It's Halloween eve and we've finally had some decent rain to dampen the hard dry ground. I headed back to an old haunt of mine that dates back to the mid-1800's. I hit this location hard earlier this year with my new E-trac, trying to see if I could pick up some coins, tokens and maybe even some relics that I had missed hunting there for the last 25 years. And find I did. I can't believe the number of silver dimes I missed is one particularly difficult area.
Then summer hit, the ground dried up, and the area went on the wait list. The wait for rain list. This summer has been unusually dry.
Yesterday, I decided it was time to get the E-trac out and head back for a couple hours and see what I could find.
I slowly picked my way along the edge of an old walkway, working along sections of underground irrigation pipes. I came to the end of the walk that had a little open area between some trees where I'm sure that people used to sit. Past hunts have turned up a number of mercury dimes in this small little area, along with some wheaties and Buffalo nickels. I came to another slightly broken signal against a large null. The signal was coming in at 9-38 thru 25-42. It was difficult to get a solid signal with the nearby null. Depth wise, it was about 3/4 on the depth meter.
Out came the Lesche digger and I cut a nice 6" deep plug in the damp grass and flipped it back. I removed a handful of the loose dirt and felt rock. I used my coin popper to search for the edge of the flat rock and discovered it was an oval stone about an inch thick and 4" x 6". My X-1 probe was picking up something underneath it. Out came the small stone slab. The probe had a solid lock dead center, 11/41 - 11/42.
I pried up a section of dirt that despite the recent rain was still pretty hard. The target was in a clump of dirt. Out came a heavy little pendant that flashed gold. My heart skipped a beat as I picked it up and turned it over. It was heavy. A skull and crossbones greeted me.
Unfortunately, the flash of gold appears to be only gold plating. Just below the skull and crossbones it says' TEMPLE MEDICAL'. Away it went into the finds pocket.I moved around a bit and ended up hunting a rather 'silent' area where I've found some real deep targets. I ended up finding two military cuff buttons at 8", and a merc dime that was sitting at 7" almost straight up and down. It was nice to find some silver. Soon it was time to go home and get some work done around the yard.
As I typed this, I did some quick searches and found a few references to the skull and crossbones, one of them linking the symbol to Yale University. If anybody has further information, post it here, I'd be delighted to learn more.
Happy Halloween everybody.
Rich (Utah)
