Most recent finds

[Dang]

I went to one of those parks that every detectorist goes to when there's no where else to go to this weekend because I didn't have anywhere else to go to. And like the only good targets were pennies. No dimes, nickles, or quarters. Just pennies. So everyone who hunted here just ignored all those penny signals. Well the detector I was using doesn't have a meter so I was left with all those pennies all those other detectorst ignored and left behind.
Well look what I found![attachment 37872 DSCF0006.JPG]
A 1955 Dime, A toe ring, I think. A small silver heart and 2 wheat back pennies! Oh yeah....and about 50 clad pennies.

 

[DavHut]

Just for the record, the U.S and Canada dont have pennies. Only the English Sterling system does. We have cents, or 1/100ths' of a dollar. Now that I got that off my chest....

I rarely pass cents signals up. They're coins for one thing, each one a tiny step closer to your goal. Plus as youve learned, other desriable items will masquerade as them.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Hey the dime made up for it all.

Bill

 

[Dang]

Well I been calling them pennies all my life.
"A cent for your thoughts".
"If I had a cent for everytime I heard that."
Okay you convinced me. Yeah, I guess I can get use to it.
Now to get the rest of North America on the band wagon.
Thanks for the info.

 

[parrott]

Okay... question, were the individual US cents that were recovered mostly zinc or copper? Zincs discriminate out first. That could explain why so many cents. They were not "beeped."

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

I from back in the hills. They say," fetch me that penny out of that there poke". They won't say," get me a cent out of the bag". People would look at you funny. That is my 2 cents worth!

 

[parrott]

Dumb Ol' Me... if the "cents" were clad, they were zinc

 

[DavHut]

The term "Penny" is a hold over from when we were still using English money - back in Colonial days. Actually anybody's money was good, back then: Dutch, French,, Spanish, even private coinage... things were unregulated then. But, the English coin was the standard, with the Spanish stuff coming in second.

When it was decided that this nation needed its own monetary system, we hybridized the French (and to a lesser degree the Spanish) standards of the time, which were fractional decimal systems (based on ten). We were having no part of that British stuff, with its farthings and quids and pences, no sir!

After the American government came into being, there was a pressing need for indigenous coin for distribution. The first was struck (halfdismes), from 75$ worth of silverware from G. Washingtons own home! But, for decades after this country was founded, Spanish money freely circulated and was considered by many to be more reliable than American coin.

Ever heard the saying, "2 bits, 4 bits, 8 bits a dollar?

Well, a "bit" was a fractional equivalent of the Spanish 'real' or 'peso', which was actually divided into 1/8ths (technically that makes it based on the octal system). The 'real' was known by most as a 'dolar,' after a similar European coin, the 'thaler'coin. Confused yet? Here's the scoop:

From Thalers to Dollars
The history of the dollar is a story involving many countries in different continents. The word dollar is much older than the American unit of currency. It is an Anglicised form of "thaler", (pronounced taler, with a long "a"), the name given to coins first minted in 1519 from locally mined silver in Joachimsthal in Bohemia. (Today the town of Joachimsthal lies within the borders of the Czech republic and its Czech name is J

 

[Uncle Willy]

Thanks for the history lesson bud.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

Me to. I'm just an old farm and small town boy. Lot of my family worked on carnivals during the Depression and one of the most popular games on the Midway was the penny pitch - not the cent pitch. And a penny would buy a lot back then. Five of them would pay for a round on any ride in the carnival. You could buy 3-4 pieces of candy for a penny. I could have lived like a king back then with a metal detector.

Bill

 

[DavHut]

Man dont you just wish??!! I often dream of going back in time to say 1945 and cleaning up. I guess I got it as bad as anybody....

 

[John 'n' W.Va]

You don't have to go back to 1945. My father and his buddies built a couple of beat frequency MD in 1968. We lived in Michigan then. His buddies went to Detroit Beach in Monroe and got over 200 rings in one day. You did not need a good metal locater, just be the first one there.
I tried to be the first one today. I hit a place today that use to be an old hobo came ground in the 1800's. Only problem is it still is a transient hang out. They through their beer cans out and the city's lawn mower cut up the cans. Then it smashes them into the ground and does it again next week.There were so many different cuts and shapes of aluminium I think I had one hit on each notch on my 250. Below all that aluminium I know there is a lot of good stuff.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah wouldn't that be a trip, the only guy around with a detector and the whole country at your feet.. Mostbfolks in 1945 were working in defense plants or related industries for 40-50 cents and hour. People in other lines of work made less. Go back into the thirties and people that actually had a job were working for fifty cents to a dollar a day, and for long days. During the Depression my mom worked 12 hours a day seven days a week for $12.00.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

Hobos had no money. They rode the rails and jungled up in the hobo jungles and made hobo coffee in an old can and cooked up what they could beg, borrow, or steal, in an old, large, tomato can or whatever was available. What few nickels, dimes, and pennies they had they kept in a Bull Durham sack tied to their clothes.

Bill