More About My 14" Deep Wheatie. This Could Only Happen To Me!

[Anonymous]

Let me answer a couple of questions posted to me. I am hunting in a hay field on the exact spot where a large barn burned down in 1915-1920. For the last 25yrs that I know, this particular field is heavily manured and is used just for hay. (beautiful farm land not a rock anywhere). I think all that manure really screwed me in the end. When I got the penny up I didnot know what it was, and I did not what to damage it. So I waited till I could give it a rinse. I got just enough oxidation off to see it was a wheatie, and I could just about read the year. As I said it looked like 1910. Rather than scratch it, because the green was not coming off easy I put it in a cup of water overnight. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS! When I took that penny out of the water and gave it a slight rub, the bulk of the oxidation came off and Abraham Lincoln disapeared, and the wheat on the back side is gone also! I am left with a piece of copper thinner than a thin dime. The two surfaces were eaten away. A drop of oil is the only way you can tell it was a penny. Unnnnnbelievable!I think that so much manure for so many years just ate it. This coin had to be fairly new when it first hit the ground.
You guys told me in earlier post's about "halo". I think the soil around that coin had so much oxidation from the coin deteriorating that it enabled me to wiggle up a locked 180. I barely moved that 10" coil side to side to wiggle it up. And I did it from 3 positions around the target, in and out of all metal. I was dead center over that target when I dug the hole. I guess the important thing is that I found the target. Right?
Anyway, Without you guys I would still be trying to figure out how to read the manual. As always, Thank you guys very much for all your help!
Gene

 

[Anonymous]

Absolutely, the important thing is that you found it.
I have a cup full of wheaties here that must have 200 of them in there. Most of them look like 5 miles of bad road. I use them as an indicator that I'm in the right place for silver, not much else. The sad lesson you have learned is that water on an old penny is like sunrise to a vampire. At least that's what has happened to just about every one I've ever let touch water. A little olive oil works better. The best thing though is a soft bristle brush (like a toothbrush) and don't even get it wet...just get the dirt off a little. Most of the time they look a lot better if you leave a little dirt on them anyway. The pennies (Indians, wheats, large cents) around here are usually in pretty horrendous condition when we dig them. I see some of the stuff dug up north and out west and I can't believe how good they look.
Now silver, that's a different story. The only silver that takes a beating is beach silver. In the ground, you pretty much find it looking the way it did when it was dropped.
Happy hunting!

 

[Anonymous]

to bad the penny is toasted...I dug an indian head that is the same way...you can only tell from one little spot what it WAS............it came from a sand pit that had been scraped away...