Andy Sabisch
Active member
Had a chance to put some winter research to use and headed off in search of an old one-room school house that was located in what is now a huge cornfield.
Had talked with the owner of the farm and got the green light to search the site as long as it was before the planting started so that gave me a window of about a month. The school had been located a ways off the road and that 500 acre field looked mighty big as my partner and I started to work a zig-zag pattern hoping to hit some signs of the old structure.
The first good signals turned out to be pull tabs . . . . in the middle of the field . . . go figure! As the minutes turned into an hour and then two, we started to wonder if we had miscalculated where the school had been located. Then, a number of small iron signals came through thanks to the Iron Volume setting of "3" and recovering them, turned out to be square nails . . . a good sign. Placing surveyor flags at the edges of where the nail signals seemed to drop off, we defined a center of the search area.
Slowing down and tightening up the search pattern I had high hopes but as more time passed and the only signals were bullets, shell casings, several brass and copper "what is its" and some farm implements from the years of tilling, I started to wonder about the outcome of the hunt.
Then a sweet coin sound came through from the custom program I've been using on thse types of sites and from almost 9 inches, I pulled a copper coin from the bottom of the hole. Gently removing a little of the dirt, it was clear it was an Indian Head so it went into the film cannister in my pouch packed between cotton balls.
Almost an hour went by before that sweet sound came through again and from about the same depth, another Indian Head came to light.
We both had other committments so we started back to the trucks . . . but no more coins came to light.
Getting home, a little soapy water and a tooth brush removed the dirt and the condition of both coins was pretty darn good . . . . the soil up north is a whole lot less corrsosive then the red clay in the south had been on copper coins.
The dates . . . . . ok - drum roll please
- 1865 and 1873 . . . . . one of the semi-key dates in the series (1873 Open 3 Variety) and the 1865 is no slouch either when it comes to the price guide. The 1865 is my favorite as it was minted the year the Civil War ended - talk about touching the past!
Here are the coins and a shot of the backs . . . . . amazing that the fertilizer and 140 years in the ground left them in this condition . . . .
Checking the values when I got them cleaned up was a shock - not bad for finding only two coins and pennies at that!
Glad the winter weather is past and hopefully we will start seeing those great "Deus finds" posted once again as people start getting out for the season . . . .
(By the way, I was using the stock 9" coil on this hunt)
Good Hunting . . . .
Andy Sabisch
Had talked with the owner of the farm and got the green light to search the site as long as it was before the planting started so that gave me a window of about a month. The school had been located a ways off the road and that 500 acre field looked mighty big as my partner and I started to work a zig-zag pattern hoping to hit some signs of the old structure.
The first good signals turned out to be pull tabs . . . . in the middle of the field . . . go figure! As the minutes turned into an hour and then two, we started to wonder if we had miscalculated where the school had been located. Then, a number of small iron signals came through thanks to the Iron Volume setting of "3" and recovering them, turned out to be square nails . . . a good sign. Placing surveyor flags at the edges of where the nail signals seemed to drop off, we defined a center of the search area.
Slowing down and tightening up the search pattern I had high hopes but as more time passed and the only signals were bullets, shell casings, several brass and copper "what is its" and some farm implements from the years of tilling, I started to wonder about the outcome of the hunt.
Then a sweet coin sound came through from the custom program I've been using on thse types of sites and from almost 9 inches, I pulled a copper coin from the bottom of the hole. Gently removing a little of the dirt, it was clear it was an Indian Head so it went into the film cannister in my pouch packed between cotton balls.
Almost an hour went by before that sweet sound came through again and from about the same depth, another Indian Head came to light.
We both had other committments so we started back to the trucks . . . but no more coins came to light.
Getting home, a little soapy water and a tooth brush removed the dirt and the condition of both coins was pretty darn good . . . . the soil up north is a whole lot less corrsosive then the red clay in the south had been on copper coins.
The dates . . . . . ok - drum roll please
- 1865 and 1873 . . . . . one of the semi-key dates in the series (1873 Open 3 Variety) and the 1865 is no slouch either when it comes to the price guide. The 1865 is my favorite as it was minted the year the Civil War ended - talk about touching the past!Here are the coins and a shot of the backs . . . . . amazing that the fertilizer and 140 years in the ground left them in this condition . . . .
Checking the values when I got them cleaned up was a shock - not bad for finding only two coins and pennies at that!
Glad the winter weather is past and hopefully we will start seeing those great "Deus finds" posted once again as people start getting out for the season . . . .
(By the way, I was using the stock 9" coil on this hunt)
Good Hunting . . . .
Andy Sabisch
