OregonMike
Member
Hi, everyone,
This happened on Friday, and it has taken me clear until Sunday night to be able to tell the story without feeling sick to my stomach.
First of all, I have been detecting for five years. You might have seen my picture on White's home page in December, or read the story about the Morgan dollar I found on a happier hunt.
For all of those five years, I have driven past a certain old house. Each time I passed it, my mind turned to what it would be like to detect it. The place, I thought, must be crawling with old coins and relics. The yard area looks very old, so old, you could hardly call it grass. It's on more than an acre, maybe two or even three. As a city guy, I'm not a good judge of how big an area is.
Well, in February, I finally decided to get up the nerve to "cold call" the place. The owner wasn't home, but a man who is a tenant in a cabin on the property was there. I talked to him, and of course, he couldn't give the requested permission. I have a good friend who often detects with me, and the next time we were in that area, both of us stopped by, but no one was home. We left a note, inviting a phone call, but did not get one.
I stopped by alone two more times, and each time, no one was home.
Finally, again with my friend, we tried on Friday and this time, not only was the owner home, but we got permission to hunt the property.
We were pumped. It wasn't long before my friend made the first find--just a wheatie, but those are indicators that other old coins may be nearby. I was finding modern cents, nickels, and maybe one dime, but nothing old. Then my friend found another wheatie. I plugged away, still not finding anything interesting.
Next, he called me over, and showed me a Merc dime he found. I kept hunting, going back and forth over my half of the front yard. Finally, after passing over and over the same area from every imaginable angle, I gave up and headed to the back. Not ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was my friend. I went to see what he found. He had moved over to the side I had abandoned, and not more than two feet from one of my digs, he had located a seated liberty dime!
Now, I've never found a seated coin in my life. Out here in Oregon, they're not real plentiful. To learn that one was within my grasp, on a property I had watched for years, was just about more than I could handle. Like the golfer who throws his clubs into the water hazard, my V-3 came perilously close to being wrapped around a tree.
In an earlier post, I told people that I've been getting my butt kicked by Minelab users. Well, it's still happening. But I can't blame this on my V-3. There are at least two other major factors at play--technique, and luck. As far as I know, my V-3 is working fine, although it does seem to me that the Minelabs have some advantages when locating silver. But I think it's more technique or luck. Technique I can do something about--not daydream so much, learn to listen better, and so on. Luck, however, cannot be changed by hard work, if it's truly luck. I guess I just missed that one critical spot where that old dime was hidden.
Well, at the end of the day, my friend had a seated and a merc, and a couple of wheats, and I had clad and a bummed-out attitude. I tried to be nice about it, and so did he, saying "it sorta breaks my heart to find this so close to where you hunted," but the fact is, he's the one who got to take it home.
So after wanting to hunt there for years, it finally happened, but my friend found the best things and I got nothing. We're trying to get permission for a return visit. My wife, the eternal optimist, tells me that in the grand scheme of the cosmos, this will not stand, and that somewhere on that property, in the name of justice, there is a seated quarter, or a gold coin, or something that will make everything all better.
I hope she's right, and that in the near future, I'll be able to post the second part of this story, and a photo or two of what it was that restored justice to the universe.
In the meantime, good hunting to everyone!
PS--If anyone has any hints about how to improve my chances, I'd be interested. I currently hunt with coin and jewelry mode, in factory pre-sets except for the gain, which I adjust according to the conditions, and manual ground balance.
Mike
This happened on Friday, and it has taken me clear until Sunday night to be able to tell the story without feeling sick to my stomach.
First of all, I have been detecting for five years. You might have seen my picture on White's home page in December, or read the story about the Morgan dollar I found on a happier hunt.
For all of those five years, I have driven past a certain old house. Each time I passed it, my mind turned to what it would be like to detect it. The place, I thought, must be crawling with old coins and relics. The yard area looks very old, so old, you could hardly call it grass. It's on more than an acre, maybe two or even three. As a city guy, I'm not a good judge of how big an area is.
Well, in February, I finally decided to get up the nerve to "cold call" the place. The owner wasn't home, but a man who is a tenant in a cabin on the property was there. I talked to him, and of course, he couldn't give the requested permission. I have a good friend who often detects with me, and the next time we were in that area, both of us stopped by, but no one was home. We left a note, inviting a phone call, but did not get one.
I stopped by alone two more times, and each time, no one was home.
Finally, again with my friend, we tried on Friday and this time, not only was the owner home, but we got permission to hunt the property.
We were pumped. It wasn't long before my friend made the first find--just a wheatie, but those are indicators that other old coins may be nearby. I was finding modern cents, nickels, and maybe one dime, but nothing old. Then my friend found another wheatie. I plugged away, still not finding anything interesting.
Next, he called me over, and showed me a Merc dime he found. I kept hunting, going back and forth over my half of the front yard. Finally, after passing over and over the same area from every imaginable angle, I gave up and headed to the back. Not ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was my friend. I went to see what he found. He had moved over to the side I had abandoned, and not more than two feet from one of my digs, he had located a seated liberty dime!
Now, I've never found a seated coin in my life. Out here in Oregon, they're not real plentiful. To learn that one was within my grasp, on a property I had watched for years, was just about more than I could handle. Like the golfer who throws his clubs into the water hazard, my V-3 came perilously close to being wrapped around a tree.
In an earlier post, I told people that I've been getting my butt kicked by Minelab users. Well, it's still happening. But I can't blame this on my V-3. There are at least two other major factors at play--technique, and luck. As far as I know, my V-3 is working fine, although it does seem to me that the Minelabs have some advantages when locating silver. But I think it's more technique or luck. Technique I can do something about--not daydream so much, learn to listen better, and so on. Luck, however, cannot be changed by hard work, if it's truly luck. I guess I just missed that one critical spot where that old dime was hidden.
Well, at the end of the day, my friend had a seated and a merc, and a couple of wheats, and I had clad and a bummed-out attitude. I tried to be nice about it, and so did he, saying "it sorta breaks my heart to find this so close to where you hunted," but the fact is, he's the one who got to take it home.
So after wanting to hunt there for years, it finally happened, but my friend found the best things and I got nothing. We're trying to get permission for a return visit. My wife, the eternal optimist, tells me that in the grand scheme of the cosmos, this will not stand, and that somewhere on that property, in the name of justice, there is a seated quarter, or a gold coin, or something that will make everything all better.
I hope she's right, and that in the near future, I'll be able to post the second part of this story, and a photo or two of what it was that restored justice to the universe.
In the meantime, good hunting to everyone!
PS--If anyone has any hints about how to improve my chances, I'd be interested. I currently hunt with coin and jewelry mode, in factory pre-sets except for the gain, which I adjust according to the conditions, and manual ground balance.
Mike
