Chris(SoCenWI)
Well-known member
Hello All,
I was looking at some old plat maps last night and saw an area on the 1874 map that I knew was still a public area.. I'd been meaning to give this area a try for awhile and today I did.
I drove up fairly late this afternoon, cool and windy day. Grass is still short around here but the ground is already almost too dry for detecting. Hope the rain comes through next couple of days.
About 20 steps from the car I get a very nice silver signal. Probe with periscope and hit something 8 inches down. Probed a little too vigorously it turned out- rick'd and double rick'd. Dug up a pretty worn 1908-S Barber Half. That seemed to be a good way to start the day. I had visions of virgin 150 year old ground with LCs and seated flying out of the ground. The fact the half was quite worn meant it probably wasn't lost until the 20s or 30s and that it was still that deep troubled me a bit. A bit more swinging showed that the place wasn't loaded with coins. But I did notice that the ground was quite clean, not the usual rump-a-bump-bump of iron hits. Next coin was just barely discernible from iron with the Pro coil, manual sensitivity at 25. Dug up a 44 wheat from around 8 inches. Not a good sign.
I very seldom find places where depth is as much of an issue as sorting through the trash. Last year in Minnesota I detected a similar site where I pulled several Barber dimes and Indians from 8 or more inches deep. Many of these signals were very iffy, even though there wasn't any trash nearby. Some nice high tone mixed with quite a bit of low; cursor dancing across the top of the screen. Very much like iron falsing.
So I switched to the WOT and kept on detecting, figured this was perfect territory for a big coil. Got a wheatie coin spill, a crusty IH that barely gave a digable signal, and a perfect silver hit that turned out to be a very worn SLQ. This was one of those signals that you could circle around from any direction and it stayed locked upper right every swing. Probably should preserve a few of these hits for the grandkids; as they are getting pretty rare. But then again another 50 years of development and trash and soil build up and well.... screw it.
Long story short this is one of a very few places that I suspect a great many coins are deeper than what my Explorer is capable of finding based on raw depth and not masking by other targets. Perhaps could start digging iron only sounding hits, but just enough trash here to make that impractical. (For the Newbies reading this: Once a target gets to a certain depth- what that actual depth is depends on many factors- our detectors lose the ability to tell what sort of target it is. It will give a iron hit.) You have to dig them all just like we did in the old days.
[attachment 158211 2010-04-04.jpg]
But finding a half and quarter without an entourage of dimes is probably a first. Will check my records.
HH All,
Chris
I was looking at some old plat maps last night and saw an area on the 1874 map that I knew was still a public area.. I'd been meaning to give this area a try for awhile and today I did.
I drove up fairly late this afternoon, cool and windy day. Grass is still short around here but the ground is already almost too dry for detecting. Hope the rain comes through next couple of days.
About 20 steps from the car I get a very nice silver signal. Probe with periscope and hit something 8 inches down. Probed a little too vigorously it turned out- rick'd and double rick'd. Dug up a pretty worn 1908-S Barber Half. That seemed to be a good way to start the day. I had visions of virgin 150 year old ground with LCs and seated flying out of the ground. The fact the half was quite worn meant it probably wasn't lost until the 20s or 30s and that it was still that deep troubled me a bit. A bit more swinging showed that the place wasn't loaded with coins. But I did notice that the ground was quite clean, not the usual rump-a-bump-bump of iron hits. Next coin was just barely discernible from iron with the Pro coil, manual sensitivity at 25. Dug up a 44 wheat from around 8 inches. Not a good sign.
I very seldom find places where depth is as much of an issue as sorting through the trash. Last year in Minnesota I detected a similar site where I pulled several Barber dimes and Indians from 8 or more inches deep. Many of these signals were very iffy, even though there wasn't any trash nearby. Some nice high tone mixed with quite a bit of low; cursor dancing across the top of the screen. Very much like iron falsing.
So I switched to the WOT and kept on detecting, figured this was perfect territory for a big coil. Got a wheatie coin spill, a crusty IH that barely gave a digable signal, and a perfect silver hit that turned out to be a very worn SLQ. This was one of those signals that you could circle around from any direction and it stayed locked upper right every swing. Probably should preserve a few of these hits for the grandkids; as they are getting pretty rare. But then again another 50 years of development and trash and soil build up and well.... screw it.
Long story short this is one of a very few places that I suspect a great many coins are deeper than what my Explorer is capable of finding based on raw depth and not masking by other targets. Perhaps could start digging iron only sounding hits, but just enough trash here to make that impractical. (For the Newbies reading this: Once a target gets to a certain depth- what that actual depth is depends on many factors- our detectors lose the ability to tell what sort of target it is. It will give a iron hit.) You have to dig them all just like we did in the old days.
[attachment 158211 2010-04-04.jpg]
But finding a half and quarter without an entourage of dimes is probably a first. Will check my records.
HH All,
Chris
