I just read Monte's post on how many silver dollars he has found. I started detecting in the mid 90's and I have never found a silver dollar. I found three silver halfs this year, but the dollar coin has eluded me. A couple of years back, I was hunting a park overlooking Lake Erie and an older gentleman stopped to BS with me about detecting. He had bought a detector from Sears in the 70's and he had used this detector in the park I was hunting. He told me he had found a cigar box full of silver coins dating from the late 1800's from this park. Iniatially, I thought he was bull %%%# me, but after reading Monte's post, I now believe what he said. I have hunted this park with many high end detectors and according to my records, I have found 26 silver coins here, but I have spent hundreds of hours and I have used the best coin detectors made to make those finds. I remember this fellow telling me that most of these coins were 2 to 4 inches deep. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to hunt some of these turn of the century parks in the heyday of detecting. I have said many time in recent years that most of the silver coins I find are masked by iron or modern trash. An unscientific opinion is that the easy finds were scooped up in the first few years of the 70's heyday. I have to work my tail off to find a silver coin a day. Also, my recent finds seem to indicate that if a good coin is not hiding in the trash, it is super deep. I guess that is why so much hype is placed on depth. I still love this hobby, but I feel like I missed the golden age of detecting. Since it is winter and us northerners are house bound, I would love to read about how it "use to be" from some of the people who have been at this for a long time. PS, I am bored and snowed in so I went through my yearly records and I found that I am 30 silver coins shy of 1000 silvers. I found my first silver coin in 1997 with a Garrett detector and I remember it like it was yesterday. Also, I have found over 6000 wheats. It still gets my blood pumping to see that glint of silver in the bottom of a hole. R.L.
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Early Days Of Detecting
- Thread starter RLOH
- Start date
All parks, All schools, All play fields
In the 70's Dimes, Quarters, Halves's, that had been lost in the 60's were all Silver. Sure you found some pennies newer variety and new dimes, and quarters. They were near the top. Wheats were a little deeper.
If it wasn't a Nickle, or penny it was Silver...Mostly Rosie's.
Barbers were harder to come by, mercs were pretty easy to find. Depth was a factor in the 70's..Most machines, or at least the ones I could afford didn't punch much more than about 4" in the ground.The Signal also drifted so you had to reset constantly.
Silver was in a lot of school yards too. Lots of it. Used to find 20 pieces a day around playground area, or baseball field area. As more people detected it became less frequent. Heck back in the hey day people thought you were weird if you used a metal detector.There wasn't a lot of detectorists around, but the ones that were traveled school, to school, park to park..and hunted all day.
Football fields were great around the perimeter too. In fact so was the football fields..Kids used to play in their regular pants..not like today's kids who have full football uniforms for a Saturday, or Sunday game. Lots of change was lost. We found plenty.
Corner lots that were empty were a great source for Silver, and other coins. Kids played in the lots in the 60's not in sanctioned fields or organized like it is today.
I expect a lot is still in the ground. Masked, too deep, what ever reason we can't find it today. Older Private homes have some.Not like you imagine, but some. Look around the larger trees. Lots of homes had swing boards strung from the bigger branches, or a tire tied to a rope. I found a lot of halves Walking Liberty variety in those areas. Still do if it's a private never hunted house. I will say this not all schools and not all parks had Silver..Mostly wheat cents were found everywhere though.
In some schools and parks you found little silver, in some of the poorer areas.Kids didn't have the money like todays kids so it wasn't lost. So it was good, in a lot of areas. In a lot of areas not so good. Was it better than today for Silver..Oh yea, a Hundred times better.
In the 70's Dimes, Quarters, Halves's, that had been lost in the 60's were all Silver. Sure you found some pennies newer variety and new dimes, and quarters. They were near the top. Wheats were a little deeper.
If it wasn't a Nickle, or penny it was Silver...Mostly Rosie's.
Barbers were harder to come by, mercs were pretty easy to find. Depth was a factor in the 70's..Most machines, or at least the ones I could afford didn't punch much more than about 4" in the ground.The Signal also drifted so you had to reset constantly.
Silver was in a lot of school yards too. Lots of it. Used to find 20 pieces a day around playground area, or baseball field area. As more people detected it became less frequent. Heck back in the hey day people thought you were weird if you used a metal detector.There wasn't a lot of detectorists around, but the ones that were traveled school, to school, park to park..and hunted all day.
Football fields were great around the perimeter too. In fact so was the football fields..Kids used to play in their regular pants..not like today's kids who have full football uniforms for a Saturday, or Sunday game. Lots of change was lost. We found plenty.
Corner lots that were empty were a great source for Silver, and other coins. Kids played in the lots in the 60's not in sanctioned fields or organized like it is today.
I expect a lot is still in the ground. Masked, too deep, what ever reason we can't find it today. Older Private homes have some.Not like you imagine, but some. Look around the larger trees. Lots of homes had swing boards strung from the bigger branches, or a tire tied to a rope. I found a lot of halves Walking Liberty variety in those areas. Still do if it's a private never hunted house. I will say this not all schools and not all parks had Silver..Mostly wheat cents were found everywhere though.
In some schools and parks you found little silver, in some of the poorer areas.Kids didn't have the money like todays kids so it wasn't lost. So it was good, in a lot of areas. In a lot of areas not so good. Was it better than today for Silver..Oh yea, a Hundred times better.
jackintexas
New member
I started detecting in 1978. Then it was not if you found older coins but who found the most.Mercs and Barbers were the most common older coin found.But you must also remember we hunted with lunch box type detectors. If it beeped we dug......Jack
R-n-R Magnolia SpringsAla
New member
Yep! From talking to older hunters this is all true! I've found alot of silver in housing developments that were big during the 50's.(dimes,qtrs) From using the old BFO/TR machines they love big targets. Also alot of CW shell hunting was done in the area I used to live read LARGE iron, Garrets ruled the fields, ADS 7 comes to mind, just because they could hit these large targets deep,(12 -17 inch dia. solid rusty iron) but they left alot of good buttons and bullets that the machines could not see. Silver dollars are actually smaller than CW belt plates, same thing lots were recovered.
Key nowdays is find a spot that has not been beat to death(good luck) or one that's so trashy nobody would hunt it or one that was overlooked in the mad silver rush of the 60's. So my suggestion is find a busy area from the 50's and hunt! So some research is involved , not just "re-searching" the same old spots with diminishing return. I hate research, I'll be honest, I just want to go dig and find cool stuff! Some of my past research yeilded new areas to hunt and I'll tell the truth, nothing hurts worse than digging a mountian dew can at 12 inches in your researched spot......CW hunters down south are a bit mean sometimes. All is not lost, there's still some treasure out there and I hope to get some of it this year! C'mon US Large Cent!!!!!!! that's my goal this year, never hit one yet!
Key nowdays is find a spot that has not been beat to death(good luck) or one that's so trashy nobody would hunt it or one that was overlooked in the mad silver rush of the 60's. So my suggestion is find a busy area from the 50's and hunt! So some research is involved , not just "re-searching" the same old spots with diminishing return. I hate research, I'll be honest, I just want to go dig and find cool stuff! Some of my past research yeilded new areas to hunt and I'll tell the truth, nothing hurts worse than digging a mountian dew can at 12 inches in your researched spot......CW hunters down south are a bit mean sometimes. All is not lost, there's still some treasure out there and I hope to get some of it this year! C'mon US Large Cent!!!!!!! that's my goal this year, never hit one yet!
I started detecting in 1972 and a bulging pocket of silver coins was fairly common after a Sat. afternoon outing up to and well into the 80's. By the 80's detectors were better and would go deeper, but there were also many more detectorists out and about. The 70's and 80's were the "hay day" year's for me for silver and I also found quite a bit of gold jewelry back then, probably due the the fact I was digging almost every signal. Perhaps because silver back then was so easy to find, I truly am enjoying the hobby far more today then I did back in those hay day year's. No, there have been few handfull of silver day's now for a good long time, but I am now more graitful for all silver I do find. Maybe, the true joy of the hobby is the challenge it presents for finding a silver coin today. The fact remains, though, there are silver bearing sites still out there. I stumbled onto one such site about three year's ago that I was told had been hunted hard in the late 80's and had seen steady hunting since. All in all, I have taken a bulging pocket of silver from the site, 207 silver coins to be exact, it just took me nearly three year's to do it. I fear the day's of digging more then a few silvers in an outing from most urban parks and school yards are now long gone. In your travels, though, do stay alert for these sites and any old fairgrounds in rural settings. Many have not yet seen the severe searching pressure as have those in bigger towns and cities. HH jim tn
R.L., I started in the mid 1970s, *just* when discriminators were starting to come out. We'd heard of them, that they existed, but in-the-field, you still only saw older TRs (and even a few BFOs were still being used in the mid 1970s). I was hunting with a 66TR, and my buddy who got me into this was using a 77b. Those are both all-metal TRs. By the late 1970s, we began to see VLF/TRs. And although the TR disc. on those only went about 4 or 5" deep, they offered a revolution to us, because ....... for the first time .... we could pass foil and tabs in the turf. I seem to recall that it was primarily mercs, roosies, and washington quarters. We didn't find barbers or seateds, but that was probably d/t the wimpy areas we were detecting (schools built in the 1920s to 40s). So I find older coins NOW than I did back in the early days. Our threshold of junk tolerance was pretty low, so we tended to gravitate towards the cleaner schools and parks. I kick myself for not thinking to hit virgin stage stops, urban demo's, old foundations, etc... But we were simply repelled if we found more than 3 or 4 piece of junk in a row. The TR discriminators had that effect, especially when silver was reaching 10x face. Good money for a high school kid at that time 
One thing I've seen, just based on the parks and schools we'd hit 30+ yrs., ago, verses those SAME parks and schools now, is that you're right: The average newbie guy just starting out right now, if he were to hunt HARD at these same parks, with the latest greatest deepest seeking machines, he'd be doing good just to eak out a few more silvers. If you were to tell them that silver was "easy" there at one time, it would be hard to believe. I know of parks right now that there'd be simply no way for anyone to get a silver coin from. But at one time, silver was just expected anytime we'd go. Right now they're just a blanket of clad, wino caps, foil, zinc pennies, etc....
The real revolution, at least as far as turf silver went, was in 1978-ish, when the first motion discriminators came out. For the TR discriminators, it seemed that 2 or 3 silvers was a good hunt at a school or park. But the first guys I saw swinging 6000d's (the first widely sold motion unit), could get 7 or 8 silvers at a time it seemed. Not only did they get an inch or two deeper than the TR disc, but they covered ground FAST, since they were fast motion sweeps
One thing I've seen, just based on the parks and schools we'd hit 30+ yrs., ago, verses those SAME parks and schools now, is that you're right: The average newbie guy just starting out right now, if he were to hunt HARD at these same parks, with the latest greatest deepest seeking machines, he'd be doing good just to eak out a few more silvers. If you were to tell them that silver was "easy" there at one time, it would be hard to believe. I know of parks right now that there'd be simply no way for anyone to get a silver coin from. But at one time, silver was just expected anytime we'd go. Right now they're just a blanket of clad, wino caps, foil, zinc pennies, etc....
The real revolution, at least as far as turf silver went, was in 1978-ish, when the first motion discriminators came out. For the TR discriminators, it seemed that 2 or 3 silvers was a good hunt at a school or park. But the first guys I saw swinging 6000d's (the first widely sold motion unit), could get 7 or 8 silvers at a time it seemed. Not only did they get an inch or two deeper than the TR disc, but they covered ground FAST, since they were fast motion sweeps
If you have 1000 silver's,you are doing pretty good my friend. You are right though, the easy layer of silver and old coin's have been pretty much gone for a long time. That make's the newer, deeper seeking machines a must, especially in the hard worked area's( not so much in a never hunted area). I started metal detecting in 1976 and I do miss those day's but they aren't coming back. I recently bought a Sov GT, for the deep seeking qualities this machine has to offer. Unfortunately it's winter and I haven't used it yet. One of the park's I hunted back in the 70's that gave up a couple dozen Barber dimes is on the top of my list for the GT. But don't dwell on what "was", you are doing very well with what you have found so far. I think research becomes even more important as the easy to get to common area's become even more picked over. I have found several area's that I am pretty positive have never seen a detector before. Finding a new area like this that could have the same potential as some of those area's from the 70's and will do wonder's for your confidence and you will also know what it felt like back then. Whatever you are doing you are apparently doing it right. Keep doing it and good luck Gary.
GRAY GHOST
New member
hello all, i clearly remember my earliest days of detecting around 1981 [not 1881] when i was 14, with a cheap radioshack model, then with an old sears model. i used to find pocketfuls of silver in just a couple of hours, most of it being from the 1920's and up. i did find a few older silvers, some barbers and some interesting old tokens and a bunch of jewelry. i saved most of it for a while, then sold all the coins i found up til about 10 years ago. it was easy to go out and get a good silver hit every other couple of swings. double a's were 49 cents for a pack of four. i detected for years without seeing anybody else with a machine in my area. most of us didn't use headphones back then either. it was a lot easier to get permission then than it is now. i got lots of funny looks from people who didn't know what a metal detector was and had never even heard of one!
we dug all the beeps back then. if it sounded good, you can bet i dug it up. competition was scarce, and i had entire towns to myself for a while! i've dug over 5,000 wheats too. i was a lot more discriminatory than my machine was, being young and dumb, threw away some "junky looking" old buttons, [big mistake] traded off a 1909s vdb cent in good 4 for a cheap bicycle, and spent all of my 1950's wheats. they were just so common to find. i remember getting 40 cents apiece for my common date silver quarters, 20 cents or so apiece for silver dimes, and 2 to 5 cents for older wheats! that was all a long time ago though. as coin prices and values really started to shoot up in the 1990's, i saved everything. i can recall the early nineties easily - all of a sudden, it seemed like everybody had a metal detector. driving by in my car, they would be detecting a spot i had hit years before, and i would grin to myself. sometimes i still do.
the old machines were a lot more limited on depth and discrimination and would act really crazy near any powerlines. like so many other hobbies, metal detecting has seen it's share of boom and bust times. i know lots of people who bought new machines and only took them out once or twice! all this new technology is gonna save us, though. it's gonna take deeper seeking and discrimination capabilities to coax the older and deeper silvers and coppers and jewelry from the ground. i remember my old days well, and wish now i would have saved all the coinage and jewelry and old "junky looking" buttons i'd found back then. everything was so much easier back then. great topic, and thanks for reading. hh,
we dug all the beeps back then. if it sounded good, you can bet i dug it up. competition was scarce, and i had entire towns to myself for a while! i've dug over 5,000 wheats too. i was a lot more discriminatory than my machine was, being young and dumb, threw away some "junky looking" old buttons, [big mistake] traded off a 1909s vdb cent in good 4 for a cheap bicycle, and spent all of my 1950's wheats. they were just so common to find. i remember getting 40 cents apiece for my common date silver quarters, 20 cents or so apiece for silver dimes, and 2 to 5 cents for older wheats! that was all a long time ago though. as coin prices and values really started to shoot up in the 1990's, i saved everything. i can recall the early nineties easily - all of a sudden, it seemed like everybody had a metal detector. driving by in my car, they would be detecting a spot i had hit years before, and i would grin to myself. sometimes i still do.
the old machines were a lot more limited on depth and discrimination and would act really crazy near any powerlines. like so many other hobbies, metal detecting has seen it's share of boom and bust times. i know lots of people who bought new machines and only took them out once or twice! all this new technology is gonna save us, though. it's gonna take deeper seeking and discrimination capabilities to coax the older and deeper silvers and coppers and jewelry from the ground. i remember my old days well, and wish now i would have saved all the coinage and jewelry and old "junky looking" buttons i'd found back then. everything was so much easier back then. great topic, and thanks for reading. hh,
I still love this hobby, but I feel like I missed the golden age of detecting.
Sadly, you did. So did I.
I moan each time I hear all these stories about "how good it used to be."
I still think there are good things to be found, but they are not in the common areas much anymore. I reckon if I can see it, it was detected long before I came around.
Tis a good thing I just like to occupy my hands and mind with the hobby. If I was in it for the piles of silver, I'd be out a long time ago.
Sadly, you did. So did I.
I moan each time I hear all these stories about "how good it used to be."
I still think there are good things to be found, but they are not in the common areas much anymore. I reckon if I can see it, it was detected long before I came around.
Tis a good thing I just like to occupy my hands and mind with the hobby. If I was in it for the piles of silver, I'd be out a long time ago.
Summer of 1960,I got a 14.95 BFO metal detector, that beat off a radio station.Found several coins around the old house I lived in. It was a peddlers stop on the way to markets in the horse drawn era..Went across the street to a school and started digging..Quit when the battery went dead, around midnight.Had over twenty dollars worth of silver coins mostly quarters and halves.I brought home $142.70 every two weeks...I don't remember what the first silver was.But, to find twenty dollars worth of coin for free was a major event..You could go to a friends house in Seaside Heights, get up in the dark and sift coins under the boardwalk, and make $14 to 18 .00.in two or three hours...The silver coin era is over in the majority of places. Still more out there to be found than you could imagine...Large cent? Keep on concentrating.Last one I found was XF pitted from the 40's, and I gave it to the guy who bought my 1266xb as a target...You have to get those detectors knowing what to look for ,.Put one down, get that detector tuned in,, close your eyes and let the detector hunt it.Think I am crazy? Of course I am,but I got the gold coin, and diamond ring I wanted to find..My hunting season was September 1 into November for a total of about 40 hours.What are the odds?..The people I see doing things may be blending with their detector..An entirely different and interesting concept..You can do it with your car, why not a detector??.....cordially Nad
I been at it for over 25 years - back around 85-86 I hit up on a nice hot spot that gave up some very nice silver. I was at the spot hard and heavy for months. The spot got me going like never before, I even ordered me a new detector because I was stoked. That's when I got my first machine with ID, it was the Whites 6000 Di Pro and the meter was like nothing I swung before. That meter was big. I still go there once in awhile for using a new machines etc., and kind of for old times, and once in awhile I'll still get silver I missed before. Always watching when the terrain changes from storms. Found a few silver dollars in there my first couple years, and have found a silver dollar in only one other spot, and that's it as far as dollars. But the old spot gave up lots of silver quarters and dimes, and of course many wheat. Haven't found and gold coin yet. Last year I hit it when a tree got uprooted and was using a new machine. Got some wheat but it I also got almost a hand full of buffs, something I never done before. It was just strange. Sure I have pulled a number of buffs in past years but all a sudden a good number of them in one hunt in one small area - don't make sense to me. Instead of everything scattered evenly, one area was the spot for the quarters and another for dimes. Then the halves and dollars came only from the back area. Only history I can find (or found so far) is there was an old dirt wagon trail once, then a historical route, ran a few hundred yards from my spot. Don't know what was actually at this spot though, but was my big hot spot for some time. I only have taken my wife and son to my old spot. It's like an old hunting/fishing spot to me. I'll hit it a couple times this winter-spring, then do the same the following year. I hike a little and stay hidden in there, always feared another would come along with a detector.
Other areas pulled silver on a more like every hunt basis. Was like common back in them days. Man those were the days - I miss them. Just ain't the same anymore.
Other areas pulled silver on a more like every hunt basis. Was like common back in them days. Man those were the days - I miss them. Just ain't the same anymore.
GRAY GHOST
New member
]hello again, all. great post and responses! yes, the golden age of detecting may be gone, but it's like an old hunting partner told me - " you gotta be smarter than the machine!" in the face of changing times, and consequently the amount of the good stuff we find, i've developed some "reactionary tactics" if i could call it that. allow me to divulge some of my tried and true tactics. i dislike doing research too. it often leads to dead ends or pounded out areas. i compensate for my lack of doing research by putting my coil to the ground anywhere and everywhere i can. the truth and history of the area will eventually reveal itself to me through the finds i make. i always go to a new spot with a clear mind and no expectations of finding anything at all. i learned long ago that high expectations and too much excitement would somehow drain me mentally and physically, and would take away from my halfway sharp senses, and take away from the hunt. some of the greatest finds ever made in our hobby have been made in some of the most unexpected of places. i just heard about a feller who found a jar of ww2 era silver in the middle of an old farm field not far from my house. in the middle of an old farm field?!! yep! congratulations, whoever you are.
i've noticed that even many of the older hunters i know will revisit their old grounds, but search it in exactly the same way they did many times before - in straight lines, back and forth. how about trying to sweep that old hunting ground at a 45 degree angle? how about hitting that small cluster of bushes i've been avoiding 'cause it has a briar bush in the middle of it? i'm also surprised at the number of people who go back and detect their old grounds with the same machine time and again. steep or halfway steep banks are avoided a lot too. how about going out a little further out than what you've done before? push the boundaries. you can well bet that anywhere a man or woman has walked, they've lost something. i'm also one of the guilty ones who went years avoiding digging the low signals. i sometimes try to think and guess about all the targets i DIDN'T dig, so, in the absence of making the finds that i used to, i tend to dig a lot more beeps nowadays. who knows what i missed in the past? i could've missed out on some gold pieces for all i know. man....
changing times and the amount and quality of finds we make in our hobby today almost dictate that we have to change the way we think and do our hobby. i've always felt that i have to go with change, or eventually be consumed by it. it's no longer just about walking and swinging my coil in a straight line and digging the good sounding beeps. i believe too many are dependent on their id screens - if the signal sounds good, we should dig it up, right? isn't that what this is all about - digging the good beeps that come through our headphones? technology hasn't advanced to the point that even the best metal detectors can tell you with 100% certainty exactly what your target is, and probably never will. i bought a map book of the county i live in and highlight the areas i've been to. it's proved helpful. googlebooks is a great resource. so, don't be afraid to use a little imagination - it can really pay off. i'm not deterred at all by fewer silver or gold finds. it just means i've got to work the ol' brain and machine a little harder. and i will do that. i gotta be smarter than the machine.
yes, i remember my old days well. i've evolved with the hobby, seeing it as a crucial thing to do. there may not be as much out there as there used to be, but i remain confident of future successes for myself and everybody else. i hope some of this post can be used by others, and perhaps open up some new avenues or open up some previously closed doors. i thank you all for reading, my two cents worth only, and hh!
i've noticed that even many of the older hunters i know will revisit their old grounds, but search it in exactly the same way they did many times before - in straight lines, back and forth. how about trying to sweep that old hunting ground at a 45 degree angle? how about hitting that small cluster of bushes i've been avoiding 'cause it has a briar bush in the middle of it? i'm also surprised at the number of people who go back and detect their old grounds with the same machine time and again. steep or halfway steep banks are avoided a lot too. how about going out a little further out than what you've done before? push the boundaries. you can well bet that anywhere a man or woman has walked, they've lost something. i'm also one of the guilty ones who went years avoiding digging the low signals. i sometimes try to think and guess about all the targets i DIDN'T dig, so, in the absence of making the finds that i used to, i tend to dig a lot more beeps nowadays. who knows what i missed in the past? i could've missed out on some gold pieces for all i know. man....
changing times and the amount and quality of finds we make in our hobby today almost dictate that we have to change the way we think and do our hobby. i've always felt that i have to go with change, or eventually be consumed by it. it's no longer just about walking and swinging my coil in a straight line and digging the good sounding beeps. i believe too many are dependent on their id screens - if the signal sounds good, we should dig it up, right? isn't that what this is all about - digging the good beeps that come through our headphones? technology hasn't advanced to the point that even the best metal detectors can tell you with 100% certainty exactly what your target is, and probably never will. i bought a map book of the county i live in and highlight the areas i've been to. it's proved helpful. googlebooks is a great resource. so, don't be afraid to use a little imagination - it can really pay off. i'm not deterred at all by fewer silver or gold finds. it just means i've got to work the ol' brain and machine a little harder. and i will do that. i gotta be smarter than the machine.
yes, i remember my old days well. i've evolved with the hobby, seeing it as a crucial thing to do. there may not be as much out there as there used to be, but i remain confident of future successes for myself and everybody else. i hope some of this post can be used by others, and perhaps open up some new avenues or open up some previously closed doors. i thank you all for reading, my two cents worth only, and hh!
That this is a hobby. Pursue it as such.
Enjoy it. Take it easy and take off the pressure to produce.
Just having something you can afford to do that occupies your mind and your hands is more than many have... and more than some may soon be able to indulge in.
If you find something worth keeping in the meantime, so much the better.
Enjoy it. Take it easy and take off the pressure to produce.
Just having something you can afford to do that occupies your mind and your hands is more than many have... and more than some may soon be able to indulge in.
If you find something worth keeping in the meantime, so much the better.
in mind is that no site is ever truly hunted out. I know this to be fact. My approach, though, for hunting these old and hunted hard sites is to seek out the trashiest area's on the site and diligently work this area. I know that not all hunters are willing to contend with trash and also that not all detectors perform well in trash, either. I also hunt those hard to get to places, under bushes, ditch banks, old driveways where digging can be extreemly tough, and whenever possible, I broaden my search area out past the more heavily trodden spots of the site. Not to many year's ago I was hunting an old fairgrounds nearby where my wife and I were vacationing up in Minnesota. I had hunted the old grounds a goodly number of times while vacationing in the area over previous year's, with very nice success, but had been passing up an area at the very back end of the site do to it always being over grown with about 2' tall, thick prairie grass. Having my small coil along, I decided to give that area a shot and see if I could push the small coil down through the grass. Apparently no one else had hunted it either, as over the next couple of outings I managed to recover 13 silver coins, 4 IH's and 4 Buffalo nickels. Two of the silvers were Walking Lady halves. I keep hoping to find it mowed one of these summers while up there. Although the days of big numbers of silver coins per outing are gone for most of us, as the norm, but there is still plenty of silver out there if one is willing to go the extra step to get it. HH jim tn
Dave, just being out swinging a detector is therapeutic to me. I did not want to come across as a "meathunter" type of detectorist. I hunt some of the most scenic parks in my neck of the woods and to me just being there makes my day. Finding coins and jewelery is "icing on the cake." I retired in late 2007 and I hunt every day, weather permitting. I just hope my health holds out so I can continue this great hobby. HH R.L.