beepsilver
Member
Yesterday I took a trip to get face to face with some property owners in hopes of getting permission to hunt their rental property--I'd been eyeballing this place for over a year but no one was ever home. The owners were a very nice retired couple and explained to me that they let family live in the house and that they (the family) rarely answer the door...all those times I knocked $#@! Remind me to tell you about how I obtained permission for a different property last month from an owner who refused to open his door to my knocks. Anyway, back on track. I not only got permission to hunt their property, but they also gave me valuable information about the owners of two adjacent houses I've been eyeballing on their block. With this information, I stopped by the town's hospital where one owner works...unfortunately she wasn't at her desk, so I made a plan to stop by later. While driving to the retired couple's rental property ready to hunt, my next plan was to contact the other homeowner by phone--his house is vacant because he lives in a different nearby town and the house I wanted to hunt was a fixer-upper project for him, so no one was ever home when I stopped by. I already had his name and phone number from GIS, but it was going to be much easier to request permission from the gentlemen now that I could say I already had permission from the very nice Mr & Mrs so & so who owns the house next door. I made the call but got an answering machine. I left a message identifying myself and requested a callback regarding his property. By now I was arriving at the original rental property and spotted an elderly gentleman cutting the grass at the house I just called about--it turned out to be the owner! He may have been elderly, but this farmer was huge--I think he could have plowed fields himself, without horses! I gave him my spiel and he granted me permission--we chatted for a bit and low and behold, the hospital woman who was not at her desk is his niece...after I finished talking with him I made no assumption that I had permission to hunt her house just because I'd met her uncle, but it was going to be very easy to ask permission once she discovered her Uncle had given me permission to hunt his property next door. She did come home several hours later just as I was almost finished with her uncle's place...so I jogged over, identified myself, gave her the spiel and requested permission. I immediately saw a hesitance in her expression but she relented. I believe the decision to give me permission would not have come had I not had permission from her uncle for his place....whew, close one!
Now about the hunts...
I used my normal settings early in the day at the rental-family-doesn't-answer-the-door place.
12K Full tones
11 inch coil
Disc 6
Reactivity 2
Silencer -1
Sens 88
TX-1
GB 80
Notch 7-30 (or 35, can't remember)
The ground was not dry, had very low mineralization and had a good distribution of small nails--so I was thinking I had clear sailing for the nice depth that reactivity 2 and silencer -1 provides.
I found a '54 rosie, one wheat and a half-dollar-sized 1939 world's fair medal that looked gold when I dug it. Before I knew what it was, I stopped everything and cradled it like a baby all the way to the car, washed it off and let the disappointment wear off--disappointed it wasn't gold
Back to it a few minutes later and nearly finished with the property all I had was the dime, medal, the wheatie and a whole bunch of clad and trash. Like the adjacent property that I completed earlier this year, ground modifications led to very little old treasure. The clad was deep and at the same level as the old trash...confusing.
Next up was the titanic farmer's vacant house. Within half an hour I was finding the ground conditions to be identical to the previous house...deep clad mixed with old trash. I'd covered lots of ground with only a few wheats and a '43 merc. Again, there was plenty of trash and clad mixed in. It's not that the ratio of old and silver to clad and trash was so terrible; it wasn't. I don't mind low return rates because this hobby is like fishing; you never know what you're going to get. It was just a little disappointing because it turned out that the ground at these two houses dashed my hopes a little. Someone at sometime had made some changes to at least 3 of the four yards on this block...the oldies were either not there or they were simply unreachable with my settings. I plan to go back and try those two places again with reactivity 0 and see if I can make the fish jump. Before moving on, I had a small 10 X 10 patch I hadn't gotten to yet and decided to change GB to 78, which was 2-3 points lower than the ground reading. I also bumped Sens up to 90 from 88. It wasn't long and I had two separate deep signals that turned out to be indian head pennies from 7-8 inches. I think the VDIs ranged between 88-90 in 12K and 76-78 in 4K...you can't trust VDIs at depth...otherwise I'd have been holding two silver dimes. The signals were not all that strong which is a better clue they weren't silver--the tones were the whispers we all love to hear, but they weren't as strong as those of wheat pennies I'd found at the same depth. I switched over to reactivity 1 and the signals were much easier to distinguish. Unfortunately I didn't revert back to my normal GB/Sens settings to see if the signals would improve or diminish...more testing for another day I guess.
With the 10X10 patch complete and the 2 IHPs in my pouch, it was getting late and I still had the hospital lady's yard to do. Speaking of hospitals. The house I completed earlier this year at the opposite end of the same block, that turned up almost nothing had been a hospital at one time. It was very large. The adjacent house, the no-one-answers-the-door-rental I completed earlier in the day had been the town's mortuary. Knowing this and finding relatively little added to the disappointment.
The hospital lady's house--the fourth and final house on the block, has the biggest yard on the block--it's a corner lot with half the yard on main street...a very good prospect normally. As I said, it was getting late, the yard was much too big to do it any detecting justice with remaining time and with mosquito madness soon to start. I decided to give it 20 minutes with my original settings plus the GB and Sens modifications in an effort to find out if I was up against more of the same. I started in the yard parallel to the neighborhood sidewalk at the front of the house. Three sweeps in and I get a nice high tone (92 / 83 in 12K / 4K). Hmm, just one point off a clad quarter. At 4-5 inches down out comes an old button with two letters on the front that I have yet to clean and read....just happy that it's old and not very deep. Ten feet away, still on the sidewalk, I pulled out a wheat at 4 inches....good so far. A few miscellaneous clad and then I reach the end of the sidewalk before it turns and parallels main street....I'll save this ground for my next visit. I re-position myself back in front of the house; this time on the grass between the sidewalk and street. Rather than parallel the sidewalk, I take the opposite course like a person with a lawnmower would never do. I just want to cover a few more feet before I go....my first hit in this area was a shallow penny signal. 84 / 72 in 12K / 4K. I dig this thinking zincoln, but when I opened the hole I saw silver immediately! What?! The dirt fell off of the reverse and I saw the wreath....ah, a barber dime at three inches! The front was coated so I didn't see the truth until I got home. After filling the hole, I had enough info on this place, so I left and began to immediately savor the return trip.
For me half the fun of this hobby is anticipation. Some times it pans out and sometimes not...I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one!
Now about the hunts...
I used my normal settings early in the day at the rental-family-doesn't-answer-the-door place.
12K Full tones
11 inch coil
Disc 6
Reactivity 2
Silencer -1
Sens 88
TX-1
GB 80
Notch 7-30 (or 35, can't remember)
The ground was not dry, had very low mineralization and had a good distribution of small nails--so I was thinking I had clear sailing for the nice depth that reactivity 2 and silencer -1 provides.
I found a '54 rosie, one wheat and a half-dollar-sized 1939 world's fair medal that looked gold when I dug it. Before I knew what it was, I stopped everything and cradled it like a baby all the way to the car, washed it off and let the disappointment wear off--disappointed it wasn't gold
Back to it a few minutes later and nearly finished with the property all I had was the dime, medal, the wheatie and a whole bunch of clad and trash. Like the adjacent property that I completed earlier this year, ground modifications led to very little old treasure. The clad was deep and at the same level as the old trash...confusing.
Next up was the titanic farmer's vacant house. Within half an hour I was finding the ground conditions to be identical to the previous house...deep clad mixed with old trash. I'd covered lots of ground with only a few wheats and a '43 merc. Again, there was plenty of trash and clad mixed in. It's not that the ratio of old and silver to clad and trash was so terrible; it wasn't. I don't mind low return rates because this hobby is like fishing; you never know what you're going to get. It was just a little disappointing because it turned out that the ground at these two houses dashed my hopes a little. Someone at sometime had made some changes to at least 3 of the four yards on this block...the oldies were either not there or they were simply unreachable with my settings. I plan to go back and try those two places again with reactivity 0 and see if I can make the fish jump. Before moving on, I had a small 10 X 10 patch I hadn't gotten to yet and decided to change GB to 78, which was 2-3 points lower than the ground reading. I also bumped Sens up to 90 from 88. It wasn't long and I had two separate deep signals that turned out to be indian head pennies from 7-8 inches. I think the VDIs ranged between 88-90 in 12K and 76-78 in 4K...you can't trust VDIs at depth...otherwise I'd have been holding two silver dimes. The signals were not all that strong which is a better clue they weren't silver--the tones were the whispers we all love to hear, but they weren't as strong as those of wheat pennies I'd found at the same depth. I switched over to reactivity 1 and the signals were much easier to distinguish. Unfortunately I didn't revert back to my normal GB/Sens settings to see if the signals would improve or diminish...more testing for another day I guess.
With the 10X10 patch complete and the 2 IHPs in my pouch, it was getting late and I still had the hospital lady's yard to do. Speaking of hospitals. The house I completed earlier this year at the opposite end of the same block, that turned up almost nothing had been a hospital at one time. It was very large. The adjacent house, the no-one-answers-the-door-rental I completed earlier in the day had been the town's mortuary. Knowing this and finding relatively little added to the disappointment.
The hospital lady's house--the fourth and final house on the block, has the biggest yard on the block--it's a corner lot with half the yard on main street...a very good prospect normally. As I said, it was getting late, the yard was much too big to do it any detecting justice with remaining time and with mosquito madness soon to start. I decided to give it 20 minutes with my original settings plus the GB and Sens modifications in an effort to find out if I was up against more of the same. I started in the yard parallel to the neighborhood sidewalk at the front of the house. Three sweeps in and I get a nice high tone (92 / 83 in 12K / 4K). Hmm, just one point off a clad quarter. At 4-5 inches down out comes an old button with two letters on the front that I have yet to clean and read....just happy that it's old and not very deep. Ten feet away, still on the sidewalk, I pulled out a wheat at 4 inches....good so far. A few miscellaneous clad and then I reach the end of the sidewalk before it turns and parallels main street....I'll save this ground for my next visit. I re-position myself back in front of the house; this time on the grass between the sidewalk and street. Rather than parallel the sidewalk, I take the opposite course like a person with a lawnmower would never do. I just want to cover a few more feet before I go....my first hit in this area was a shallow penny signal. 84 / 72 in 12K / 4K. I dig this thinking zincoln, but when I opened the hole I saw silver immediately! What?! The dirt fell off of the reverse and I saw the wreath....ah, a barber dime at three inches! The front was coated so I didn't see the truth until I got home. After filling the hole, I had enough info on this place, so I left and began to immediately savor the return trip.
For me half the fun of this hobby is anticipation. Some times it pans out and sometimes not...I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one!
But if you're ever passing through eastern Nebraska, let me know and I'll take you there with me!