Finding deep silver in an iron minefield

[ironsight]

Pushed 70 degrees today, so i took the eTRAC out of winter mothballs, charged the batteries and got all my ducks in a row for the first detecting session of the year. Only had a couple hours to detect...so!

Decided to try a local 'hunted out' turn of the Century park where i found so far 51 silver coins many Barber dimes and quarters, Indians and a few silver rings.
This park has had carnivals, holiday festivals and even regional league baseball games back in the day. Which means tons of trash including a gigantic number of pull tabs and dense deep iron - nails, bolts and screws to be exact.
According to a city worker, the park has also been filled in and sodded over a few decades ago which means any remaining oldies are deep. The dense iron and deep coins is probably why all that silver hadn't been harvested. Seen many detectorists out there too.

Setup: NEL Tornado coil, open screen, MTF, man. sens. 27, deep off, recovery on, trash on.

Found many deep silver coins in dense iron using the following method.
Got an iffy reading where the conduct occassionally hit 47 with ferrous wildly bouncing sometimes from the low 30's to 1 but only in one tight area. Since the NEL Tornado is a larger coil, conventional pinpointing wouldn't work.

So i micro wiggle sweeped around the perimeter of that iffy area and got a couple solid ferrous readings, one a few inches away and the other 4 or 5 inches away. Isolated one of those solid ferrous targets using micro wiggle sweeps and noted its depth reading. Same with the other ferrous target. Then wiggle pinpointed around the iffy target and its depth was a lot different than both of those nearby ferrous targets. Dug and out popped a worn no-date SLQ around 10 to 11 inches deep.

The wheat was a little more straight forward but with an iffy reading but still had to wiggle pinpoint it. It was 11 to 12 inches deep. The nearest iron was about 5 to 6 inches away again with a different depth reading.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o273/moparado/3_31_zpsc6687fdb.jpg

 

[DocBars]

Nice job,pulling a deep one out. Most folks think every coin out there is only 5 or 6 inches deep. Until folks think outside of the box and experiment with their equipment they will never know.
HH

 

[Will1877]

Nice finds. It really sounds like you are one with the etrac my friend. I have a really nice park that's old I always say im going to go and detect it until I find silver. I have found a few wheats and old nickles but no silver. All were deep I guess I get discouraged and opt for private property. I would love to find silver just to say I did. it has just like every park has been gone over hundreds of times. Here is my question I have yet to find an area that was trash filled no deep iron I have constant tresh hold every where. This is why I get discouraged I feel the park is fairly clean and targets are easy to pick out. So what would you suggest I do? I feel that two tone ferrous is not really a benefit for how I understand its concept. Not much iron. Sorry for going on but being an advanced user what do you suggest to hunt this park? Its big around hundred acres. There is a theater area four acres kite field fifteen acreas. and several play ground and pavilion areas. If you showed up and seen park what process would you use to decide where to hunt. the park is about hundred years old. Thanks. I also posted this question in your post because you have always given great advice and secondly we on this fourum have the best photo to question post ratio then any other section and didn't want to make new post. I love when non trac users come to this board and see picture picture picture and few question type posts.

 

[NebTrac]

Very nice and well earned finds! Thanks for sharing.

NebTrac

 

[ironsight]

Nice finds. It really sounds like you are one with the etrac my friend. I have a really nice park that's old I always say im going to go and detect it until I find silver. I have found a few wheats and old nickles but no silver. All were deep I guess I get discouraged and opt for private property. I would love to find silver just to say I did. it has just like every park has been gone over hundreds of times. Here is my question I have yet to find an area that was trash filled no deep iron I have constant tresh hold every where. This is why I get discouraged I feel the park is fairly clean and targets are easy to pick out. So what would you suggest I do? I feel that two tone ferrous is not really a benefit for how I understand its concept. Not much iron. Sorry for going on but being an advanced user what do you suggest to hunt this park? Its big around hundred acres. There is a theater area four acres kite field fifteen acreas. and several play ground and pavilion areas. If you showed up and seen park what process would you use to decide where to hunt. the park is about hundred years old. Thanks. I also posted this question in your post because you have always given great advice and secondly we on this fourum have the best photo to question post ratio then any other section and didn't want to make new post. I love when non trac users come to this board and see picture picture picture and few question type posts.

An old city park with little trash is a rarity at least around here. However, some county fairgrounds around here have noticeably less trash density than city parks especially the ones out in the country where people don't gather in big Summer picnicking crowds every weekend as in most city parks.

Finding wheats is always a good sign that there is or 'has been' silver in the area. The reason i say has been?
Case in point, I searched a couple early 1900 'pounded' parks where i found untold numbers of wheats but little silver. One park, only 3 silver dimes, one barber, 2 mercs. The other, one barber dime and 1 merc. The only reason i can think of is people have been cherry picking the silver.

If there's any hope of finding silver in pounded parks, its either deep, next to/under/over trash or both...the reason past detectorists walked over it.
Being hesitant or paranoidal about digging deep targets is understandable. Been there myself at first but my silver finds didn't skyrocket until i was willing to dig deep.
In other words, in heavily pounded parks, the easy ones are gone.
Sometimes its just a lucky toss of the dice whether a park still holds any silver but you won't know til you try.

If the park has very little to no iron dense trash, You're right, TTF is not all that necessary.
Far as where to hunt in that large park, research, research and BS with park caretakers especially the older ones or elderly neighbors around the park.

Those old park caretakers could be a wealth of old knowledge. If i see a park caretaker mowing for example, i always ask if its OK to detect mainly to start up a conversation. Detected this one park a few times with no silver to show. Then one day by chance there was an old timer mowing the area and got to BSing with him. He mentioned there used to be men's softball league games back in the 40's and 50's in one corner of the park.
That corner of the park was now all woods and heavy brush. Sure enough i went in those woods and found an old rickety corroded base ball backstop. Searched the areas where i thought home plate, pitcher's mound and the bases would of been. Walked away with 5 mercs, bunch of wheats, silver ring, war nickel and a Buffalo in my pouch that day.

Get on the internet or local library and search for old postcards of the park showing where the crowds were back then. Search for old maps showing the park boundaries back in the day. The park might have been re-configured or acquired more land where the crowds gather today could of been in a whole different area where they gathered back in the olden days.

The parks here have ALL been heavily pounded. Any remaining silver around here is scarce requiring trying different detecting tactics, coils, settings, etc.
I found dog'ed perseverance pays off in the long run. That park where i found those 51 now 52 silver coins? The first few times i searched there a couple years ago, i found only a bunch of clad, a few wheats and no silver.
Was about to give up on that park back then until i researched its history. Found a bunch of early 1900 post cards showing where the crowds were. Slapped on my then new NEL Tornado coil, tried man sense for the first time and searched some of those areas. Found my first silver Quarter a Barber and a merc that day. The rest was history.

If detecting was easy, everybody would be doing it!

 

[BryanM362]

So, if I understand what you are doing correctly, you are keying in on the iffy signals, then comparing the depth of the iffy signal to nearby iron signals. If the depth is different, then you dig the iffy signal?

Interesting technique.

 

[Jim D]

Congrats! Thanks for the information on your detector settings too! HH

 

[Goes4ever]

I try to tell people all the time the wiggle pinpoint method is the most reliable method hands down, if you had attempted to use the pinpoint button it would have locked onto the stronger iron signal, glad to see someone using the etrac to it fullest potential! Great job!