Despite the lousy Northern California weather, I drove up north Friday through rain and snow for a three day weekend of metal detecting.
There's an area I'd detected last summer that's on the edge of a lake and originally it had a water resort (literally built over the lake) built in the late 1800's, and old homesteads in the lot next to the resort. In the late 1920's a school was built there, which was torn down in the early 1980's (I went to school there the last year it was open in the 1970's). The lot where the resort and school were located is now a public open space, and they hold carnivals, art festivals, etc. there, so the potential is there to find just about anything.
Last summer I found a 1918 Mercury dime at the waters edge, but didn't hit the turf area as the ground was as hard as cement. Well that certainly wasn't the case this weekend, as it got hammered with torrential downpours and snow that luckily melted almost as fast as it came. I didn't let the ill weather stop me, and worked the turf area as well as the beach a little. I didn't find much at the beach this time around - the usual trash, a junker ring, sinkers, fishing lures, and my first cell phone (anyone loose their Moto Razr
??), but I did eyeball an indian arrowhead:
I focused on the turf area, and this time around I found a sterling silver hoop, a 1941D Mercury and a 1944 Wheat, but it wasn't the best to come. The last hour I was there it was again pouring rain (I now know that my Fisher really is weather "resistant" as advertised), so I was detecting on my way to my car when I got a nickel/pull-tab signal and about four inches down I pulled out this gold colored object that was caked with dirt and had vegetation roots growing through it. At first I thought it was a gold colored wine cap or some other piece of junk, but as I started wiping off the dirt, I realized it was a Madonna pendant. I went to a puddle of water to wash some more dirt off, and then the gem stones started to show through the dirt. OK, NOW I WAS EXCITED
When I got it home and cleaned it further I was amazed at what I'd found, a 14K 7.3g yellow and white gold jeweled Madonna pendant. You can see the loop at the top had bent open, obviously the culprit for it's departure from it's previous owner.
The town center where I was visiting was established in the 1860's, and I'd hit it last summer and found several very early wheats, but no silver, and nothing older. This time there was an area they had pulled out a slab of cement not far from where I'd found the wheats last summer, so I detected it and found my oldest coin yet. When I first looked at it, I thought I'd found a foreign coin when I saw the back of the coin as all I saw was the roman numeral III. As I carefully wiped the soil off the coin, I was ecstatic as I saw it was an 1865 three cent piece
This will be a hard weekend for me to top, but I hope it's a sign of things to come in 2009 !!
HH,
Brian
There's an area I'd detected last summer that's on the edge of a lake and originally it had a water resort (literally built over the lake) built in the late 1800's, and old homesteads in the lot next to the resort. In the late 1920's a school was built there, which was torn down in the early 1980's (I went to school there the last year it was open in the 1970's). The lot where the resort and school were located is now a public open space, and they hold carnivals, art festivals, etc. there, so the potential is there to find just about anything.
Last summer I found a 1918 Mercury dime at the waters edge, but didn't hit the turf area as the ground was as hard as cement. Well that certainly wasn't the case this weekend, as it got hammered with torrential downpours and snow that luckily melted almost as fast as it came. I didn't let the ill weather stop me, and worked the turf area as well as the beach a little. I didn't find much at the beach this time around - the usual trash, a junker ring, sinkers, fishing lures, and my first cell phone (anyone loose their Moto Razr
??), but I did eyeball an indian arrowhead:
I focused on the turf area, and this time around I found a sterling silver hoop, a 1941D Mercury and a 1944 Wheat, but it wasn't the best to come. The last hour I was there it was again pouring rain (I now know that my Fisher really is weather "resistant" as advertised), so I was detecting on my way to my car when I got a nickel/pull-tab signal and about four inches down I pulled out this gold colored object that was caked with dirt and had vegetation roots growing through it. At first I thought it was a gold colored wine cap or some other piece of junk, but as I started wiping off the dirt, I realized it was a Madonna pendant. I went to a puddle of water to wash some more dirt off, and then the gem stones started to show through the dirt. OK, NOW I WAS EXCITED
When I got it home and cleaned it further I was amazed at what I'd found, a 14K 7.3g yellow and white gold jeweled Madonna pendant. You can see the loop at the top had bent open, obviously the culprit for it's departure from it's previous owner.
The town center where I was visiting was established in the 1860's, and I'd hit it last summer and found several very early wheats, but no silver, and nothing older. This time there was an area they had pulled out a slab of cement not far from where I'd found the wheats last summer, so I detected it and found my oldest coin yet. When I first looked at it, I thought I'd found a foreign coin when I saw the back of the coin as all I saw was the roman numeral III. As I carefully wiped the soil off the coin, I was ecstatic as I saw it was an 1865 three cent piece
This will be a hard weekend for me to top, but I hope it's a sign of things to come in 2009 !!
HH,
Brian
