PA Boy goes to West Virginia for a hunt

[WVAdirtdigger]

Most of you have seen Bill W and myself post on here. We both own 3D's. Bill also owns an Explorer. We have been coversing via email for a while and finally got to hunt together. Bill came to WV and we hunted 3 pre-1900 houses on Friday and an empty pre-1850 lot on Saturday. We put in 9 hrs on Friday and 4 hrs on Saturday.

The first house had unbelievable tree in the front yard. This oak tree is 24 feet in circumference. It's been professionally dated to be over 130 yrs old. Usually trees in WV are timbered as soon as possible so one like this is very rare. This house is on a ridge waaaay back off of any road and I wouldn't have gotten permission on it with a lot of knocking on doors and asking questions. We found 6 IHs at this site.
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I also got permission from the same couple for 2 more pre-1900 houses that they own. Bill and I took a Strawberry covered cheesecake to the owners in appreciation for being allowed to detect these great properties. We also had a great conversation with the older folks.

We ended the day with 2-1899 Barbers. They were in the same hole stuck to each other. One of them had an O mint mark. Also a 42 Merc and 7 IHs. We also got 26 wheats between us. Here are some of the finds.
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The second day, we totaled 1 '35 Merc, 1 IH, and 14 wheats along with some other assorted junk. This pic is of Bill and I at the end of day 2. 2 tired and happy treasure hunters. Bill's on the left, I'm on the right.
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You noticed that I didn't say who found what and what machine found what. This post was not about that. It was more about 2 guys sharing an interest in the same hobby and having a good time doing it.

Bill did get to talk to more West Virginians than he bargained for. We ended up talking to the different property owners for quite a while. We discovered that Bill's talents lie in knowing his machine well and finding coins in iron. My talent lies in talking to property owners and getting permission on great pieces of land. I don't have to be able to detect very well when you find IHs at 3" or less. Bill wasn't ready for that. It was a new experience for him to not have to dig more than 6" to find an old coin.

I hope Bill enjoyed his trip to WV as much as I did hosting him.

HH
Dave

 

[Bill W.]

I had a great weekend hunting with Dave (WVADirtdigger). He is one hell of a host. It was nice put a face and personality behind the emails. We talk like we've know each other for years because we both enjoy detecting alot and get along great. Like Dave said this hunt wasn't about who found coins with what machine. We both realized long ago that each top machine has their strengths and weaknesses. That was tree was awesome to stand beside. There's some limbs on it bigger than some tree trunks in my backyard.

I was able to see first hand Dave's talent. He was able to get permission on some other sites on Saturday by talking to someone who had stopped to BS. He definitely deserves every coin he posts on here because he does the research and foot work to get permission to his sites. I did have a 'problem' adjusting to digging an IH at 3 inches... Dave also doesn't give himself enough credit when it comes to his abilities. He is definitely good with his 3D. He is one of the only people I have EVER detected with that was as strict in his detecting 'practices' as me. What I mean by that is coil as close to the ground as you can get it, going slow, overlapping, etc., etc. Those things make more difference that alot of people realize. Dave also tied on my Sunray 12.5 coil and covered some major ground with it.

Dave also figured out a new nickname for me. The Wanderer... because he said everytime he looked up I was at a different place. I always have wandered at unfamiliar sites trying to find concentration of targets quicker. He understands alot about where to find coins on a pretty constant basis around older houses. Where he thought the coins would be is where they actually where we ended up digging a vast majority of them. That was good information for me because I mostly hunt parks and old schools were the coins can be anywhere.

I almost forgot to say that I have seen Dave swinging an Explorer... Sorry Dave, I couldn't resist... It was only for about 5 minutes. He was interested in what the tones he had always heard about sounded like.

Thanks for having me down Dave! You ROCK!

-Bill aka The Wanderer

 

[WVAdirtdigger]

Thanks for the kind words Bill. I did enjoy using that Sunray 12.5. It was easier to use than the 10.5 IMHO. It pinpointed very well too.

The "Wanderer" definitely fit Bill's personality. I would pick an area and go to "gridding" it and I knew where he was when I started but when I would look up 20 minutes later, he was in a completely different area. But his amount of finds didn't suffer for it. It just goes to show that different styles still produce finds. There's always more than one way to "skin a cat".

HH

 

[WVAdirtdigger]

Guys, We were trying to take some pics of this tree to show how truly enormous it was. Bill unknowingly raised his leg up in this photo and afterwards said that it looked like one of the poses a bikini model does in front of a Hot Rod. CZ users, please ignore the Explorer in this pornographic photo.
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Here's a better pic of the house in relationship to the tree.
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Thanks for looking,

 

[Anonymous]

What a weekend. Those of the kind of finds you dream about. Do you plan to hit those places again say after a couple of hard days of soaking rain? I know it is hard to coordinate one schedule must less two with the weather.

I'm fortunate that with my brother's rural contacts, we have been able to hit many homes from the turn of the century. You think you have most of the goodies, then come back under different soil conditions and amazing how many more coins you end up with. Thumbs up on the finds and the pictures.

 

[mtdoramike]

I have it attached to my CZ3d and man, it works even better on the CZ3d then it did on the CZ70 and it was outstanding on the CZ70.

 

[WVAdirtdigger]

but Bill is 3 hrs north of me so I doubt if he'll make it back with me. These finds are about average for the sites I hunt. I look for pre-1900 houses or foundations. I ask a lot of permissions. I get about 60-70% of the ones I ask for. I have found 29 silver coins, 24 IHs, over 150 wheaties so far this year. I average hunting 4-8 hrs per week. This isn't a tremendous number of good coins but it ain't bad.

 

[WVAdirtdigger]

but I'm still getting used to it. Sometimes, it's so sensitive that when you put it in the hole, it pings in about all directions. I've just started playing with pinpointing with it. That works pretty well too.