First, a lottle history to set the stage. I live in an East Central town in Missouri that was established when the railroad came through in the 1870's. I live a block from the original high school built in the late 1800's. The school sets on a squate city block. About thrity years ago, or so, a new high school was built and this facility is used for elementary education. On one side of the school is where the original high school held it's foot ball games. Today, it's used as a soccor field for kids league play. One weekend a year it has carnival rides set up for the city's annual town fair. The other side of the school is playground area for kickball, basketball and playgound equipment. As you might expect, it's been pounded by detectorists for years. To the point, no one hunts it much anymore, with the exception of the day after the city fair, where it gets hit for a few hours to pick up the loose change left by the carnival riders. About three years ago, I decided to grid off the whole area on both sides of the school and hunt every square foot to find what was there. I dug about $30 worth of clad coins with a few Wheat pennies mixed in and several Roosevelt silver dimes that had been overlooked. Nothing too deep or exciting. A year ago I purchased a new F 75 and decided to rehunt the old football field. I found severl very ddep Wheat pennies and a couple of deep Indian Head pennies in the seven to eight inch depth. Not a lot, but enough to make me believe it was a deep machine. I also found a nice 1912 Barber dime at around six inches. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a new F 2. I figured it would be a good grab and go machine to find some clad coins. I was pleasantly surprised to find the F 2 to be a hot little machine. I have a test garden which include a dime and Minie ball buried at six inches deep. The F 2 hit them with no problems at full sensitivity. I've had machines cost two to three times as much that struggles with hitting those targets, so I was duely impressed.The elmentary school is a renewable source of new coins, so I decided to give it a shot this past weekend. Immediately I started hitting clad coins in the two to four inch depth range. I had hunted the playground area just three years ago, so I knew these coins weren't lost since then . They were simply too deep. I had hunted the area with a Whit'es MXT in the coin mode. I have dug lots of deep Civil War relics with this machine, but in the coin mode, it didn't appear to have done the trick. The F 2 was getting the goods. I did get one faint deep signal that the pinpoint mode barely was able to get a response that showed six inches depth. I dug down and at six inches pulled out a pin with a propeller on it that said "Captain Midnight Flight Patrol" on it, with a logo from the Skelly gas station. Obviously quite an old gas station give-away premoum. I also found a Pokemon metal "Pog" and an Art Club pin in the two to four inch range. All missed by the MXT. I got another five inch siganl that IDedas a penny that was a 1944D Wheat penny, that was at the five inch depth. The last signal I got was another mellow deep sounding siganl that bounced around on the ID meter from the 20's to the 60's. On deep, mellow signals that give a solid response in all four directions, I pay little attention to the ID numbers. I dig it. The pinpoint mode showed a five inch depth. I dug my plug and at around three inches I saw one end of a thin gold chain. I carefully dug around and unearthed the rest of the chain without breaking it. It had a silver heart shaped locket on it. A nice way to end a three and a half hour hunt. I ended up with fifty clad coins to go with my wheatie, pins and chain. I'm really impressed with the F 2. It's a hot machine for a little money. Is very stable and a dream to pinpoint with. I was running full sensitivity with iron and tabs notched out.
Thanks for looking, and keep on diggin'
jimmyk in Missouri
Thanks for looking, and keep on diggin'
jimmyk in Missouri
