GKMan
Well-known member
A friend of our family owns an 1824 farm house and 58 acres of land across the street from there that was the site of a mill in the early and mid 1800's. Unfortunately almost all of those acres was gravel mined sometime mid last century and so the terrain looks nothing like it used to. Yesterday though I was lucky enough to find one little area that was left untouched.
I had been slogging back and forth across this property looking for anything that indicated the touch of human hands from long ago, however other than the piles of stone that had been left behind during the gravel operation there was nothing that said old to me. The terrain, coupled with digging up ten inch deep soda cans that had been buried by years of springtime floods from the the nearby stream was discouraging.
In the 150 years since the mill operation the stream had went from being split into two separate flows with an island in the middle to a murky side stream that barely moved and the rest of the water traveling swiftly along the far edge of the property. This murky side stream was once powerful enough to run the mill, however I imagine during the gravel operation it had been partially filled in and for the most part it is cut off from the main stream.
Since I wasn't having any luck, I decided to work my way back towards the farmhouse and try along the road opposite the farm house since in the past I have had luck detecting in areas like this and I hoped that luck would be on my side once again.
The edge of this roadway is a steep slope down to the murky stream below and I was kicking can after can out of my way along with hub caps, and parts of car molding from the many accidents that have occurred in this area. [attachment 251362 road.JPG]Finally after criss crossing this slope I got a nice tone that was not overloading the detector due to it's size and was not being picked up by the detector when I lifted the coil off the ground about eight inches or so to test for a can or other large undesirable objects. I wish it was a more dramatic recovery but after a couple scoops of soil where removed, out popped a large cent?... Hmm OK, I am thinking it looks like a large cent, but what is this shield is see on it? Is it a token of some sort? I brushed away some of the soil and could read pluribus. So like I frequently do I whip out the phone and do a google image search for coin copper shield pluribus and voila there it is , a 1787 NJ Nova Cesarea copper. Yay!
[attachment 251363 nova.JPG]
After that I headed back to the car for lunch and then headed back out. I am thinking well. It can't get better than this... And it wouldn't, but, It got pretty good. I went back to the one area I thought looked promising and undisturbed by the gravel mining and quickly recovered what turned out to be an 1848 large cent, nice
[attachment 251364 largecent.JPG]
. So, what else can be in this area? I detect along for another couple feet and get another good albeit wide signal, and so I am thinking more surface trash from the road above. However, when I kick back the leaves there is a 1956 quarter lying on top of the ground, cool!
[attachment 251366 atop.JPG]
I scan the area again and get more good signals, there again at the surface was another silver coin, this one a silver roosevelt dime, finally I check again and there is one more good tone, and it ended up being another quarter but 1941. Wow, a silver pocket spill.
[attachment 251365 silver.JPG] I keep on detecting and loop back around towards the edge of where I got the silvers and hear another good tone, kick back the leaves and there is a 1945 half dollar!
What a great day it was. The rest of the hunt was uneventful, after I scoured that area looking for any more silver or old copper but there is still some more land to cover in that area and hopefully something will be found
The landowner was excited by all my finds and is excited to have me back soon to do a thorough search of yard around his house. I can't wait to see what I find.
Happy Hunting
I had been slogging back and forth across this property looking for anything that indicated the touch of human hands from long ago, however other than the piles of stone that had been left behind during the gravel operation there was nothing that said old to me. The terrain, coupled with digging up ten inch deep soda cans that had been buried by years of springtime floods from the the nearby stream was discouraging.
In the 150 years since the mill operation the stream had went from being split into two separate flows with an island in the middle to a murky side stream that barely moved and the rest of the water traveling swiftly along the far edge of the property. This murky side stream was once powerful enough to run the mill, however I imagine during the gravel operation it had been partially filled in and for the most part it is cut off from the main stream.
Since I wasn't having any luck, I decided to work my way back towards the farmhouse and try along the road opposite the farm house since in the past I have had luck detecting in areas like this and I hoped that luck would be on my side once again.
The edge of this roadway is a steep slope down to the murky stream below and I was kicking can after can out of my way along with hub caps, and parts of car molding from the many accidents that have occurred in this area. [attachment 251362 road.JPG]Finally after criss crossing this slope I got a nice tone that was not overloading the detector due to it's size and was not being picked up by the detector when I lifted the coil off the ground about eight inches or so to test for a can or other large undesirable objects. I wish it was a more dramatic recovery but after a couple scoops of soil where removed, out popped a large cent?... Hmm OK, I am thinking it looks like a large cent, but what is this shield is see on it? Is it a token of some sort? I brushed away some of the soil and could read pluribus. So like I frequently do I whip out the phone and do a google image search for coin copper shield pluribus and voila there it is , a 1787 NJ Nova Cesarea copper. Yay!
[attachment 251363 nova.JPG]
After that I headed back to the car for lunch and then headed back out. I am thinking well. It can't get better than this... And it wouldn't, but, It got pretty good. I went back to the one area I thought looked promising and undisturbed by the gravel mining and quickly recovered what turned out to be an 1848 large cent, nice
[attachment 251364 largecent.JPG]
. So, what else can be in this area? I detect along for another couple feet and get another good albeit wide signal, and so I am thinking more surface trash from the road above. However, when I kick back the leaves there is a 1956 quarter lying on top of the ground, cool!
[attachment 251366 atop.JPG]
I scan the area again and get more good signals, there again at the surface was another silver coin, this one a silver roosevelt dime, finally I check again and there is one more good tone, and it ended up being another quarter but 1941. Wow, a silver pocket spill.
[attachment 251365 silver.JPG] I keep on detecting and loop back around towards the edge of where I got the silvers and hear another good tone, kick back the leaves and there is a 1945 half dollar!
What a great day it was. The rest of the hunt was uneventful, after I scoured that area looking for any more silver or old copper but there is still some more land to cover in that area and hopefully something will be found
The landowner was excited by all my finds and is excited to have me back soon to do a thorough search of yard around his house. I can't wait to see what I find.
Happy Hunting
