1902 Barber DIme...and two valuable lessons learned!

[Neil in West Jersey]

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I finally got my Garrett back after needing a new coil connector & a good tune up. I only had an hour of daylight yesterday to give it a test run, so I went to a turn-of-the-century park that I knew to produce a lot of trash, but also many old coins in the past. It is a very well hunted site, so I was not expecting anything other than clad & "Lincs". I searched along the main walking area, knowing full well this area was the most hunted, but also the most likely place for coins to get lost. I was only trying to test the unit out for response. For a while I dug only a badly chewed up Wheaties and many cans, and finally came up with this sad looking Barber. It is only my second Barber dime ever. My first was less than 2 weeks ago.


Lesson one: Dig all of the "iffy" signals. The Barber rang like a badly oxidized zinc or a bottle cap at 2 inches. It was a broken sounding tone, but somewhat consistant. It was getting dark and I almost made the decision not to dig. I figured any coin at 2 inches had to sound nice and smooth. Luckily I trusted my instinct and on the side of the hole was the coin almost perfectly on edge. I plan to get back there this weekend with my sniper coil to look between all of the trash.

Lesson 2: Don't let onlookers check out your finds too closely. A man asked to see what I had found, so I showed him the dime, which was covered in cement like sand. The man proceeded to rub off the sand with his thumb!!!. I was still not sure if this was a hard-to-find "S" mintmark, so I nearly had a heart attack!!. He made up for his mistake by telling me where some old foundations from the old bath house and an ice house are. Hopefully I will have time this weekend to check them out.

I found this bottle in a bulldozed heap next to a 200 year old house that hasn't produced any coin over 75 years old.
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[Uncle Willy]

When you get those iffy signals do the "twitch" over them and they'll usually generate a regular signal, especially corroded dimes.

Bill

 

[DavHut]

Ahhh the "twitch," my favorite!
I was doing it today, in fact.

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

[quote Uncle Willy]When you get those iffy signals do the "twitch" over them and they'll usually generate a regular signal, especially corroded dimes.

Bill[/quote]

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

n/t

 

[DavHut]

The "twitch" is really just a sharply abbreviated swing. It allows you to narrow the fairly wide sweep response area and figure out whether its a good target or not - at least coin sized or not.

What happens is when you get a signal, you "twitch the coil" back and forth over the suspected target as you draw the coil rearward, towards you.

This centers it and normally it will drop off just as the tip of the inner coil loop passes over it - so youve pinpointed it just in front of the inner loop tip, narrowed the response and processed the signal to determine if it's good enough to dig on - all in one fell swoop!
(Most people put a bright green dot, sticker, bit of nailpolish or whatever at the tip of the inner loop to assist with this. Here's how it looks on my Ace 250[attachment 37174 acecoilmark2.JPG]

I call this "Mindseye Pinpointing" and have patented the procedure. I dont use the actual pinpoint function but about 10% of the time, thanks to this method. Give it a try...you'll like it

Oh, the Joys of Technology - thanks Charles Garrett.

 

[Uncle Willy]

The Explorer boys call it "wiggling" butr I call it "twitching." When you get an iffy signal twitch your coil over the target - short rapid strokes side to side. If it's good it will belltone then you can pinpoint it and dig it up.

Bill