1868, 1886 and a little old gold. :detecting:

[ZOFCHAK]

I finally managed to get a little dirt fishing in today (It had been over a month). I hit up a local woods that was a picnic area in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The dirt was bone dry and concrete hard, but I did manage to pull a few keepers out.

The first was a nice gold cuff link marked 10k which came up in two pieces ). It has one stone, but I'm not sure if it's glass or a small diamond. Nothing like starting the morning seeing a little gold jump out of the ground after nearly a century The second find of the morning was a 1886 Canadian Large cent that has some outstanding detail and should clean up very well with a nice peroxide bath. I picked this up at about 8" and it sounded off loud and clear, which was nice because the dry ground was making most every deep signal pretty shaky . Third find of the day was a 1868 Shield nickel that has a a clear legible date, but has some flaking. It's my first shield nickel so I was happy to see it in the dirt pile. My last keeper find was a 1920 Wheatie which will join the Canadian in a hot peroxide bath this evening.

I ended up raking out some large areas due to all the leaf litter and branches covering the ground. This wooded lot is about 40 acres and up until this hunt I've always just kind of blindly walked around hitting the open areas. It seemed to have worked out alright, but was a lot of work. Hopefully we'll be getting some rain soon as this dry ground really seemed to have been cutting the depth I am used to getting with the Sovereign, and it made digging a bit of a chore. Happy hunting!

 

[Crispy Critter]

Awesome finds and a special congrats to you for finding the old gold.

HH, Crispy

 

[JOHNMARKHAM]

nice finds there..

 

[Critterhunter]

Very cool from the looks of it! But I'm printing this out to read later so I don't have much to say, for once.

 

[Critterhunter]

Just read this. That's one heck of a hunt! I have yet to find a shield nickle, but I've got a hand full of Vs to show for my effort. One day I found 3 or 4 Vs in a hole, a barber dime, I think a few indians or wheats, and a pocket knife at the very bottom of the hole. One of my best pocket spills.

I've got a site that yours reminds me of. This one I found deep in the woods and it had certain geographical strategic reasons for having activity there. Mainly, easy access to a nearby water source. I've taken to believing that this spot was used for revival meetings where people got baptised, because the view offered good overlook of somebody below getting dunked in the water. No real proof of that, just always fancied it that way. Got a cufflink there (junk metal but old), barbers, Vs, buffals, indians (I think), wheats, barber quarter, mercs, and rosies. Not all of these were my finds as I took a friend to this virgin site. I've been meaning to go back and grid it some more because the majority of that was done when I didn't have a GT, and there is brush and trees that we have to work around so I'm more than sure that we've missed a few keepers by not easily being able to grid it out in proper fashion. I did take the GT there once and got more wheats and other finds, but I bet there is much more.

 

[deanosaur1972]

That is a superb cuff link - one of the best I have seen.

Looks a good site and 40 acres will keep you busy!!

 

[ZOFCHAK]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm planning on getting out to this site a few more times this Fall, and with any luck should have some more finds to post.

I soaked the Canadian cent for a while and it turned out pretty decent. All the older copper coins I get from this site have this green patina, and it's a bit of a bear to remove. Anyone have any tricks to removing it without losing the aged look on the copper itself?

As for the shield nickel 140 years in the dirt made cleaning it a losing battle, so I'm just going to leave it be.

 

[Crispy Critter]

The cent turned out really nice. Still has alot of detail left in it.

 

[Critterhunter]

Very nice coin. I found what I think is called a Russian Copek once that's about the size of a large cent, but no Canadian large cents. Most people think only silver should be used in electralysis to clean it up, but I've found it works equally as well for copper and bronze coins. I converted a little wall transformer to do the job for me when I want to clean something. It's real useful for silver rings and such where you can't get in there to clean tight spots. Anyway, for large cents if they have heavy green crust built up on them I'll do this to them in salt water for say about ten minutes and it breaks that crud right off them. If there is still more to do then I'll change the water and go another 5 or 10 minutes. There's a fine line where too much can start to hurt the coin and nothing else is left to remove. Even after I clean copper or bronze coins this way I always throw them in an olive oil bath to soak for months. At least wipe some on the coil because it will seal it to stop further degradation and also bring out the details better. Mild crust build up on these coins can also be removed by olive oil, but it will take months. Since they've got nothing better to do I just leave all my copper and bronze coins soak in olive oil all the time.

For the nickle, I'm still working on best methods for that myself and would like to hear some tips. I've been told that if you stick it inside a potato over night the mild acid will clean it up nicely. Somebody just told me that I think vinager and salt in an aluminum pan will realy clean up nickles. My normal routine for them is to tumble them for a few hours in a very mild abbrasive meant for taking scratches out of glass, but I don't recommend this method because tumbling is hard on any coin. There must be better ways. Tips?

For my silver coins unless they are real bad with deep black spots on them, I just rub them between my fingers under running water with some baking soda used between my fingers. Works really well, and I can't see any introduced scratches on the coin by doing that, so long as you wash off any dirt first that might scratch it.