Coin Junkie almost OD's

[ptdigger]

The forecast here in Maine was for rain Saturday and the next five days. When I woke up Saturday it was cloudy with no rain. At 9:00am I decided to go for a short hunt before the rain started.
Around the corner from me is an old vacant Woolen Mill. It has about 70 acres of fields. I have hunted theses fields many times. At one end the field they use to have a fair, pre 1970. I hunted this fair area earlier this year and found lots of wheaties and memorials, nothing newer than 1967. My hunting partner also found a silver quarter there last year. It had lots of promise for some silver.
I tried to grid off the area. I made sweeps towards the end of the field to the road and back again. At the end of one sweep I got a 03-44 to 03-45 reading on the Etrac. I had never seen this reading before. I cut a large plug with my spade then I flipped the sod and right in the center of the hole was a large round coin. I picked it up and it was a Kennedy Half. My first half dollar. The date was still covered with dirt. I ran some water over the coin and the date 1964 appeared. I was ecstatic. My first half and it's silver.
I always detect in a circle around any good finds to see if anything else was dropped. About 2 feet away I got a signal jumping from 12-44 to 12-47. I dig it and it is a 1939 Mercury Dime. Another personal record broken. Two silvers in one day.
Thinking there may have been concession stands in this area by the road, I start to detect parallel to the road in line with my other two finds.
About 10 feet away I get another signal 12-44 to 12-47. I cut the plug and flip it and I see the impression of a coin in the bottom of the plug. I put my pin pointer in the hole, NOTHING. I pick up the Etrac wave the coil over the hole, NOTHING, no signal. I check the shovel to see if the coin stuck to it. Its not there. I think maybe it stuck to the shovel and fell off in the grass. So I start to detect around the hole in a circle looking for the coin. About 4 feet away I get another signal a solid 12-43. But this is not my lost coin because it's pinpoints 6 inches down. I cut the plug and find the coin, it's a Silver 1960 Canadian dime. Unbelievable 3 silvers in one day.
After going around the lost coins hole for about 10 feet in every direction, covering every square inch of ground. I started to think, the coin has to be in the hole. I went back to the hole and dug out the dirt for 8 inches down and layed the dirt on my rag and scanned it with my coil. Sweet music to my ears that unmistakable Etrac coin song. I use my probe to find the elusive coin. Its a 1948 Rosie. Four silvers in one day. It's like the YouTube videos I see that are hard to believe, because it's never happened to you.
I can not figure out why that coin disappeared. If I had not seen the imprint in the plug, I would have given up on it. Many times I have dug a signal to only have it disappear when hole is made. I will be a lot more vigilant in the future.
When I was sure I had covered the silver finds area thoroughly with the Etrac, I went over it again with the F75 LTD. I found 4 additional signals. They turned out to be 2 pull tabs and 2 bottle caps. So the Etrac left nothing behind.
It never did rain on Saturday, I hunted till 4:30pm went home to eat and then went to my hunting partners 150 acre mid 1800's farm for a night hunt. We hunted till 9:00pm. Swing the Etrac for 15 hours in one day is workout. This coin junkie has definitely got his fix for the day!! Today the rain has come. I am going to clean my detectors and prepare together my next silver fix.

My Etrac settings
Discrimination Stock Coin pattern
Auto +3
Threshold 21
Volume limit 30
Volume Gain 24
Response Normal
Tone Multi
Sounds Conductive
Variability 25
Limits 30
Recovery deep off
Recovery fast off
Trash density Low
Ground Difficult

My F75 LTD settings
Boost process
Sensitivity 60
Discrimination 24
Tones 4H

 

[jcooking]

Sweet finds, congrats!

 

[Jeff M]

Great story! That is what I enjoy reading, the specifics on a hunt and the numbers. So how do you like the etrac pattern that you are using over the factory setting?

 

[ptdigger]

The pattern I am using is the minelab pattern from the factory. I have altered the settings a little as you can see above. I am going to post another post about a memorial penny found last night. The Etrac is the best machine I have used for identifying what's under your coil before you dig. .

 

[banditicey]

GREAT STORY

GREAT FINDS

I remember the first time I found more than one Silver in a Hunt...Savor It!

 

[Elton]

Nice finds and I hope you get some more out of there. Good job on the elusive coin..

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

May I suggest that if your not hard of hearing run your threshold volume at 15 and you can hear a nice background hum. Yours at 21 must be pretty loud and may wear on your hearing after a while. Take your Variability and increase it to 30 it spreads the sounds apart better for you to differentiate targets from each other by the sound better. You can up the Volume Gain to 28 to 29 if your not in a really trashy spot so as to hear any really deep targets better as DEEP on don't seem to make any difference from near as I can tell by trying it.

But the main thing is to run with TRASH ON HIGH setting as it takes the BEST NON DISCRIMINATED target and lets it through but not the bad target if co-existing together under the coil. This is what gives it the "SEE THROUGH" capability so that even if nulling because of the discriminated bad target that good target can give a signal and it will come through and not be canceled out by the bad target. With it on TRASH NORMAL setting it will take the stronger of the signals even if it's the BAD target and signal on that so you may miss out on a good target. I always run it on high.

Fast ON in really trashy spots helps too if there is a close gathering of target signals to help reset the machine so as to give off signals quicker on the close targets amongst each other otherwise if it's a fairly clean site I run with it off and I leave Deep off the higher Volume Gain will let you hear the deepies.

When you opened the hole you disturbed the soil and probably the halo from the long burried coin and or there may have been a co-located bad target in the hole and it caused the machine to blank or null and not read the good signal anymore till you dug down deeper and freed it. Hence the Trash High setting reasoning and you could have changed to the quick mask wide open pattern by pushing the button on the face of the machine pretty much wide opened and scaned the hole to see it the target rang out then. Could have been an iron false tricking you but in this case it wasn't. If in doubt go to quick mask with it way opened up compared to the stock coins discrimination pattern to do double checks on certain targets or signals your not sure off it works great and pretty much leaves no doubts especially if that cursor dives down into the lower right hand corner it's iron/junk.

Hope some of this helps you out and gets you another fantastic 4 or more silver day for yourself, congrats!!

 

[ptdigger]

May I suggest that if your not hard of hearing run your threshold volume at 15 and you can hear a nice background hum. Yours at 21 must be pretty loud and may wear on your hearing after a while. Take your Variability and increase it to 30 it spreads the sounds apart better for you to differentiate targets from each other by the sound better. You can up the Volume Gain to 28 to 29 if your not in a really trashy spot so as to hear any really deep targets better as DEEP on don't seem to make any difference from near as I can tell by trying it.

But the main thing is to run with TRASH ON HIGH setting as it takes the BEST NON DISCRIMINATED target and lets it through but not the bad target if co-existing together under the coil. This is what gives it the "SEE THROUGH" capability so that even if nulling because of the discriminated bad target that good target can give a signal and it will come through and not be canceled out by the bad target. With it on TRASH NORMAL setting it will take the stronger of the signals even if it's the BAD target and signal on that so you may miss out on a good target. I always run it on high.

Fast ON in really trashy spots helps too if there is a close gathering of target signals to help reset the machine so as to give off signals quicker on the close targets amongst each other otherwise if it's a fairly clean site I run with it off and I leave Deep off the higher Volume Gain will let you hear the deepies.

When you opened the hole you disturbed the soil and probably the halo from the long burried coin and or there may have been a co-located bad target in the hole and it caused the machine to blank or null and not read the good signal anymore till you dug down deeper and freed it. Hence the Trash High setting reasoning and you could have changed to the quick mask wide open pattern by pushing the button on the face of the machine pretty much wide opened and scaned the hole to see it the target rang out then. Could have been an iron false tricking you but in this case it wasn't. If in doubt go to quick mask with it way opened up compared to the stock coins discrimination pattern to do double checks on certain targets or signals your not sure off it works great and pretty much leaves no doubts especially if that cursor dives down into the lower right hand corner it's iron/junk.

Hope some of this helps you out and gets you another fantastic 4 or more silver day for yourself, congrats!!

Thanks Tom - When I get into a trashy area I could hear it null out for long periods. I really like the Etrac for its ability to ID a target before you dig. If I can get it to work in well in trashy areas I will be one happy camper. I think I will go back to the spot I got the 4 silvers at and try your suggested settings.

 

[Ken in Georgia]

Sweet finds !!!!

 

[Dave400]

It's days like this that keeps us smiling and searching.Nice hunting.

 

[SilverBear]

Interesting seeing a lot of people finding silver Canadian coins. Didn't think they would be found so often! Great Finds!

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Also try sounds LONG instead of NORMAL if it's really, really trashy as it gives a longer sounding signal on the targets and makes those really high sounding good targets stand out amoungst all the others surrounding it. "Marksman" gets the credit for this info and it works. For not too trashy spots I use NORMAL sounds as long makes the signals too long sounding to me.

 

[badjim]

very nice silver . whats you ground like they have alot of tarnish on them

 

[ptdigger]

very nice silver . whats you ground like they have alot of tarnish on them

The ground is very very wet, in the 1800's this was farm field. Now it is just mowed and maintained.

 

[Damar2003]

Congrats on the sweet finds!

 

[ptdigger]

Also try sounds LONG instead of NORMAL if it's really, really trashy as it gives a longer sounding signal on the targets and makes those really high sounding good targets stand out amoungst all the others surrounding it. "Marksman" gets the credit for this info and it works. For not too trashy spots I use NORMAL sounds as long makes the signals too long sounding to me.

I have been using long in some places. But I switch back to normal when pinpointing with the Sunray probe. Pinpointing in long drives me crazy. I wish there was a fast way to switch from long to normal. I have to press menu and arrow down and select long or normal.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

I mainly hunt in Normal sounds and only have tried Long a few times and one time it worked to find me a mercury dime in a trashy spot. I use a Garrett Pro pinpointer and I really like it alot and it has a light on it for dusk and nighttime if you want or need it. I'm going to have to try Long sounds in a park I think I have cleaned up pretty good to see if any really deepies escaped me since they would be deep and the signal is probably going to be shorter it may have merrit in that situation.

 

[ptdigger]

The forecast is for rain here until Thursday. Soon as it stops I am going back with Etrac Toms suggested settings and go over the same area again.