Got out for about a half hour on farm where I live and snagged this

[Tony N (Michigan)]

I snagged it with my E-trac. It sounded horrible. Only about 5 inches down. There was a rusty nail about 3 inches away but doubt that
would make it sound to terrible. Maybe it was on edge? I almost didn't dig it.
Anyone know why it would sound so horrible?

 

[Tired Rooster]

Don't know. But nice job finding the Mercury.

 

[Tony (Michigan)]

Don't know. But nice job finding the Mercury.

Thanks. This has happened twice in this part of the yard now. Two Mercs, not deep at all and both very squirrely sounding.
Makes me wonder if a single freq. detector would have made it an unquestionable hit.

 

[MikeW]

Never used an Etrac before but great finding a merc. Did you happen to check it from different angles??

 

[coinspader]

Maybe you were picking something up underneath it as well, that might skew the signal. Just a thought.

 

[dirt doctor]

Congrats on the nice Merc ! I'm thinking it was the nail , after all 3" and 5'' under the same coil are pretty close together .

 

[Blind Squirrel]

Nice 1936-D Merc, Tony N (Michigan). I'm not familiar with the E-Track but I've heard that they go deep. Could be that there was some junk beneath your Merc that caused the poor audio response. Glad that you dug it! Best of luck and...

Happy Hunting!
Blind Squirrel

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Never used an Etrac before but great finding a merc. Did you happen to check it from different angles??

Yes, that's the weird part. I was wondering if it was part of a rusty part of a tin can. The numbers were jumping as I went and circled it and the sounds were not textbook at all.
I just thought, Oh heck, let's just dig it and see what it is. The same thing happened with another merc in this same area of the yard. There's over 150 years of junk in the yards.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Nice 1936-D Merc, Tony N (Michigan). I'm not familiar with the E-Track but I've heard that they go deep. Could be that there was some junk beneath your Merc that caused the poor audio response. Glad that you dug it! Best of luck and...

Happy Hunting!
Blind Squirrel

Thanks Blind Squirrel. I'll have to revisit the hole and see what's going on.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Congrats on the nice Merc ! I'm thinking it was the nail , after all 3" and 5'' under the same coil are pretty close together .

Thanks dd. Yea, that could be the case.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Maybe you were picking something up underneath it as well, that might skew the signal. Just a thought.

Yes, that's very possible.

 

[pplinker]

Great job on the merc! Sounds like you have a great place to hunt there with possibility of 150 year old coins.

 

[bootyhoundpa]

Ive never used an etrac either but I do hunt farm fields with the sov gt and can tell you 5in. on a dime can be a real challenge when you consider all the tiny bits of metalic debris that inhibit getting a clean signal... point is you dug it so maybe just part of the learning curve.. when i hunt farm fields i dig all non ferrous signals as good targets are likely to be partially masked by whatever else is mixed into the same soil...congrats..

 

[Tony (Michigan)]

Ive never used an etrac either but I do hunt farm fields with the sov gt and can tell you 5in. on a dime can be a real challenge when you consider all the tiny bits of metalic debris that inhibit getting a clean signal... point is you dug it so maybe just part of the learning curve.. when i hunt farm fields i dig all non ferrous signals as good targets are likely to be partially masked by whatever else is mixed into the same soil...congrats..

Yes, the more I dig those questionable targets the more I'm amazed.
I was very surprised when I popped out that Merc. It was the last thing I expected. Maybe someday they will invent a detector that will remove all doubt?

By the way, your handle "bootyhoundpa" is interesting. What's the story behind that?

 

[Tony (Michigan)]

Great job on the merc! Sounds like you have a great place to hunt there with possibility of 150 year old coins.

Thanks, pplinker. You'd think I'd be finding large cents and other very old coins. The oldest found so far is a Barber dime.
Maybe the real old coins are buried from when they dug out the basement in 1920?

 

[enderman]

Duplicate thread.

If you never heard that sound before means you must not have dug anything deeper then 5" with your Explorer.

Are you sure you've been detecting 12 years? Sheesh.

 

[MikeW]

Sounds like what happens with the Coinstrike. Good coin signal and numbers from one direction, at ni ety degrees the signal breaks up, the numbers are all over and going into negative. It was shallow and sound so good I dug it and out pops an old merc with a glob of rusty something covering most of the merc. I like those odd signals. Go get another!!!

 

[bootyhoundpa]

Ive never used an etrac either but I do hunt farm fields with the sov gt and can tell you 5in. on a dime can be a real challenge when you consider all the tiny bits of metalic debris that inhibit getting a clean signal... point is you dug it so maybe just part of the learning curve.. when i hunt farm fields i dig all non ferrous signals as good targets are likely to be partially masked by whatever else is mixed into the same soil...congrats..

Yes, the more I dig those questionable targets the more I'm amazed.
I was very surprised when I popped out that Merc. It was the last thing I expected. Maybe someday they will invent a detector that will remove all doubt?

By the way, your handle "bootyhoundpa" is interesting. What's the story behind that?

just slang for Pennsylvania treasure dog,lol.. i mostly farm field hunt but i also enjoy some fresh and saltwater hunting as well,hence the booty as in pirate treasure..

 

[Tony (Michigan)]

Duplicate thread.

If you never heard that sound before means you must not have dug anything deeper then 5" with your Explorer.

Are you sure you've been detecting 12 years? Sheesh.

Hi enderman,
I've been detecting a lot longer than 12 years. I have quite a few detectors and they all are unique in how they interact with targets in the ground.
I've detected probably thousands of very shallow finds as well as very deep ones. Most of the time, targets are pretty clear as to what they are.
Sometimes a target throws me for a loop when it acts anything like what would be normal. But it makes detecting all the more interesting.
Have a nice day.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Last year I hunted a rental house in Memphis, and got a signal with the Deus that I passed up. It was reading 64-68 - a loud, solid banging signal...and I thought it was an aluminum screwcap. My partner at the time detected the same target with his AT Pro...he also got a "screwcap" indication - but he decides to dig - and out pops a Franklin half!!!

So reading your story on this Merc - it was somehow altered in the ground so that it doesn't "read right". In the case of the Franklin half - it had a purplish patina on the "top" side - the side facing the detector coil, and the other side was normal.

Sometimes on shallow targets it seems they can get skewed for whatever reason, and many deep targets seem to read HIGHER in VDI than they would if they were shallower. Sometimes when the circuitry is "fooled" by a signal - the audio information will give further clues - sometimes not - there's no real definite way to know what you're digging since there's nearly an unlimited number of variables that may or may not surround a coin/pulltab/bottlecap/etc