White's Main Detecting Forum

Many of you know Monte from Oregon. This month he organized a club meeting where 18 of us showed up to detect a great site. Many items were found. No silver for us, but between the old lady, who a few of you might know (aundrea22 or catlady from oregon... can't recall what her ID is here), my 7 year old son and myself we managed to dig up 12 tokens and a few wheaties. On the first day Aundrea dug up a token that I immediately recovered and had my son come over and "find" to get him pumped to detect. Monte was kind enought to modify a tesoro for him to use which came in handy. After CJ (my son) "found" my wife's coin he ran to the group to show them what he found. Then he immediated comes back over with his detector and finds one of our best tokens by HIMSELF!! My poor wife's thunder had been stolen and the kid tally's up 2 tokens to Aundrea's zero and my, zero

Here are a few of our finds

if you can id this, that would be great

WOW! Cool finds! Glad everyone had a good time. HH. Matt

So is there a market for tokens or do you look for them for thier historical value and because they're cool?

Tokens can be valuable, but usually the ones that are found in the ground aren't very valuable however I'm sure they can be depending on condition and what particular token it is. The Mills Valley one on ebay in undug condition goes for 20-30 but dug I'm sure down into the single digits. We like to find token strictly for the historical significance of them.

The weather was dry and clear and hot, at 95°, and cooler weather could have allowed more of us to hunt longer. A few did. For readers, note that Chris stated that he and Aundrea and CJ found 12 Trade Tokens but only showed 6 of them. Some were not scannable due to damage or condition, and some were withheld for "security" reasons.

Those of us 'experienced' with hunting ghost towns and similar site know that the ratio of tokens-to-coins is usually quite low, but on this trek (where we attained permission from all property owners who's land we hunted), token count was almost double that of the coin count!

CJ, being but 7 years old, needed a shorter, lighter, and quick-response type detector to use and, as Chris mentioned, I modified a low-end Tesoro to serve that purpose. Since this is a White's Forum, however, let me remind folks that Chris was using a modified WHITE'S IDX Pro w/Royal 800 8" coil, and Aundrea was working her WHITE'S Classic ID w/5.3 BullsEye 6½". Matter of fact, of the 18 people who hunted the sites involved, I saw the following White's in use at one time or another (for those who switched between detectors):

Classic II
Classic III
Classic ID
Classic IDX
IDX Pro
'modified' IDX Pro (2 of them)
MXT Pro (2 of them)

There might have been others, but White's was well represented and were the best all-around producers.

This was our second year to have a 'Get-Away Outing', and they are part of what we try to include in our monthly FREE-to-the-PUBLIC metal detecting group meetings, called Detector Owner Rendezvous, hosted by AHRPS. Last year (2011) we had 28 people make the 'Get-Away Outing' we held in Central Oregon, and this trip took us from the Portland, Oregon metro area all the way over to the Oregon/Idaho border, then about another 55 miles of travel. Still, 18 folks made the trip.

Next year we plan to host TWO outings. One short-range and closer to us in the summer time, and quite possibly another trip to this year's sites, but earlier in the year. Maybe in May when it will be a little cooler.and more comfortable. Depending upon a few opportunities, our 2013 trip might be stretched to a week-long get-away so we can take advantage of a nearby campground, get in ample detecting at the various properties, and maybe kick back and relax with our own little "fishing derby."

If you live anywhere in the greater Portland Oregon metro area, shoot me an e-mail and I'll add you to our e-mail list about our free monthly meetings. They are designed to be educational and informative, not a lot of wasted time. Right now I am trying to contact one of the more avid token collectors of Oregon Trade Tokens to be a speaker at our July meeting. At that meeting we are inviting all of those who made this years outing to bring their found coins and tokens, and a few other do-dads, for a little show-and-tell.

Half or more of the trade tokens found were 'mavericks', meaning they don't state a specific location of which town the business was located in. However, we do have a number of tokens found from 3 Oregon towns and 3 Idaho towns, as of the last report I got as folks were cleaning them.

Monte

monte@ahrps.org

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"Your Eyes, the ONLY 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"

Stinkwater Wells
Monte V. Berry Sr.
monte@stinkwaterwells.com
(503)481-8147
My main use favorites in order by brand:
White's
MXT Pro w/6½",
VX3 w/950
Tesoro
.. Replacement coming ..
Teknetics
Omega w/5½x9¾
G2 w/5" DD

Quote
berryman
So is there a market for tokens or do you look for them for their historical value and because they're cool?

There is, or can be, a decent collectors value for the 'Good For' type Trade Tokens. It really depends upon the particular token type (saloon, cigar or smoke shop, billiards, and others that could be for soap, milk or bread). Just some examples.

Often a 'maverick' will have less value that a token with a named town of location, but if there are already a lot of a certain token known to exist, their value dwindles sin a hurry. it's no different than coin collecting in that regard.

Also, some states, such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and even Idaho bring a much better dollar value for a decent, hard-to-find token that does Oregon. Some states just have a much better based Token Collecting 'group' than others. Oregon trade tokens are usually not all that great as far as collector value goes.

Naturally we like to find them for their historic value as it helps to define the types of activity a site might hold, and because they can be more interesting or exciting to find than a common coin or piece of junk.

Monte

---

"Your Eyes, the ONLY 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"

Stinkwater Wells
Monte V. Berry Sr.
monte@stinkwaterwells.com
(503)481-8147
My main use favorites in order by brand:
White's
MXT Pro w/6½",
VX3 w/950
Tesoro
.. Replacement coming ..
Teknetics
Omega w/5½x9¾
G2 w/5" DD

i think it needs to be said that the boy didn't steal moms thunder. she gave it to him. way to go mom. congats to c j. that's a trip he won't soon forget.

hh

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Garrett AT Pr o
Garrett Pro pin pointer.x2
V3i on the way

AIN'T THIS HOBBY GREAT?

THE ONLY DUMB QUESTION IS THE ONE YOU DON'T ASK.
Kelso, Wa.
where the sun don't shine most of the time.

Just for the heck of it, I checked to see if there were any third parties out there that grade tokens. I found that both NGC and PCGS do grade/value some tokens. According to their website, NGC grades early American, Hard Times, merchant and trade tokens of the type listed in Rulau. They also grade various Civil War and political tokens. PCGS appears to be much more limited, as they say they only grade tokens that were minted by the U.S. Mint. There may be other token grading services out there, but I expect that, of those available, these two would be the most respected. For more informmation, you should check out the NGC and PCGS websites.

Also check out - tokencatalog.com

Monte - How did the Classic II fair in the hunt? HH, Tony

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performed well. When hunting in heavily littered sites, and I mean those with ample nails or other smaller iron junk, it is tough to beat the performance of a Tesoro or a White's Classic model. The current White's M6 and MXT's can do pretty well, but will be just a bit noisier due to design. You would be surprised how many of our local metal detecting enthusiasts (we meet monthly at our Detector Owner Rendezvous meetings) have an Explorer or V3i or MXT Pro or other 'modern' detector, but they also have one of the Classic series models just for such site challenges.

A few months back at the meeting we invited everyone or stand up and introduce their-self, mention where they were from, and fill us in on the detector(s) they have. Among the group we hear from folks who have an old, early Coinmaster Classic I, and the newer 'SL' designs of the Classic II (1), Classic III (2), Classic ID (3), Classic IDX (3), IDX Pro (4), and modified IDX Pro's (4). Those are the counts that come to mind, but there are a lot of them in use here. It seems some folks quickly learn by example.

Monte

---

"Your Eyes, the ONLY 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"

Stinkwater Wells
Monte V. Berry Sr.
monte@stinkwaterwells.com
(503)481-8147
My main use favorites in order by brand:
White's
MXT Pro w/6½",
VX3 w/950
Tesoro
.. Replacement coming ..
Teknetics
Omega w/5½x9¾
G2 w/5" DD

(This message does not contain any text.)

Holy moly, we've been on a token kick!! Today I went out locally and got another token. This makes 13 in a couple weeks