How to hunt trashy sites

[metalmedic]

Just left a 1920's homestite that was just littered with trash! The house has sat vacant for many years and evidently has became a hang out for teens or homeless persons. Pull tabs, beer and soda cans everywhere. How would you approach an area like this? Max disc...dig everything??? I managed to find some recent clad, in fact a quarter, dime, nickel and two zincs in one hole. I'm sure there something good there if I could find the patience. This was my first outing with the Vaquero and it will take some getting used to.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

To be honest with you........ based on the description you give ....... I'd just move on to greener grounds. If a place has been turned into "party central" like that, and you insist on getting underneath to the potential older goodies, then I'm afraid to say your only option is to dig out all those larger cans, etc.... You can knock out tabs, nails, etc... Or if you wanted, you could try to see "between and around" all those aluminum cans by only digging "coin-sized" deeper signals. But if the older coins are masked, then you'd simply be missing them

Sounds like a place that's too dumpy for my blood. Especially considering we're only talking about 1920s. Unless you want to strip-mine the place and think it's worth your time.

 

[mudpuppy]

Well, you could make this a little fun project, if its close to your home and relatively safe place to hunt, and you think it my hold masked silver....I guess Id do a quick sweep of the premesis, like you did, then stand back and think a little...

Then I'd head to where maybe a clothesline might have been, or the outhouse, or some other heavy traffic place 100+yrs ago, and pick myself a nice 12 x12 patch to do a clean sweep exploration..get every target out of there, and sit and examine them to see what the age, composition, and depth they are at...(thats maybe 30 minutes of work) based upon what the targets are telling, and the soil matrix, (fill or virgin dirt) I'd either give up on the whole place entirely, or try a different test patch...it could be fun.. .
Mud.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've done something similar, but could only be done at abandoned derelict spots, where no one would care (or notice) if you dug:

I take a flat shovel, pick the most likely area (to each side of the entrance stairs, for instance), and spend 10 minutes flat-shoveling out an area the size of a mattress or kitchen table, to about 4 or 5" deep. Then stop, detect, and repeat as necessary. Eg.: if I were still finding zinc and aluminum at that level, I might take out an additional 4", and so forth.

But would only go to this level if it were something really old, or I was really ambitious. Not gonna do that for a '20s home-site.

heck, I know a few guys in a city I won't name, who've gone to an old-town park that is a BLANKET of wino caps, hypodermic needles, junk, zinc, etc... They wait for a moist rainy winter day (middle of January, for example, since this is below the snow-zone). Then at 6am on a Sunday am (at the first hint of day-light, yet when the streets are deserted) will go with flat shovels there. The section out an area 10 ft. x 10 ft. square. Make cut in large rectangular squares. And litterally ROLL the turf aside (or put to the side in nice even square block-sections. They do this down to 5 or 6", so that they're below all the modern coins and junk strata. Then stop and detect Once they've removed the old coins, they merely put back all the grass blocks/rolls, & stomp up and down on it. You can't even tell they were there. But that's for another topic/thread. Doh!

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah, its really site specific...you gotta go in there with a plan and hit it serious like Tom said, or do a quick sweep and see whats up....if its a dangerous place, and the bums and addicts are still frequenting it, best to leave it alone.. say the hell with it, go hunt clad in a nice safe schoolyard or totlot, then take it down to your LCS and buy yourself a merc dime for 4 bucks, and call it a day! 4 bucks of safe clad is pretty easy hunting, compared to bumfighting or square shoveling sod!!..
Mud.

 

[kaolinwasher]

Ilike muds Idea, if its close & you can spend some time