Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO
Member
FINALLY a decent weekend weather-wise, AND I have time to go out hunting! I planned to hit the local ghetto park to dig up some oldies. Bright and early at sunrise I was off and hunting.... a little chilly and the ground is covered in frost, but the sun warmed things up in a hurry! I normally travel "light", but decided to bring the camera along to take some pics of the hunt highlites...
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I hunted for a while in some trashy ground, waiting for the grass to thaw out and dry up before I hit the older ground for the really deep ones. Pretty soon I hit a few older wheaties, then I get another slightly higher tone signal. Up from the hole comes a little clump of dirt with something shiny poking out the side.... a 1910 Barber Dime.
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Good start for the morning! As the sun dries out the grass I move over into the older area - it has a ton of iron and cinders, so there's a lot of iffy signals. After a couple tricky nails, I home in on the better signals. A couple of Indian Cents and another wheatie pop up, then another Indian Cent type signal produces a mangled silver ring...
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I eventually found myself in a spot that has produced many seated coins over the years for the Explorer horde... I decided I would scan the iron hits for any that sounded good enough to dig - thinking that maybe there was one more seated dime that turned with the frost over the winter. I got a lot of iffy chirps from the nails in the ground, but nothing worth digging until I hit one that was pretty repeatable. It sounded really good sweeping it in one direction, but nulled out in the opposite way. In pinpoint I could tell that the signal was long and skinny - like a nail or 2 targets next to each other. It rang up sweet at one end but a pretty good null at the other end... The crosshair would mostly lock on at the top of the screen over near iron, but occasionally bounce over to the upper right. I have had many OLD silver coins read similar to this, so I allowed a little hope to creep up in me as I stooped to cut the plug... The plug out of the hole, the pinpointer chirps a little and nulls a lot. After a second scoop of dirt, the probe sings out loud and clear - SILVER!
I knew that in this spot it could only be Seated, so I carefully worked my way closer to the target. I noticed that the signal began to lock on Quarter instead of Dime After one last little swipe I spotted a reeded silver edge - and it was, indeed, a quarter!
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See it? just left of center...
I lifted it out and saw a beautiful Seated Quarter! It had lots of mint luster, but was covered with the dreaded grey "creeping crud". I rechecked the hole and found a long nail right next to the quarter, where my pinpointing had shown. There was also another lump of iron on the other side of the hole. That quarter was 7-8" deep on edge inbetween 2 nails... all hail the Explorer!
I hunted a little longer and recovered one last Indian Cent... then I could no longer hold off lunch time.
That Quarter is a good example of why hunting in Iron Mask at least -10 or lower is the way to go. If I had set it to around -6 or higher, or hunted in a discrimination pattern, that coin would still be out there! Here's the better finds for the day (minus 8 wheaties, 8 freshly fired bullets, and many bits of crap), the Seated Quarter is 1877S and turned out pretty good looking after 30 minutes of frying off the crud - the pic doesn't do it much justice...
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Thanks for reading this long tale... hope everyone gets out and finds some goodies soon! HH, Mike.
[attachment 86087 05apr08-1.JPG]
I hunted for a while in some trashy ground, waiting for the grass to thaw out and dry up before I hit the older ground for the really deep ones. Pretty soon I hit a few older wheaties, then I get another slightly higher tone signal. Up from the hole comes a little clump of dirt with something shiny poking out the side.... a 1910 Barber Dime.
[attachment 86089 05apr08-2.JPG]
[attachment 86094 05apr08-3.JPG]
Good start for the morning! As the sun dries out the grass I move over into the older area - it has a ton of iron and cinders, so there's a lot of iffy signals. After a couple tricky nails, I home in on the better signals. A couple of Indian Cents and another wheatie pop up, then another Indian Cent type signal produces a mangled silver ring...
[attachment 86090 05apr08-5.JPG]
I eventually found myself in a spot that has produced many seated coins over the years for the Explorer horde... I decided I would scan the iron hits for any that sounded good enough to dig - thinking that maybe there was one more seated dime that turned with the frost over the winter. I got a lot of iffy chirps from the nails in the ground, but nothing worth digging until I hit one that was pretty repeatable. It sounded really good sweeping it in one direction, but nulled out in the opposite way. In pinpoint I could tell that the signal was long and skinny - like a nail or 2 targets next to each other. It rang up sweet at one end but a pretty good null at the other end... The crosshair would mostly lock on at the top of the screen over near iron, but occasionally bounce over to the upper right. I have had many OLD silver coins read similar to this, so I allowed a little hope to creep up in me as I stooped to cut the plug... The plug out of the hole, the pinpointer chirps a little and nulls a lot. After a second scoop of dirt, the probe sings out loud and clear - SILVER!
I knew that in this spot it could only be Seated, so I carefully worked my way closer to the target. I noticed that the signal began to lock on Quarter instead of Dime After one last little swipe I spotted a reeded silver edge - and it was, indeed, a quarter![attachment 86091 05apr08-6.JPG]
See it? just left of center...
I lifted it out and saw a beautiful Seated Quarter! It had lots of mint luster, but was covered with the dreaded grey "creeping crud". I rechecked the hole and found a long nail right next to the quarter, where my pinpointing had shown. There was also another lump of iron on the other side of the hole. That quarter was 7-8" deep on edge inbetween 2 nails... all hail the Explorer!
I hunted a little longer and recovered one last Indian Cent... then I could no longer hold off lunch time.That Quarter is a good example of why hunting in Iron Mask at least -10 or lower is the way to go. If I had set it to around -6 or higher, or hunted in a discrimination pattern, that coin would still be out there! Here's the better finds for the day (minus 8 wheaties, 8 freshly fired bullets, and many bits of crap), the Seated Quarter is 1877S and turned out pretty good looking after 30 minutes of frying off the crud - the pic doesn't do it much justice...
[attachment 86092 05apr08finds.JPG]
Thanks for reading this long tale... hope everyone gets out and finds some goodies soon! HH, Mike.
Sore or not there are just unbelievable finds going on in this forum!