Best hunt in months!

[chipper97]

Wow, lets wake this place up! Hope everyone's out there making some good finds and just enjoying the hobby. I had, for me a very good day a week ago. I would love to post a photo but I can't figure out how to reduce the jpeg image to an acceptable size to attach. So until I figure it out I'll just describe what I found.

Ahem! This is at an old school site turned into a town park. I've hunted it for a couple of months and found several mercs, and Rosies, a Washington quarter,'48, and lots of wheat cents and oodles of clad. The ball field is fenced in and across the fence on the first base side is a good 1/4 acre lot that I knew, being adjacent to the old school/park, had seen some kids coming and going over the years. So I looked up the county property map and got the owners name. The next time I went to hunt the park I detoured to this man's business and introduced myself. I asked if he'd mind if I looked for coins on his property and he good naturedly joked "no problem, just don't dig it all up". So off I went. And as I say I had a pretty good day. Started off with a nice '42 Mercury, several wheats, then the oldest coin I've found on the site a 1907 Indian in great shape. Then I moved into an area that strangely produced a trio of foreign coins, starting with a British 1932 penny in fantastic shape. Then I thought I'd found another dime, maybe a Barber. Had a nice reeded edge. The reverse was silverish but a bit grey, the obverse quite dark grey. I gave it a spit clean enough to discover it was a 1951 25 cent coin from the Netherlands! Turns out it's made of nickel. Then the topper came when I got a great quarter reading on the meter and a killer silver trill on the phones. I'd been digging quite a few clad quarters at 5" and this was in that area but sounded really pure. Pulled out what I first thought was a half dollar but turned out to be a 1964 Italian 500 lire! A beautiful coin! A smidgin less silver content than U.S. silver but a solid .835. I snagged a couple more wheats and then a Civil War carbine bullet that looked a bit carved up like maybe a game piece. The area had seen several skirmishes and Union occupation a couple of times during the war. It was twilight when I left and I'd covered about half the area closest to the ball field. I will be going back soon. What's happening with everyone else?

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Been residing the front of the house and rebuilding the front entry. I did find a 1905 IH when I dug out the front shrubs, had to take my detector over the dirt pile after hours of hacking and chopping.

And it's been too dry for detecting, but lately we got some rain and I hope to find something worth posting.

Congrats on your finds.

Try changing the settings on your camera or phone to take a smaller image.

Chris

 

[TwoRivers]

Looks like you had a great hunt Chipper..........a lot of nice finds!

 

[JeffInMass]

Great finds! Would love to see pics. If you want some assistance re-sizing the pics, PM me and I'd be happy to help. Regardless, GL & HH to you!

-- Jeff --[size=large][/size]

 

[MikeO]

Congrats on the finds.

Here is one easy way to resize your pictures:

Open your Pics in "Paint"
Then click on "Resize"
Then when the box opens click on "Pixels" instead of "Percentage"
For Horizontal type in 600 then the vertical will set automatically.
Save the picture as a jpeg in a folder you can find.
Then when you want to post your picture open folder and select the newly saved resized image.
Easy

 

[chipper97]

n/t

 

[chipper97]

Thanks for the congrats guys. Mike, will try your suggestions regarding resizing pics.

 

[chipper97]

n/t

 

[chipper97]

n/t

 

[chipper97]

n/t

 

[Nuke em]

Well done on the finds , not a bad Penny . You would have been pooping your pants if it was 1933 , there is only 8 i think known !

Today i went to the beach with my Explorer and had £38.15p in coinage , was not easy but luck was on my side . Need a bit of a gale to mess with the beach a bit , but not yet , i am back to work tomorrow.

 

[chipper97]

Yeah, no kidding Nuke em. I had no idea about the rarity of the 1933. After looking it up it appears there are a fair number of fakes around. At least I can feel confident my '32 is the real deal! I've also found a 1940 with King George VI.

 

[Nuke em]

There is no point to fakes , apart from 1 they know where the rest are. I think they weren't supposed to be released for circulation and somehow they got out if i remember right.

 

[chipper97]

So they know where all but one of the originals are. How gullible are some people? Anyway forgot to congratulate you on your beach bonanza. What's that around $60 dollars? A good days work!

 

[MikeO]

Your Welcome. Glad you figured out how too post them.

 

[Nuke em]

Yes it wasn't a bad hunt but far from being the best ! coinage that is .

 

[chipper97]

Nuke em, it's a very humbling hobby. Today after a week of research I went to an old school site turned town park and was totally beat down. I couldn't even find a wheat cent! And maybe 75cents in clad coinage. I was looking for good targets the way a man in the desert looks for any sign of water. If I were to post a picture of each hunt's finds believe me I wouldn't be crowing so much. But this place really put me 'in my place'. Oh well there's always next time and that next big one is just one swing away.

 

[IDXMonster]

Nuke em, it's a very humbling hobby. Today after a week of research I went to an old school site turned town park and was totally beat down. I couldn't even find a wheat cent! And maybe 75cents in clad coinage. I was looking for good targets the way a man in the desert looks for any sign of water. If I were to post a picture of each hunt's finds believe me I wouldn't be crowing so much. But this place really put me 'in my place'. Oh well there's always next time and that next big one is just one swing away.

Chipper,you're very right about it being humbling,which could be taken as "exasperating" at times. Like you I've done a fair amount of research about places to try and dial in where old coins may be. Just when I think I have the world in my hand,it all goes in the tank. Example....country church that had been moved to its current site back in 1941. Geez,that's 20 some years of silver to be lost...agree? I've hunted that place 15 times if I've hunted it at all and I've found 1 tiny silver earring,1 really corroded 1896 Indian and 2 Buffaloes. Along with those a few clad coins too. Hmmmmmmmmm. Seriously??? I think in many instances today's hunters are just way late to the game. There is NO WAY that NOBODY lost ANY silver coins in that place,and there MUST be a reason. I firmly believe that indeed,people just went and hunted churches in particular in the past,as some may do to this day. With very high silver prices at one time,it really didn't matter to a lot of unscrupulous hunters who owned what,they went,hunted and left. If they got kicked out,so be it,on to the next.
So today,through our research and well planned expeditions,we are expecting to find what has already been found,though by all rights it should still be there. Humbling would be knowing the coins are there and I'm not skilled enough to find them,exasperating is when somebody beat you to the punch.legally or otherwise....

HH people!
Kevin

 

[chipper97]

IDX, you're right, exasperating sums it up very well. There are so many factors playing against us it's really quite a feat these days to find small numbers of the relics, silver coins, jewelry, whatever target we've chosen to try and locate. I guess beach hunters at least don't have to worry about target depletion so much. But if you're looking for old silver and relics there are a limited number of productive sites and they get more limited every day. I enjoy the research or sleuthing aspect of the hobby and it is a real bummer to think you've ferreted out a spot that has that "lost to time" feel to it only to discover while it was certainly lost to 99% who could care less the 1% that enjoy detecting for old coins and relics is all it took to get there before you and all but empty it over time. And as you said some do it the right way and there are the one's who hit and run. In my case, over the last year or so I've spent most of my time in the field hunting the larger congregational spots such as old schools and parks, because I've gotten addicted to finding silver or knowing I have a good shot at it. Though it takes a little searching they're not exactly hard to discover, although I have many places such as old home sites, taverns, millponds etc. filed away to hunt for which you expect a smaller number of items as a starting point regardless of whether they've been hunted or not. Luckily I've found some of these schools and parks, though hunted heavily still had enough targets that, as you mentioned, through whatever skill I've managed to develop I was able to find a decent amount of silver, Indian heads, rings, etc.(even a couple of gold rings,yippee!) I've been perplexed by what has made some of these sites still semi-productive while others such as at my last spot produced nothing. The only thing I've come up with is the less productive ones have been closer to large population centers and a larger number of coin hunters and the more productive ones have been in counties with mostly small communities and a smaller number of coin hunters. Brilliant! I'm sure there are other contributing factors.

One spot I discovered last year was an old millpond which according to old newspaper clippings had hosted a swimming fad in the late teens and early 20's. Even had separate bath houses for the guys and gals. I looked at old maps till my eyes glazed over trying to find this mill pond which didn't exist anymore. Finally felt I'd located it. Got permission to go on the land and found two crumbling chimneys from the bath houses. Also found several deer hunters tree stands. I've hunted the place twice and found a large cent and an Indian head and one flat double gilt button. But we both know the deer hunters knew about the place and I'm sure some of them enjoy metal detecting. Boy do I dream of what was found there before I came along. But I'll go back because it's a good size place and who knows where some of those swimmers wandered.between dips in the pond.

Just out of curiousity, you mentioned that country Church had been moved to it's current site in 1941. Have you researched where it was located before that? I know a couple of coin hunters who specialize in finding abandoned Church sites and find some nice stuff. And hey at least you're persistant. Whatever other skills we may need, persistance is a habit we all need when detecting these days.