Golden

[JB(MS)]

We have a lot of graveled parking lots in this area and a lot of coins and other things are lost in them. Since I started hunting in them about 25 years ago I've found thousands of coins, quite a few silver coins, gold and silver rings, gold and silver bracelets, necklaces and earrings, one platinum ring, two USB flash drives, several knives, numerous keys, two pair of eye glasses, a dental brace for someones teeth and a lot of other interesting stuff. Digging in graveled parking lots during dry weather can be tough, but I've never came away from one without at least a few goodies. It's been cooler the last few days, high 80's to low 90's instead of high 90's with 100 plus heat indexes, and we've had a lot of rain that's made digging in graveled lots easier, so I hunted in one for maybe three and a half hours, over a two day period, that dates to the early 1960's thinking I might find a few late silver coins. No silver, and oddly not a single quarter, but I got 17 dimes, 6 nickels, 63 pennies and 22 pulltabs. I've dug tab range signals for the last several years and turned them in to a collection center here to be sent to the Ronald McDonald foundation.

Link: How your tabs can help

The graveled lot I hunted, in photo, is for what was originally a furniture factory, then a shipping center for a garment factory that made mens pants and is now used as a storage building/distribution center for the golf shafts and bicycle parts True Temper makes. It's loaded with trash, iron and steel bolts and nuts, coke cans, steel bottlecaps and various other types of junk, but the Golden

 

[The Magician]

Interesting experience, thanks for sharing. What settings do you use in places like that?

 

[JB(MS)]

When hunting places like that one I set the disc just below nickels, notch off, sensitivity usually from 6 to 8 because there are wireless internet transmitters on about every third light pole here in town that causes interference if it's set any higher, and use the tones to decide whether or not to dig whatever gave the signal. If a target pinpoints wider than a coin size object, or I can lift the coil higher than 8 inches or so and still get a signal, I don't recover it. I've missed a few coin spills by doing that, but old age and arthritis makes digging in concrete hard graveled parking lots a lot harder than it did when I was younger and healthier.

 

[Hank68]

Good hunting with the Gmax JB, that's a nice to give back to a charity like that, we all need to help out with our detectors and donate great idea !! Hank

 

[JB(MS)]

The tabs in the photo are most of what I've recovered in the last year or so, but the number is far less than the amount I used to find . I've recovered so many around the athletic fields here in town, and most kids here buy drinks in plastic bottles now, that that I don't find very many anymore. A plus that recovering tabs adds, in addition to the McDonald Foundation using them to help sick kids and their parents, is that I've found a substantial number of gold rings that were in the tab range.

 

[gobum62]

Well I guess you have me persuaded to go ahead and dig those pull tabs knowing there could be goodies worth the extra effort, good idea on the donation! What kind of digging tool do you use?
HH
gobum62

 

[Beale]

Very good hunting! A Nice idea for the tabs also, Beale.

 

[tvr]

JB(MS),
What kind of stone do you run across in the gravel parking lots? e.g. limestone, shale, other?
tvr

 

[JB(MS)]

Some of the parking lots are slag, some are a mixture of ground up asphalt and gravel but most are just common gravel like are on old graveled roads. The two thinga they have in common is how hard they can get over time, especially in hot weather and how many coins and other stuff is in them. I hunted an old drive-in movie site back in the early 1990's that had gravel on it and, although I wasn't the first, or even the second or third, to hunt it I dug 33 silver dimes, 12 silver quarters and gobs of clad, nickels and pennies the first time I hunted it. Hunting gravel parking lots can be hard work, but it can also be rewarding.

 

[JB(MS)]

Unless the gravel is hard packed, and it is at most gravel parking lots, I use an old knife that has a thick blade and a screwdriver, but at most of them I use a small pick, like the one in the photo. It has about a 15 inch handle and the overall length of the blade is 12 inches. It's a little bothersome to carry around, but it does the job.

 

[mike5853]

Some of my best hunting locations are flea markets, especially, where the ground is covered in gravel. I still use a small fiber shovel to remove the stones, not as noisy. I usually hit them every 3 months. As you would expect, the Golden shines in these locations. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[tvr]

Some of the parking lots are slag, some are a mixture of ground up asphalt and gravel but most are just common gravel like are on old graveled roads. The two things they have in common is how hard they can get over time, especially in hot weather and how many coins and other stuff is in them.

I've hit a mix of materials. Some are more friendly than others. The ground up asphalt, crushed limestone, shale and most of what is locally called river rock, are fairly benign as far as detecting depth goes. Hard to dig, yes, but not hard to detect. Some of the slag lots are not too bad, some are difficult to get depth. The different slag lots look like similar material. I haven't found enough about them yet to know why they act so differently. Cinders as well as what looks like mixes of crushed granite and quartz are hard to get depth. The stuff that looks like mixes of crushed granite and quartz give much falsing even with frequent and careful ground balancing. The parking lots with that stuff are ones where I always go with a small coil and work slowly and only when I am feeling very patient. What is not so friendly about many of the gravel lots I've hit is that the gravel in one part of the lot can be significantly different than in other parts of the lot.

Interesting to hear about using the Golden

 

[charlie dert]

That looks like tough digging for sure but your tally of silver proves it worth the effort. Sometimes the best spots are the ones that noone else will swing over. Congrats.