Last week I noticed in our local weekly paper that construction on a new High School was going to begin in the spring. They even showed a map displaying the entire layout. Well, I checked the area on an old 1937 aerial image and discovered that there was once a farm house there. Then I checked the 1868 Beers map and there it was! The land belongs to the school district making it open for detecting. So on Friday (New Years Eve) I got out there and, believe it or not, my very first target was a 1944 Merc Dime! Encouraged, I pressed on and found another silver dime, a 1951 Roosevelt, a 1946 Jefferson nickel (older than me!) and 6 wheat cents, all from the 1940's. I didn't get back there Saturday because, uhhhh, I was still a little fuzzy from the previous nite's celebrations but today I was determined to continue the search. I plotted the area most likely to have more coins on Google Earth and loaded the waypoints into my GPS and when I arrived at the site I flagged the area I planned to hunt. Needless to say, it payed off. I found a dateless Buffalo Nickel, another Merc Dime (1919) and, best of all, the nicest silver coin I have found to date. A really sweet 1898 Barber Quarter! The condition of this coin indicates that it must have spent most of its 112 years in the ground. I have not even covered 1/4 of the site's area. I plan to get back there tomorrow! The most important thing I've learned is that it's wise to pay attention to the local news. Once again research pays off!