There is this huge very wooded and very hilly 600 acre park near where I live. It is full of miles of hiking trails. Well, I like many other detectorists who just simply like hunting in the woods have gone there for years with not impressive results. Occasionally a nice find is to be had. Well, that all changed when I got my hands on an old very detailed hand drawn map of this park dating back to the early parts of the 1900's where it detailed where people liked to set up camps and the more popular hiking trails of that period. So I began hitting the trails detailed on this old map. At first, nothing panned out. One trail after another with dismal finds. Then it happened. I found the "magic" trail and it was fruitful to say the least. I found more on 600 feet of that trail than I found in the entire 600 acre park over a period of several years.
3 silver dimes, 1918, and 2 1948. A beautiful 1942 half dollar in almost mint condition. 2 Buffalo nickels. 4 war nickels, all 1943. 2 Indian pennies, 1862 and 1898. 23 Wheaties, from 1918 on up. A really great find was a giant silver spoon , sterling, 92 percent silver almost twice the size of an ordinary table spoon. And finally, two whistles. One says "The Acme Company", made in England. I looked up that company and they made virtually all the Boy Scout whistles for most of the 20th century. And both whistles still worked after cleaning the dirt out of them.
I didn't find all this stuff in one outing. It was over a period of several weeks hitting that trail a few days a week.
Oh, and I found over 6 dollars in clad as well and numerous odds and ends, like a bunch of keys, a 7 inch hunting knife, a very old tube of lip stick, and a not so old tube of KY jelly. I pulled it out of the ground and like an idiot, I squeezed it and I got thoroughly lubed all over my hands as the seam broke on the rusting tube.
All this stuff was found a mere 600 foot section of this trail and beyond that the finds went to almost zero.
It baffles me how this trail was obviously over looked, but I think the story here is to never give up and don't get frustrated. There is juice in the ground waiting to be found by YOU on your very next outing. Good luck.
Oh, and finding old personalized maps helps as well.
3 silver dimes, 1918, and 2 1948. A beautiful 1942 half dollar in almost mint condition. 2 Buffalo nickels. 4 war nickels, all 1943. 2 Indian pennies, 1862 and 1898. 23 Wheaties, from 1918 on up. A really great find was a giant silver spoon , sterling, 92 percent silver almost twice the size of an ordinary table spoon. And finally, two whistles. One says "The Acme Company", made in England. I looked up that company and they made virtually all the Boy Scout whistles for most of the 20th century. And both whistles still worked after cleaning the dirt out of them.
I didn't find all this stuff in one outing. It was over a period of several weeks hitting that trail a few days a week.
Oh, and I found over 6 dollars in clad as well and numerous odds and ends, like a bunch of keys, a 7 inch hunting knife, a very old tube of lip stick, and a not so old tube of KY jelly. I pulled it out of the ground and like an idiot, I squeezed it and I got thoroughly lubed all over my hands as the seam broke on the rusting tube.
All this stuff was found a mere 600 foot section of this trail and beyond that the finds went to almost zero.
It baffles me how this trail was obviously over looked, but I think the story here is to never give up and don't get frustrated. There is juice in the ground waiting to be found by YOU on your very next outing. Good luck.
Oh, and finding old personalized maps helps as well.
