double shot of silver & Breakfast with a hawk

[JimmyCT]

This morning, as I sat in my car drinking my morning beverage (at my hunt site) I looked up into the woods (approx 25 feet in near a brook) and see this beautiful Red-tailed hawk having breakfast. I could not identify the hawk's victim but it was black and approx the size of a house cat. Whatever it was, the hawk found it to be very tasty.




After about 20 minutes of wild kingdom action, the bird became scared and flew off. I then exited my car and headed towards a new spot (for me with the Sovereign GT) in the well beaten park. My first good signal of the morning (180 one direction / 176 in the other) I start digging... down about 3 inches I pull out a wheat cent stuck to a mercury dime. Wow! I thought.... I then scanned the hole a second time and another 180 signal, so I dig some more and out came another mercury dime! I scanned the hole for a third and another nice signal, so I dig again and out comes another wheat! Wow, I thought this is fantastic....keep it coming lol. I then scanned the hole for the fourth time and wow! another nice signal. Out comes a set of keys! Scanning the hole for a fifth and final time - it became quiet. This was a nice surprise to start the morning.

I then went on to find some clad, junk (as you can see) and right before leaving,I looked up and saw the little bank alongside the park road. Although it has been hit a gazillion times Something told me to take a few minutes to hit it up. Being there for about 10 minutes, I dug a few clad coins and then a nice solid 143 / mid-tone hmmm I am thinking, ring? Nickel? Pulltab? but not a 1907 V-Nickel! How in the world did this baby escape the hundreds of detectors that hammered this little area? This is the park that people laugh at me for detecting. The nickel was down about two inches, 10 feet from the park road. Wow, this is the first V-nickel for me out of this park. I am just totally shocked that this baby was missed. I then went on to find a 1927 wheat about a foot off the roadside.

Thanks for looking - Jim

 

[fwcrawford]

Man Jim,
You are on quite the roll with finding the mercury dimes lately!!
It is amazing how you are going to these "hunted out" sites and still pulling good old coins, but I shouldn't be
all that surprised since I experienced the same thing with my Sovereign.
Still, it is amazing that this detector can do this with some experience.
This is the exact reason for me buying one.. to try the supposedly hunted out sites since I have not been
trying many new sites lately.
These detectors make old sites like new again!!!
Keep up the great finds,
Felix

 

[JimmyCT]

Hi Felix,

Yes, it seems like silver dimes (mercury and roosevelt ) are popping for the GT. I am totally convinced (after these last few months of finds) that Minelab made a detector that I can bring back to all my old sites and definitely make them new. I went back to this same park this evening with my brother and found a bunch more clad and a 1951 One-way roosevelt dime. Even my brother is amazed at the stuff I am finding. So amazed, he is now talking about upgrading to a Minelab. He can't believe how I can "hover over" a target,barely move the coil and pinpoint. I am amazed how many coins are lying in with other metals and how the Sovereign can still pick the coins out. The Sovereign is a truly nice piece of detecting equipment. All that I can say, " I am very happy that I purchased a Minelab Sovereign GT"

 

[GunnarMN]

mcroford and jim I can add nothing to what you have said , its so true, and jim both you and the hawk are much alike you both swoop down on the pray and get it .

 

[Rick(ND)]

As I have said many time the Sovereign will impress you and other at what it can do once you get to know it and feel it is going to even get better for you as it sounds like you are getting to know the language better every time out with it.

Good Luck and I expect to see some more great finds found by you and your GT.

Rick

 

[Rick(ND)]

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[JimmyCT]

lol I suppose that is one way of looking at it.

Thanks to minelab technology and (me ) devoting time to find what is left in these parks.

mcroford and jim I can add nothing to what you have said , its so true, and jim both you and the hawk are much alike you both swoop down on the pray and get it .

 

[JimmyCT]

Hi Felix,

According to some, "it is just a lonely mercury dime, or another v-nickel" See what they don't understand is, these parks I hunt have been left for dead. And 99.8% of people think just that. I have only seen one other person at these parks with a detector. ( besides my bro) So he too must know there is something left. Everyone else believes there is NOTHING Left. I can't emphasize enough how hard these parks have been mowed over with detectors. Even the parks dept give me a little " you are not going to find anything here" grin. That is A OK with me! That means MORE for me. So it is amazing when silver, an IH cent or V-nickel pops out in front of me. I am doing my best in going back to these places and seeing what the GT can do for me. So far, I am highly impressed!


On the other side of town, where the groundskeeper tells me there is nothing there. I laugh inside knowing that I had coins in my pocket that were IH cents, wheats and silver. Not a whole lot in quantity, but it still tells me this park is a producer and I feel there is more to come.

The beauty of this is that the parks in my town are all within a 10-15 minute reach. I don't have to travel and use a lot of gas for my vehicle, I am close to home, and can concentrate more with my coil on the ground then driving circles all over looking for places to hunt. In all reality, when I bought this detector, it certainly made all these parks new for me as you and others are witnessing. Am I finding caches of silver coins? No. (although it would be nice )But one by one, me and my GT are sniffing out the goodies!

- Jim

Man Jim,
You are on quite the roll with finding the mercury dimes lately!!
It is amazing how you are going to these "hunted out" sites and still pulling good old coins, but I shouldn't be
all that surprised since I experienced the same thing with my Sovereign.
Still, it is amazing that this detector can do this with some experience.
This is the exact reason for me buying one.. to try the supposedly hunted out sites since I have not been
trying many new sites lately.
These detectors make old sites like new again!!!
Keep up the great finds,
Felix

 

[Critterhunter]

Great job. Yep, the GT gives you the feeling of an old spot being new again. I feel the 12x10 coil adds even more of this feeling for me because I'm convinced it's getter a bit deeper and unmasking targets a bit better than the stock coil. The GT has even pulled me easy silver out of small spots that I had gridded the tar out of with my prior Explorers. I'm convinced that, at least for me, the GT is deeper and does a better job of unmasking coins than my Explorers ever did. I think FBS machines with their extra frequencies and higher ones don't do well in my medium to high mineral soils. Maybe they are reflecting off the ground matrix. All I know is the GT is the deepest machine I've ever owned.

 

[fwcrawford]

Jim,
I understand exactly what you are talking about.
The old park I started hunting last year has been hit hard in past years and I am sure that my buddy and I are the first to search there in many years.
Actually, I figured that it was hunted out too, but due to the age of the park and the reputation of the Sovereigns ability to find targets that others have missed, I thought that this would be a good testing ground for this detector.
Now keep in mind that I had only had this detector less than a year and didn't have a lot of time in with it either, but by doing research on the setup and what to listen for, I at least had the fundementals down and figured that would at least help me get started in the learning process.
Now I started finding old coins the first trip there and found old coins everytime I went there up to the last day I searched it before stopping due to the green up during Spring and not wanting to keep digging and disturbing the ground.
During that time I found 100 wheat pennies which is a good sign as far as I am concerned, I believe 5 or 6 silver coins, several IH cents dating back to the late 1800's, a V nickel and a buffalo nickel in the same hole, some old buttons and tokens.
Now I was impressed with this detector early on, but after these results, I started understanding why so many folks raved about them!!
When I found those two barber dimes a few months ago mixed in with the nails, I was really impressed since this site had been searched many times with more different kinds of detectors than I can count and still these two coins eluded them all except the Sovereign which found them with no problem and gave a very good signal and ID dispite the nails surrounding the coins.
I might not find everything at each site that I search with the Sovereign, but I can guarantee that I will find nice targets that others have missed before me and like you stated in your post wonder how these targets are still here as some are not even deep!!
If you are finding coins on a regular basis in these supposedly hunted out sites, then you are going to be busy for a long time before things slow down based on what I am seeing at my sweet spot.. I can't wait until it cools down so I can get back in the old park and do some more digging.
I remember Rick(ND) stating in a post a while back that he prefers areas that have been hunted hard before due to the fact that all the surface coins and trash have been removed and that allows him to concentrate on the deeper weaker signals and that is what helped me at my location.
Good luck and keep it up,
Felix

 

[JimmyCT]

Wow and all this came out of a place that not too many hunt anymore because they think it is hunted out lol WOW your finds are fantastic and impressive. once again the GT made it "new" again. That means more for you out of that "hunted out" park. I am looking forward to your posts / goodies in the months to come. - Jim





Now I started finding old coins the first trip there and found old coins everytime I went there up to the last day I searched it before stopping due to the green up during Spring and not wanting to keep digging and disturbing the ground.
During that time I found 100 wheat pennies which is a good sign as far as I am concerned, I believe 5 or 6 silver coins, several IH cents dating back to the late 1800's, a V nickel and a buffalo nickel in the same hole, some old buttons and tokens.
Now I was impressed with this detector early on, but after these results, I started understanding why so many folks raved about them!!
When I found those two barber dimes a few months ago mixed in with the nails, I was really impressed since this site had been searched many times with more different kinds of detectors than I can count and still these two coins eluded them all except the Sovereign which found them with no problem and gave a very good signal and ID dispite the nails surrounding the coins.

 

[JimmyCT]

Hey Critter,
Good to hear from you. So you feel the 12x10 SEF coil does a better job at un-masking coins? That is very interesting to me to know that coins can be revealed much better then the stock coil. This is my first Minelab detector and I am highly satisfied with what it is doing for me. What I really enjoy is running over a target that sounds like a dog barking, only to keep scanning over it and to have the target climb right out out in numerical ID and in audio. I find the machine amazing that it can do this, IF the person gives it time over the target. HH - Jim

Great job. Yep, the GT gives you the feeling of an old spot being new again. I feel the 12x10 coil adds even more of this feeling for me because I'm convinced it's getter a bit deeper and unmasking targets a bit better than the stock coil. The GT has even pulled me easy silver out of small spots that I had gridded the tar out of with my prior Explorers. I'm convinced that, at least for me, the GT is deeper and does a better job of unmasking coins than my Explorers ever did. I think FBS machines with their extra frequencies and higher ones don't do well in my medium to high mineral soils. Maybe they are reflecting off the ground matrix. All I know is the GT is the deepest machine I've ever owned.

 

[Critterhunter]

The GT and stock coil is excellent at unmasking coins or finding them on edge. It's a way better stock coil than the several 10" versions that came and went on the Explorer IMO. The 10" Explorer coils didn't seperate as well or pinpoint as good for me. Yes, I do feel the 12x10 is an improvement in all aspects over the stock coil. Separation, PPing, stability, etc. Also, when I compared both coils the stock coil couldn't hit on a buried dime while with the same exact sensitivity setting the 12x10 could. I feel this coil gets a good bit deeper than stock. Also, the GT and stock coil is good at hitting coins on edge, but once again I feel the 12x10 is better at it.

 

[JimmyCT]

Thanks for the information Critter. Now you have me thinking.....hmmm decisions decisions lol

The GT and stock coil is excellent at unmasking coins or finding them on edge. It's a way better stock coil than the several 10" versions that came and went on the Explorer IMO. The 10" Explorer coils didn't seperate as well or pinpoint as good for me. Yes, I do feel the 12x10 is an improvement in all aspects over the stock coil. Separation, PPing, stability, etc. Also, when I compared both coils the stock coil couldn't hit on a buried dime while with the same exact sensitivity setting the 12x10 could. I feel this coil gets a good bit deeper than stock. Also, the GT and stock coil is good at hitting coins on edge, but once again I feel the 12x10 is better at it.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Jim,nice hunt and photos.The Sovereign has served me well in worked out areas.I have a seeded hunt coming up soon near New Concord Ohio next week my choice of weapon my Sovereign XS-2 with a Tornado 8 inch coil.We will see how well the Sovereign will work in this environment.The Ohio hunt has Saturday and Sunday hunts I'm signed in for Saturday's hunt and even signed up for the big Silver seeded search which includes Silver dollars.Again Jim ,nice results,which requires both a great detector and hunter.HH Ron

 

[JimmyCT]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the compliments. May I ask why you chose the XS-2 as your weaponry for the seeded hunt? Just curious that is all. I don't believe I would even bring the GT to a seeded hunt. I would want a detector that is quick responding and can zip right along. Wow hunting for silver dollars now that is going to be a blast! Never been to a seeded hunt but it sounds like a lot of fun! I hope you win some great prizes. Best of luck! - Jim

Jim,nice hunt and photos.The Sovereign has served me well in worked out areas.I have a seeded hunt coming up soon near New Concord Ohio next week my choice of weapon my Sovereign XS-2 with a Tornado 8 inch coil.We will see how well the Sovereign will work in this environment.The Ohio hunt has Saturday and Sunday hunts I'm signed in for Saturday's hunt and even signed up for the big Silver seeded search which includes Silver dollars.Again Jim ,nice results,which requires both a great detector and hunter.HH Ron

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Jim,I think the Sovereign should do well with the 800 coil.I'm bringing a Cibola for a backup.After the hunt sink or swim I'll do a short post and let you know how the Sovereign works.Wish I kept my 1236X-2.Thanks Ron

 

[TwoRivers]

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