in Southern Mo. and in a couple of days it had mostly thawed. It would be after dark when I got in from work so I taped a flashlight on the shaft of the detector and hunted that yard every night! For hours! I found a hand full of modern coins nearly every night....along with hot wheel cars, cheap kids jewelery and lots of trash. No silver or gold but I was having a ball. Meanwhile I was making plans for the weekend.....I had a couple places in mind where I just knew I would find piles of silver coins........boy was I in for a lesson!
At this time I knew no one else who owned a metal detector. I didn't own a computer or even know how to turn one on.Everything I would need to learn I would learn from trial and error or from the tidbits of info I could get from books and magazines. Most of my friends thought I was nuts but EVERYONE knew where gold coins and long buried treasure was located.....(I never could understand why they didn't go recover it!)
The weekend came and I hunted some "can't miss" spots from daylight till dark......with nothing to show for my efforts but a tired back and a few grungy modern coins. I was beginning to realize that finding those piles of silver was gonna be harder than I thought. Another week passed with me hunting in my yard nearly every night and the next weekend found me again hunting a old cattle auction sight that had closed in the 1960s after being open since the 1940s. The large area was thickly grown up with weeds but I spend the whole day fighting my way through them........and found 2 wheat cents! My first non modern coins and boy was I thrilled!.......but still no silver.
I spent the next several weekends hunting different promising areas.....with no results other than a few modern coins and a very few more Wheaties.....I was beginning to get discouraged and wondered if there was something wrong with my detector or if any silver coins were ever lost in my area.
The next weekend I only had a couple hours to hunt....and thought I would just mess around my dad and mothers house where I was raised and they still lived. I was in the gravel driveway/parking area scratching out modern grungy cents one after another when suddenly a glint of silver appeared in the bottom of a hole! With shaking hands I picked it up.......A beat up 1963 Rosy dime! My first silver coin! What a thrill! After admiring it for a while I checked the hole again.......and got another strong signal! Scraping it out some more revealed another 2 Rosys! Again from the early 60s! My first silver finds came with 3 in the same hole....and the funny part was I may have been the one who lost them there when I was a kid! I had been getting discouraged but now I was fired up once again!
By the next weekend we had 6 inches of snow on the ground fierce winds and a temp of about 5 degrees.Wanting to go badly but knowing it would be impossible.........or would it? I remembered the old cattle auction sight and the large auction barn that was still standing there. 30 minutes later I was in the barn with detector in hand.There was a auction pit in the center of the large barn surrounded by wooden bleachers where the buyers sat.Looking under them I could see several 1950s era broken soda bottles.....the kind I used to cash in for 2 cents each.....a light bulb lit up in my head! There HAD to be some old coins in the dust under those bleachers ....but they would be hard to get to because they were built so low to the ground.
A few minutes later with my coveralls shed and the detectors shaft adjusted as low as it would go.....I squirmed under those bleachers on my belly as the wind rattled the loose tin on the roof of that old building.The ground under those bleachers had not felt the rain for 60 years or so.....it was packed hard as concrete with about 6 inches of fine powdery dust on top of it. After I squirmed under them about 8 feet or so I finally found a spot where I could at least get up on my hands and knees and swing the detector a little........THERE WERE SIGNALS EVERYWHERE! Brushing back the dust with my hand on the first.....there lay a Mercury dime as bright and shiny as if it had been minted yesterday.....right beside it lay another.....than a silver Rosy and a couple of wheaties.......and a silver Washington quarter!
After I cleaned up that area I squirmed to another......with the same results! Every place I could find with enough room to swing the detector was FULL of old coins! It was hard work and I was soon drenched in sweat and bleeding from the broken glass with cuts on my hands and knees....but I didn't care! I spent the rest of the day crawling around under those bleachers and found the most silver I have ever found to this day......when I got home that night -tired, filthy, and bleeding -I was in hog heaven! I had 46 silver coins -44 dimes and 2 quarters ranging in dates from the 1940s to the early 60s as well as 75 wheat pennys! By far the best day for silver I have ever had......and there was to be several more trips made under those bleachers before I was done........will continue
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2009 06:04PM by Wayne in BC.
The evolution of a metal detectorist ......part 1
Looking forward for pt.2 Dan!N/T
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