small change
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Went out Saturday morning to a park that wasn't too far away. Chose to go there because of the forecast of storms in the afternoon & didn't want to venture out further only to have the hunting time cut short by rain. Ended up finding 4 wheats or so & the coin from Spain which sounded much like our nickel coin would. Spent a lot of time in an open area that didn't have many targets in it. Had found a silver quarter in the middle of it last year just wandering thru it.
Kept at it for about 4-5 hours in the heat & humidity, then went to lunch. When I came back to hunt some more I thought I'd have more time before the storms came up but within 20min after I got back it was getting really close so I had to call it a day. I think if I could have kept at it a couple more hours I could have got at least one silver.
Sunday, I knew I didn't have to worry about the weather, so I went out a little further away to a park where I'd found an SLQ and a Merc a couple of years ago when I was still using my XLT. I remembered there being a pretty good amount of trash in the park so I put the 6" Excellerator Coil on & ended up using that all day. Started off slow, but finally when I was working bewteen the main pavilion & a swing set I dug the 1945D Mercury. Shortly after, got a wheat, then people began to show up to get ready for a family reunion at the pavilion so soon after I moved a bit further away from it & closer to the lake. Got a couple of wheats then had another signal which I expected to be a wheat that turned out to be the worn 1919 Mercury. Went a while longer finding occasional clad then just below a old concrete platform built into the slope that goes down to the lake bank I eyeballed a Nickel that turned out to be the 1936 Buffalo. The ground around it was hard & bare with some gravel. You could tell this area was gradually being washed away & I thought maybe there could be some older shallow coins there. When I swept over the surface nickel I could hardly pick it up with the machine & had almost constant nulling there. The area just below the concrete was full of nails. I must have picked up 10-15 nails I could see on the surface. I switched over to AM & ferrous tones for a little while but didn't find anything else in the immediate area & soon switched back to original settings when the nulling reduced somewhat. Got a couple more wheats nearby then found the no date SLQ. Before I found it I had thoughts of leaving & trying another place nearby but after I found it I decided to stay there until I tired out.
I moved up toward the front a bit near some other old concrete & had a good signal but another larger mid-tone signal right next to it. I decided to dig the junk signal out first to see if the other better one would still be there. I pulled a whole Pepsi can out that looked like it was from the early 70s. It was steel & had an aluminum top that was rotting somewhat, but most of the can didn't have that much rust on it considering its age. I figured most buried steel pop/beer cans would be almost completely rusted away by now. Anyway after digging out the can & checking the area again, the other signal was still there so I dug it.
Was shocked to see it was a Barber Half. It wasn't that deep, definitely less than 6" because you can see where I grazed the back of it with the lesche as I was digging the plug. :sad: If you had asked me what it was before I dug it, I don't know what I would have guessed it to be, but I don't think I would have said "silver half". I'm glad it's a more common date & not worth all that much since I just about ruined it. It is quite remarkable that I had never found any Barber Halves ever, & now have found one two weekends in a row. Here's the pics of the finds. I didn't include the 4 wheats on Saturday or the 4 wheats I ended up getting on Sunday. Two of them were older dates: a 1912 & a 1918.
Take care & HH.
Dan.
Kept at it for about 4-5 hours in the heat & humidity, then went to lunch. When I came back to hunt some more I thought I'd have more time before the storms came up but within 20min after I got back it was getting really close so I had to call it a day. I think if I could have kept at it a couple more hours I could have got at least one silver.
Sunday, I knew I didn't have to worry about the weather, so I went out a little further away to a park where I'd found an SLQ and a Merc a couple of years ago when I was still using my XLT. I remembered there being a pretty good amount of trash in the park so I put the 6" Excellerator Coil on & ended up using that all day. Started off slow, but finally when I was working bewteen the main pavilion & a swing set I dug the 1945D Mercury. Shortly after, got a wheat, then people began to show up to get ready for a family reunion at the pavilion so soon after I moved a bit further away from it & closer to the lake. Got a couple of wheats then had another signal which I expected to be a wheat that turned out to be the worn 1919 Mercury. Went a while longer finding occasional clad then just below a old concrete platform built into the slope that goes down to the lake bank I eyeballed a Nickel that turned out to be the 1936 Buffalo. The ground around it was hard & bare with some gravel. You could tell this area was gradually being washed away & I thought maybe there could be some older shallow coins there. When I swept over the surface nickel I could hardly pick it up with the machine & had almost constant nulling there. The area just below the concrete was full of nails. I must have picked up 10-15 nails I could see on the surface. I switched over to AM & ferrous tones for a little while but didn't find anything else in the immediate area & soon switched back to original settings when the nulling reduced somewhat. Got a couple more wheats nearby then found the no date SLQ. Before I found it I had thoughts of leaving & trying another place nearby but after I found it I decided to stay there until I tired out.
I moved up toward the front a bit near some other old concrete & had a good signal but another larger mid-tone signal right next to it. I decided to dig the junk signal out first to see if the other better one would still be there. I pulled a whole Pepsi can out that looked like it was from the early 70s. It was steel & had an aluminum top that was rotting somewhat, but most of the can didn't have that much rust on it considering its age. I figured most buried steel pop/beer cans would be almost completely rusted away by now. Anyway after digging out the can & checking the area again, the other signal was still there so I dug it.
Was shocked to see it was a Barber Half. It wasn't that deep, definitely less than 6" because you can see where I grazed the back of it with the lesche as I was digging the plug. :sad: If you had asked me what it was before I dug it, I don't know what I would have guessed it to be, but I don't think I would have said "silver half". I'm glad it's a more common date & not worth all that much since I just about ruined it. It is quite remarkable that I had never found any Barber Halves ever, & now have found one two weekends in a row. Here's the pics of the finds. I didn't include the 4 wheats on Saturday or the 4 wheats I ended up getting on Sunday. Two of them were older dates: a 1912 & a 1918.
Take care & HH.
Dan.
DAN YOUR ON A ROLL MAN, NICE SILVER 