mapper65
Member
Hi everyone, last year we were given permission to detect the grounds at an old fraternal organization that has since gone on the market for sale. All of the members had died off except for a few and they told us that they had never let anyone detect there but we were welcome to spend as much time there as we wanted and we could keep anything that we found. In the first three trips between 3 of us we had found nearly 600 coins!! As much as that sounds like an exaggeration I can assure you that it's the truth. This place was polluted with coins. That was last year.
We probably have 60 hours or more of combined effort stripping this place of coins, a couple of rings and some minor artifacts but nothing of notable value. That thing that has really bothered me about this location was that we were all over the silver years with pennies dating into the upper 20's and 30's and nickels from the 46 on but not one silver coin.
Today we were detecting at a nearby site not turning up too much so I said "Let's run over to our favorite place and find some silver, there has to be silver there but we just haven't found it." I decided that I was going to slow my sweep speed down to a pace slower than I really felt comfortable with and see if I could get anything to turn up. Within 5 minutes I had a 38-40. I figured it was probably a clad dime. I dug down to nearly 7' and I saw silver!!!! It was a 1964 Roosevelt. The last year for silver but hey.....I'll take it.
About 20 minutes later I had a similar signal and was down about 6 inches and saw what looked to be can slaw but the edge of the metal that I was seeing appeared to have something of a design to it but I just wasn't sure. I was trying to be careful while I was digging because there were a couple of flat rocks close to the metal and I was thinking to myself, "watch me take all of this time and it be can slaw". I was able to get my finger onto the edge of the metal and it felt slightly loose but I was not able to pull whatever it was out of the ground. A couple more minutes of loosening the dirt and rocks and I pulled out a set of wings. They were kind of heavy to the point that I was going to be in shock if they were silver. I lightly rubbed them and there was a plug of dirt in the circle on the back of the wings. I got that cleared out and could tell that there was some sort of writing inside so I ran over to the truck and grabbed my magnifying glass and much to my surprise the words read "Sterling Silver".
I sent a few pictures out to my other detecting buddies and within a short period of time I received a reply from one of them. It appears as though these are WWII USAAF Aircrewmans wings. They are just a little damaged on the front but I was happy to find these.
Needless to say we will be going back here very soon.
We probably have 60 hours or more of combined effort stripping this place of coins, a couple of rings and some minor artifacts but nothing of notable value. That thing that has really bothered me about this location was that we were all over the silver years with pennies dating into the upper 20's and 30's and nickels from the 46 on but not one silver coin.
Today we were detecting at a nearby site not turning up too much so I said "Let's run over to our favorite place and find some silver, there has to be silver there but we just haven't found it." I decided that I was going to slow my sweep speed down to a pace slower than I really felt comfortable with and see if I could get anything to turn up. Within 5 minutes I had a 38-40. I figured it was probably a clad dime. I dug down to nearly 7' and I saw silver!!!! It was a 1964 Roosevelt. The last year for silver but hey.....I'll take it.
About 20 minutes later I had a similar signal and was down about 6 inches and saw what looked to be can slaw but the edge of the metal that I was seeing appeared to have something of a design to it but I just wasn't sure. I was trying to be careful while I was digging because there were a couple of flat rocks close to the metal and I was thinking to myself, "watch me take all of this time and it be can slaw". I was able to get my finger onto the edge of the metal and it felt slightly loose but I was not able to pull whatever it was out of the ground. A couple more minutes of loosening the dirt and rocks and I pulled out a set of wings. They were kind of heavy to the point that I was going to be in shock if they were silver. I lightly rubbed them and there was a plug of dirt in the circle on the back of the wings. I got that cleared out and could tell that there was some sort of writing inside so I ran over to the truck and grabbed my magnifying glass and much to my surprise the words read "Sterling Silver".
I sent a few pictures out to my other detecting buddies and within a short period of time I received a reply from one of them. It appears as though these are WWII USAAF Aircrewmans wings. They are just a little damaged on the front but I was happy to find these.
Needless to say we will be going back here very soon.
Isn't it great when you can line a site up like that and reap the rewards. I'm sure you'll remember those wings for a long time to come.