Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO
Member
My vacation planned for the end of this month got bumped up at the last minute... I was planning a road trip 2 weeks away, now I had to organize everything at the last second to go out last weekend. I almost didn't go at all... I had a raging case of Strep Throat/Tonsillitis 
, the Wife was none too happy
, and I didn't have any sites lined up except for a list of raw data to pick from. But I thought "What the Hell", If it ain't now, it won't happen this year.
I headed east early Saturday morning towards western Ohio to start my trip. somewhere in Indiana, I got sick and very tired and pulled into a rest area for some massive medicine doses and a quick snooze.... I woke up at 10AM thinking "Great, half the day is gone". I did feel rested and my throat was feeling better for the first time in over a week, so off to my first site I drove.
This site is a town square in Somewhere Ohio that I hunted several years ago. It was kind of away from the other sites I wanted to try, but I felt I had a good chance to start the trip off right here. Boy, was I in for a shocker... I jumped out and had the coil going at 11:30 AM and within minutes had a nice old Indian Cent. From this point on my sickness magically melted away, and I was in heaven.
I quickly started to accumulate more targets - Barber Dime, more Indians, Wheaties, a Merc and a Roosy.... Soon I had a SOLID Half signal that only registered about 3" deep. Thinking I might get a clad half, I popped the plug, dug up some dirt and saw that beautiful site of BIG silver - a 1942 Walker!!
This was my first silver half in 7 years, and it sure was a welcome sight!!! 10 feet away I get another silver hit and out from some deep turf I pull a slick Standing Liberty Quarter. I'm feeling REAL good now, but the fun is just beginning...
I worked my way along one side of the square that had large trees and VERY mineralized and iron infested ground. I worked very slow and signals seemed to pop up every where. Some were right at the surface... a Barber Dime on edge poking out from the dirt next to a tree, 3 wheats laying on top of the bare dirt, then a very tricky signal produced a beautiful 1892O Barber Quarter only 2" deep but surrounded by nails.
. A few more keepers and I move away from the edge into quieter ground and get that REAL sweet DEEP silver hit. I got down about 8" and the probe locks onto a quarter signal. I carefully lifted out a ball of dirt and broke it open to see a Seated Quarter - 1853 with arrows and rays!!! 
Wow!!! I was in disbelief! I had 3 silver quarters within 1 hour and immediately I thought about finding a Washington for the Quarter Slam...
I had only seen or heard of one other guy finding a Quarter Slam - and I was there to witness it. I thought of a couple quarter hits that were shallow that I passed up earlier and decided that I needed to go back and look for them again. It may seem odd for me to leave shallow Quarter signals but I do it for 2 reasons.... I spend my time up front in digging only the high-probability signals to maximize the odds for old coins every time I dig. Second is because of my health... fighting off a viscious week long cold and bad knees and back really takes a toll on my ability to bounce up and down digging targets.
I relocated the shallow quarter signals and dug them - clad quarters like I suspected, they just weren't deep enough in the soft ground to be old. I continued around the square to the other side. I hunted in the heavy trash and thick turf - "This is where a newer silver quarter would hide", I reasoned. I dig down for a couple wheaties and then BANG! I get a pretty solid quarter hit. It wasn't quite as deep as I would have liked - it was borderline, but I certainly had a chance with this one. These sites in this area of the country has nice deep sandy alluvial soil that tends to make coins read shallower than they really are, so you have to modify your dig/no dig attitude a little; 2 inch deep zinc penny hits are often 5 inch deep indians.
I cut the plug and dug out dirt, mentally crossing fingers, and soon enough I see the edge of a silver quarter in my hand!!! It wasn't that deep and I hoped and prayed it would be a washington instead of an older type (The only time in my life I ever did that!) Sure enough, when I broke up the clod out shone the head of a Washington Quarter!!! I had accomplished what I never would have expected to do in my life: a Quarter Grand Slam
out of 4 quarters in just 2 1/2 hours time. I just kind of stared at it thinking just how stupidly lucky I got. Pure dumb luck to do this in a heavily hunted site where 1 silver quarter alone is a surprise.
[attachment 176807 18oct10qslamfront.JPG]
I hunted around a while longer to try and get a Seated Dime for the Dime Slam, but no avail. I did add an 1867 2 cent piece to my growing type set from this site, and another Barber Dime. Didn't matter anyway, I just made my weekend in the first place I stopped. These are the finds just from this one site:
[attachment 176808 18oct10cthsefinds.JPG]
I hunted other sites the rest of the weekend, the finds were few and far between in most spots. A couple other squares gave up a few Indians and silver dimes to round out the totals. One particular signal REALLY had my heart thumping at one spot. It was a hit that locked onto half-dollar and was very deep. This site was picked clean by other hunters, but I detected this right next to a flower bed along the sidewalk. Digging down I could tell I was in old original ground and not fill dirt. About 10" deep, the probe locked in on it's target and the machine said "dollar". One more scoop of dirt out of the hole and I felt a very large coin in my grasp!!!
. I hoped and prayed as I opened it up, but only saw a large copper disc...:veryangry: It wasn't a silver dollar, but it was a keeper just the same - an 1854-1904 50th anniversary U.S. Express Co. Medal in nice shape.
I did have a great weekend with quantity and quality of finds and getting away from home and seeing the sights - fall colors everywhere, a roadful of Amish horse buggies Sunday evening in Northern Indiana, nice looking lakes and rivers that I would have wanted to fish in.... long ago before getting hooked on detecting.
I add this info only because I get so many questions about where I hunt... I usually look for town squares, courthouse lawns, city parks, and small picnic groves. These places I research online and "pre-select" to try out when I go out on the road. I have an "itenerary" of sites lined up in order that I want to hunt them. The idea is to go from one to the next in a QUICK and efficient manner. Most sites don't turn up much and I don't spend more than a few minutes or an hour there, some sites I never even get out of the car to try because many years of experience tell me in some subliminal way that I won't have much luck there. Out of every dozen sites I try 1 or 2 are good producers and I may spend half a day or more there when I do find them.
Road trips are very hard to do anymore for me. Being married cuts into my free time extensively - when I was single, I was on the road every week almost. Most sites out there have been hit hard with Explorers and don't produce many diggable signals. Many sites continue to be shut down to detecting -I used to hunt scores of courthouses in the past... back when noone knew if it was legal to detect them or not. I always had good luck getting permission to hunt them, but many of them have been put off-limits now. I spent Monday driving back home and stopped at 4 courthouses I hunted in the past... all 4 have since been shut down. I even got ran off a town square by one cop AFTER another cop told me OK... what do you do???. Cost of fuel and rental cars keeps going up. As long as I can find 1 good spot every trip to pull a few goodies out of, I guess I'll keep at it.
Thanks for reading this LONG post. Here are some pics of the goodies and take care and HH, Mike.
Here's the total Silver count of 20... no special dates, just lots of shiny coins!!!
[attachment 176813 18oct10silver.JPG]
Here's the Tribe of Indians including a key date 1867:
[attachment 176809 18oct10indians.JPG]
Here's some other coins... 63 wheats, one of them with a Masonic logo punched into it, 4 V nickels, an 1867 2 cent piece and a 1904 Medal from U.S. Express Co.:
[attachment 176812 18oct10othercoins.JPG]
And a few odds and ends, jewelry, etc.:
[attachment 176810 18oct10misc.JPG]
And the Weekend totals:
[attachment 176811 18oct10nut.JPG]
, the Wife was none too happy, and I didn't have any sites lined up except for a list of raw data to pick from. But I thought "What the Hell", If it ain't now, it won't happen this year. I headed east early Saturday morning towards western Ohio to start my trip. somewhere in Indiana, I got sick and very tired and pulled into a rest area for some massive medicine doses and a quick snooze.... I woke up at 10AM thinking "Great, half the day is gone". I did feel rested and my throat was feeling better for the first time in over a week, so off to my first site I drove.
This site is a town square in Somewhere Ohio that I hunted several years ago. It was kind of away from the other sites I wanted to try, but I felt I had a good chance to start the trip off right here. Boy, was I in for a shocker... I jumped out and had the coil going at 11:30 AM and within minutes had a nice old Indian Cent. From this point on my sickness magically melted away, and I was in heaven.
I quickly started to accumulate more targets - Barber Dime, more Indians, Wheaties, a Merc and a Roosy.... Soon I had a SOLID Half signal that only registered about 3" deep. Thinking I might get a clad half, I popped the plug, dug up some dirt and saw that beautiful site of BIG silver - a 1942 Walker!!
This was my first silver half in 7 years, and it sure was a welcome sight!!! 10 feet away I get another silver hit and out from some deep turf I pull a slick Standing Liberty Quarter. I'm feeling REAL good now, but the fun is just beginning...I worked my way along one side of the square that had large trees and VERY mineralized and iron infested ground. I worked very slow and signals seemed to pop up every where. Some were right at the surface... a Barber Dime on edge poking out from the dirt next to a tree, 3 wheats laying on top of the bare dirt, then a very tricky signal produced a beautiful 1892O Barber Quarter only 2" deep but surrounded by nails.
. A few more keepers and I move away from the edge into quieter ground and get that REAL sweet DEEP silver hit. I got down about 8" and the probe locks onto a quarter signal. I carefully lifted out a ball of dirt and broke it open to see a Seated Quarter - 1853 with arrows and rays!!! Wow!!! I was in disbelief! I had 3 silver quarters within 1 hour and immediately I thought about finding a Washington for the Quarter Slam...I had only seen or heard of one other guy finding a Quarter Slam - and I was there to witness it. I thought of a couple quarter hits that were shallow that I passed up earlier and decided that I needed to go back and look for them again. It may seem odd for me to leave shallow Quarter signals but I do it for 2 reasons.... I spend my time up front in digging only the high-probability signals to maximize the odds for old coins every time I dig. Second is because of my health... fighting off a viscious week long cold and bad knees and back really takes a toll on my ability to bounce up and down digging targets.
I relocated the shallow quarter signals and dug them - clad quarters like I suspected, they just weren't deep enough in the soft ground to be old. I continued around the square to the other side. I hunted in the heavy trash and thick turf - "This is where a newer silver quarter would hide", I reasoned. I dig down for a couple wheaties and then BANG! I get a pretty solid quarter hit. It wasn't quite as deep as I would have liked - it was borderline, but I certainly had a chance with this one. These sites in this area of the country has nice deep sandy alluvial soil that tends to make coins read shallower than they really are, so you have to modify your dig/no dig attitude a little; 2 inch deep zinc penny hits are often 5 inch deep indians.
I cut the plug and dug out dirt, mentally crossing fingers, and soon enough I see the edge of a silver quarter in my hand!!! It wasn't that deep and I hoped and prayed it would be a washington instead of an older type (The only time in my life I ever did that!) Sure enough, when I broke up the clod out shone the head of a Washington Quarter!!! I had accomplished what I never would have expected to do in my life: a Quarter Grand Slam
out of 4 quarters in just 2 1/2 hours time. I just kind of stared at it thinking just how stupidly lucky I got. Pure dumb luck to do this in a heavily hunted site where 1 silver quarter alone is a surprise.[attachment 176807 18oct10qslamfront.JPG]
I hunted around a while longer to try and get a Seated Dime for the Dime Slam, but no avail. I did add an 1867 2 cent piece to my growing type set from this site, and another Barber Dime. Didn't matter anyway, I just made my weekend in the first place I stopped. These are the finds just from this one site:
[attachment 176808 18oct10cthsefinds.JPG]
I hunted other sites the rest of the weekend, the finds were few and far between in most spots. A couple other squares gave up a few Indians and silver dimes to round out the totals. One particular signal REALLY had my heart thumping at one spot. It was a hit that locked onto half-dollar and was very deep. This site was picked clean by other hunters, but I detected this right next to a flower bed along the sidewalk. Digging down I could tell I was in old original ground and not fill dirt. About 10" deep, the probe locked in on it's target and the machine said "dollar". One more scoop of dirt out of the hole and I felt a very large coin in my grasp!!!
. I hoped and prayed as I opened it up, but only saw a large copper disc...:veryangry: It wasn't a silver dollar, but it was a keeper just the same - an 1854-1904 50th anniversary U.S. Express Co. Medal in nice shape.I did have a great weekend with quantity and quality of finds and getting away from home and seeing the sights - fall colors everywhere, a roadful of Amish horse buggies Sunday evening in Northern Indiana, nice looking lakes and rivers that I would have wanted to fish in.... long ago before getting hooked on detecting.
I add this info only because I get so many questions about where I hunt... I usually look for town squares, courthouse lawns, city parks, and small picnic groves. These places I research online and "pre-select" to try out when I go out on the road. I have an "itenerary" of sites lined up in order that I want to hunt them. The idea is to go from one to the next in a QUICK and efficient manner. Most sites don't turn up much and I don't spend more than a few minutes or an hour there, some sites I never even get out of the car to try because many years of experience tell me in some subliminal way that I won't have much luck there. Out of every dozen sites I try 1 or 2 are good producers and I may spend half a day or more there when I do find them.
Road trips are very hard to do anymore for me. Being married cuts into my free time extensively - when I was single, I was on the road every week almost. Most sites out there have been hit hard with Explorers and don't produce many diggable signals. Many sites continue to be shut down to detecting -I used to hunt scores of courthouses in the past... back when noone knew if it was legal to detect them or not. I always had good luck getting permission to hunt them, but many of them have been put off-limits now. I spent Monday driving back home and stopped at 4 courthouses I hunted in the past... all 4 have since been shut down. I even got ran off a town square by one cop AFTER another cop told me OK... what do you do???. Cost of fuel and rental cars keeps going up. As long as I can find 1 good spot every trip to pull a few goodies out of, I guess I'll keep at it.
Thanks for reading this LONG post. Here are some pics of the goodies and take care and HH, Mike.
Here's the total Silver count of 20... no special dates, just lots of shiny coins!!!
[attachment 176813 18oct10silver.JPG]
Here's the Tribe of Indians including a key date 1867:
[attachment 176809 18oct10indians.JPG]
Here's some other coins... 63 wheats, one of them with a Masonic logo punched into it, 4 V nickels, an 1867 2 cent piece and a 1904 Medal from U.S. Express Co.:
[attachment 176812 18oct10othercoins.JPG]
And a few odds and ends, jewelry, etc.:
[attachment 176810 18oct10misc.JPG]
And the Weekend totals:
[attachment 176811 18oct10nut.JPG]
