silversweeper
New member
A few months ago I purchased a very slightly used CTX 3030. Have been an etrac swinger for a few years now. All of my usual sites were hunted out of silver, or so I thought. I've pounded the local park with several different coils, directions, and swing speeds on the etrac. Did quite well finding silver coins that were missed by others but after a while there just wasn't anything left, other than some wheat pennies, zincolns, trash and the occasional clad. I actually had serious doubts that the CTX would find anything I missed, I'd mainly bought it for the GPS mapping feature and the hype I'd read from other users....and I got a great deal on it. Well.... I'm finally getting the hang of the new machine and it is absolutely finding silver that I have been over with the etrac. In the past couple of weeks I've found 8 silver dimes, a silver religious pendant and chain, a handful of wheats, and some other goodies. The wheats I can't claim I wouldn't have found with my etrac, I often skip over them and other penny signals due to time constraints. The silvers however were all deep and/or mixed in with trash and in places that I have absolutely pounded with the etrac. Some of them were faint silver squeaks in between and under trash signals. The ctx may yet save my silver count this year, 2013 was beginning to be pretty depressing for me as far as relic hunting. Lost permission on 2 of my best sites (not due to anything that I did, the owners are just a little odd and I was lucky to get on in the first place. Some yahoo somehow stole a 500 gallon gas tank from one owner and that put the squash on any visitors period!), and just havn't found much worth mentioning anyplace else.
One find in my pictures that does bear special mention is the key tag. It has "Franklin House" and the number 4 stamped into it. I found it on a hill over looking the Mississippi River here and after doing some research it seems to have come from a swanky little hotel that was in Alton, Ill. popular among River Boat tourists. It was only named the Franklin House from 1840 to about 1860, when the name was changed to Lincoln House after Pres. Lincoln stayed there during a debate with Douglas. The building still stands and is now an apartment building....apparently haunted to boot. I guess the key tag was dropped by a river boat tourist who had kept it as a souvenier. I'm going to contact the present owner of the building and ask them about the room number......the haunting is supposed to have been the daughter of a traveler who stayed there.......
OH and the round doughnut penny holder is from the 1904 St. Louis World's fair.
One find in my pictures that does bear special mention is the key tag. It has "Franklin House" and the number 4 stamped into it. I found it on a hill over looking the Mississippi River here and after doing some research it seems to have come from a swanky little hotel that was in Alton, Ill. popular among River Boat tourists. It was only named the Franklin House from 1840 to about 1860, when the name was changed to Lincoln House after Pres. Lincoln stayed there during a debate with Douglas. The building still stands and is now an apartment building....apparently haunted to boot. I guess the key tag was dropped by a river boat tourist who had kept it as a souvenier. I'm going to contact the present owner of the building and ask them about the room number......the haunting is supposed to have been the daughter of a traveler who stayed there.......
OH and the round doughnut penny holder is from the 1904 St. Louis World's fair.