I finally got into a school site...

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

... that I have driven past a hundred times and knocked quite a few times. The family (owners) is really nice and the son lives in the old school house. I finally caught him home Sunday. He had no problem with me detecting. I was surprised to start finding clad right away. The soil is sandy and soft - I was digging stinkin' Lincolns down at seven inches (dang). Finally dug an on edge, worn out Merc. 1920d, followed by a 1944 quarter! Got to love the look of silver against that dark soil. Ended up digging another quarter 1953 and three wheats plus clad and a cool old pin with an Indian's head. Everything was deep except the pin. Sort of odd, I was finding quite a few coins down at the 8" range, and listening carefully for deeper hits but not getting them. I hope the old stuff didn't sink out of reach. I am thinking this place has not been Explorerized yet. The school is on my old 1860 map!

I only had time to cover a small area, so I took today off (Tuesday) for a return trip!

Take care and HH - BF

 

[Dang]

All Right! Got yourself some virgin ground it sounds like. I bet you'll find lots of goodies there! HH
dang

 

[Eddie in Poulsbo]

Nice finds there BFCB. Got's to be more silver there somewhere. HH.

Eddie

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

The good news: I found 21 wheat backs, a silver rosy, three old buttons and two hot wheels cars. The bad news: nothing older than 1920 (except maybe the buttons). I did find a harmonica reed down around eight inches. It is surely form the 1800's. The place was obviously hunted before, but how did they get all the oldies and leave 21 wheats behind? I dug one wheat that had to be down at 10". Most were down around six to eight inches. It will remain a mystery. The owner said that he talked with the family and no one remembers anyone detecting there before. The neighbor said he ran off one guy that was detecting a few years ago, since the owner was in Florida.

It is sad to think that this place is pretty well hunted by folks sneaking in. Not too far from this spot I talked to a land owner who was intimidated by two trespassing detectorists at another school house (back in the early '70's). Their excuse: "school houses are public property". Not true for most old country schools around here!

Side note, the son who lives in the school house has a nice twin-turbo Camaro SS that he has all fixed up. I brought my camera and took some pictures of his car to put into the street performance catalog I am working on. He was happy about that.

It was the nicest fall day, I had plenty of ground to cover and I had permission!

HH - BF

 

[jeff & Maria]

You may not find much older coins. Kids had no reason to carry money back then, there were no lunches to buy etc. You are more likely to find old tops and toy parts. Have fun, seems like a great place to hunt!

 

[Hotcz70]

make it bad for all of us. It isn't so much the fact that they find stuff.,...but more that they make us all look bad in general

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

It only takes one sloppy digger or one trespasser to get the "No Metal Detecting" signs posted.

Nice lucky shirt, by the way. My lucky USA shirt finally gave out and ripped.

Take care and HH - BF

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

These guys don't detect anymore because they were spoiled in the good old days. They told me that detecting old school sites often required several trips back to the car to empty a pouch that was too full of coins, and yes, they found lots of old stuff. They said it was not uncommon to fill half a one pound coffee can with coins in one outing! Back then, clad coins were hardly in the ground yet - silver coins were the norm.

Now that I have ruined detecting for you, I have to go. Hey, I've had to live with it. har har

Take care and HH - BF

 

[Rick(ND)]

I started in 1973 with a Whites Coinmaster 3 I believe it was called and these had no disc so you dug everything. I think there was only one company that made a detector that disc out iron and believe it was a Treasure Pro and it was not the best, but worked.
We learned our detectors as how to tell what was trash and what was good, but not perfect so we still had to dig trash too The good thing is we found more gold rings with no disc detectors and the trash back then was the rusty crown caps that fooled us, there were no pull tabs or screw caps to worry about. I remember many times digging coins only to get another Wheaties or a silver Rosie as we wanted the older coins, now a Wheaties or silver Rosie is a great find.
I have heard of many stories about some of the great places that yield many great coins in one day, but also dug many trash items in order to find them.