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55 VDI on a 1924 wheat penny . .?

S

srf2112

Active member
Hunted a friends yard the other day for the 2nd or 3rd time and made a strange discovery and was wondering if anyone had any ideas about it. I hit a target bouncing betweem mid 40's and mid 50's VDI giving a solid, slightly breaking signal 3"down. I was hoping IH penny as I stalked it down into the ground but was surprised (and a little disappointed) when I dug the target and pulled out a 1924-S wheatie that was holding at a steady 55 VDI out of the ground. (I then dropped some clad coins on the ground to confirm my machine was ID'ing correctly . . . it was.) The penny has a little light encrustation on it but nothing near other wheats I've pulled that read up in the mid/upper 70's once they were out of the ground. From what I've read there was nothing different about the alloy that year. I was using my MXT Pro with 5.3 coil, relic/iron I.D. with gain @ +2-3. I've just started using the iron I.D. so I'm speculating that there must be some iron in the encrustation and that's what's skewing the VDI and also why I probably missed this target before (when I was using a little discrimination in relic/1-tone). I'm not certain by any means as I've just started using this setup recently (relic/iron I.D.) and don't have a lot of experience with what it's telling me. Has anyone else run into similar results ? I'm pretty stoked with this new setup and am hoping I'll regularly be making more of these good finds with errant VDI's once I have the time in to learn this setup intimately so any shared similar experiences would be appreciated. . . maybe save me a few thousand holes getting up to speed. Thanks in advance . . .
 
I've had pennies show a consistent pattern down to VDI 15! It all depends on how the dirt has reacted with them.
 
Thanks for the input guys. Yes NW1886 I've had plenty of drifting VDI's on coin signals while they're in the ground but they have always shown their "correct" VDI once out of the ground in the open so this is a first for me. Beyond that, I would normally always dig a decent signal in this range so this wheat would probably have been found no matter what if I recieved the signal. I'm pretty certain I didn't get a signal on this target on my previous hunts (small area) so I'm speculating that it was masked when I hunted in relic/1-tone with iron discriminated out. That's what leads me to believe there must be some concentrated iron residue in the encrustation but, as I said, this is a first. Just tryin to learn more . . .thanks again.
 
Ya that 15 VDI on wheats was an eye opener for me. It happened in an old mid '30's parking strip with these "berry" trees (Mountain Ash?). You could tell the trees were old because even though the sizes were small, the bark had that deep gnarled look and the root systems were so well established and complex. My guess was that with so many years of "berry fall" combined with huge amounts of water movement (Those trees were real heavy with grape like clusters that you know took a lot of water to maintain the cluster volume and size.) and the grass was barely hanging in there due to the high acid soil. I kept getting so many solid 15 numbers...."What's up with this?" and pulled probably about 20 wheats (teens thru '30's)....all a deep glossy red and no more than an inch and a half to two inches deep! That soil was so nasty....no soil build at all. This was about 15 years ago and haven't seen this extreme since.

These pennies are in my "smooth green" penny set, so they sure stand out!! (I keep swapping out for deeper/richer colored green ones but have yet to swap out one of those ruby colored ones.) It's funny...I work at a coin shop and when I show this set to collectors, all they see is damaged coins. (All I see is beauty and one tough set to put together!)
 
Great story nw1886 . . thanks for sharing it. Wheats down to 15 ? ! That just isnt fair.
 
Possibly the coin was angled or on edge? That will skew any detector's VDI reading. Or trash near by coin you didn't notice. Most 'weird' VDI coin readings are a result of coin angle or near by trash.
 
TerraDigger said:
Possibly the coin was angled or on edge? That will skew any detector's VDI reading. Or trash near by coin you didn't notice. Most 'weird' VDI coin readings are a result of coin angle or near by trash.
Click to expand...
That's true TerraDigger, almost limitless amount of possibilities for signal "combining" and VDI drifting on in-ground signals. The difference with this one, for me, is that it still held a solid, repeating 55 VDI clear out of the ground. Even though I would dig that signal in many instances, it's starting to make me wonder about some other "aluminum screwcap" signals I've passed by . . .
 
jeffegg2 said:
Years of cherry tree spray??? Fertilizer???
Click to expand...

Years of.....all kinds of things I'd imagine. When you are talking of objects being in the ground in tough conditions, the VDI's become less "textbook". Here is a list of how some other targets have behaved for me. (This is for only shallow to medium depth ranges too.)


Oxidized quarters can come in as low VDI'd copper pennies.
Oxidized dimes as medium VDI'd zincolns and low penny.
Indians/Early Lincolns have came in iron with plenty of spikes up to as high as 92 (Tight pinpoint/multi direction sweep....deep ones here I guess.)
Shield and V Nickels have showed up in two tight ranges (that were not "textbook") 12 to 16 and 36 to 42? No adjacent targets, EMI....just nasty dirt.

All in all....it was solid,repeatable audio, a "tightness" to the VDI's, and when deeper, with a high percentage of subgroup VDI's....in the case of the deep Indians/older Lincolns. VDI's......only part of the info and sometimes....... it should be trumped by audio or VDI subgroupings. Dirt knows no rules!
 
In the mid-1970's I was doing a lot more comparisons of performance between different operating frequencies using all the makes and models I could get my hands on. This was about 5 years before we were introduced to visual target ID detectors, but it was still 'educational' for me because I mainly hunted out-of-town locations back then, and do whenever I possibly can.

I was comparing differences in responsiveness between the frequencies, and also comparing the lower and upper ranges of acceptance or rejection of the Discriminate modes of many detectors. we didn't have the modern Zinc 1
 
Thank you once again Monte for sharing some of your hard won experience . . .it's invaluable and greatly appreciated. I've taken you're saying to heart and dig many, many signals based on the sound characteristics regardless of the VDI. As I've learned here from you and others, there's a lot more information (and more reliable) in the sounds/characteristics of a target signal than on the screen so that's what I analyze first before going to the screen to see what "info" I can gleen from the VDI. Thanks again . . .headin out to a new hot area to see what I can hear.
 
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