This is a lesson in patience, at least it was for me.
About two years ago at the Air Force base where I work, as a civilian, it was decided that two of the base housing areas were in need of updating, and demolition began on about 200 duplex units that had been built in the mid-1950's. Multiply that by 2 families per unit with an average turnover rate of 4 years, and you come up with 5,000 families having lived there over the last 50 years. Ding ding; that's the sound of the dinner bell to anyone with a detector. At least anyone with a detector who had access to the base, which in these post-911 days is quite limited. Fortunately, I was one of those people. Lots of opportunity for coins, jewelry, artifacts, whatever. Easy pickings.
Well it SHOULD have been. Turns out that the installation security forces took their job seriously, and part of that job apparently was to keep curious treasure hunters away from the heavy machinery for safety's sake. Didn't matter if it was a weekend when nobody was around, the entire area was "look from afar and do not enter" for the entire two years of demolition and reconstruction. A buddy of mine and I tried a couple of times, only to be run off with a stern warning almost immediately. We considered our jobs to be more important than a few coins, so we complied. We figured we'd get our chance, sooner or later.
Later is now here. The new housing areas opened to much official hoopla a few months ago, and my buddy got first crack at seeing if he would be run off by the sky cops again. When he parked his car, to his glee he saw that about one fourth of the previous housing area was now totally devoid of houses. The paved streets are still there, the street signs are there, most of the trees are still there, but no houses. Due to a draw-down of forces over the years and civilian contractors taking over what used to be GI jobs, the need for so many housing units simply didn't exist. So they just didn't build as many as had been there before. Instead there's a beautiful park-like area of about 30 acres where the building contractors did a wonderful job of cleaning the place up, using fill dirt from other parts of the housing area instead of just dumping it off base or hauling it to parts unknown. There's that dinner bell again.
To make a long story shorter, there are TWO of these wide open areas of gently rolling landscape, each area about the same size. The cops have left us alone, even driving by and waving without so much as a "what the h##l are you doing out here?". My buddy, Nic, has been at it for several weeks now. I've been unable to get out there due to job commitments (just my luck) until this weekend. Nic has pulled out "lots" of Mercury dimes. "Lots" of silver Roosies. A Franklin half. So many wheaties he can't keep track. Foreign coins.
And this was my take for about 3 hours today. The small pile of pennies are all wheats.
[attachment 48473 P1000172.jpg]
This is the area, about 50'x100', that I pulled the coins out of.
[attachment 48474 P2170003.jpg]
This gives a small idea of what the place looks like, just one shot looking towards the new housing.
[attachment 48476 P2170006.jpg]
This is the silver.
[attachment 48479 P1000171.jpg]
We have many months of searching ahead of us, the photo showing the new housing area can't begin to give you an idea of how large an area there is to search. I figure that once we clear the hotspots (maybe another 2 months), it's going to take a year or more to use the big coils, no discrimination and long days just to cover the place for the first pass. Some of the gold jewelry will pop up then. For now it's just a "run and gun" to get as much time in as we can, having figured out how to find the really sweet spots. Some of the stuff is lying right on top of the ground, if you can stand it.
I'll try to get more pictures with a camera that can take the "under 120KB limit" for posting here, photos of Nic's finds and more of what the place looks like. At least I know where I'm going to be spending all my free time for a while!
Steve
About two years ago at the Air Force base where I work, as a civilian, it was decided that two of the base housing areas were in need of updating, and demolition began on about 200 duplex units that had been built in the mid-1950's. Multiply that by 2 families per unit with an average turnover rate of 4 years, and you come up with 5,000 families having lived there over the last 50 years. Ding ding; that's the sound of the dinner bell to anyone with a detector. At least anyone with a detector who had access to the base, which in these post-911 days is quite limited. Fortunately, I was one of those people. Lots of opportunity for coins, jewelry, artifacts, whatever. Easy pickings.
Well it SHOULD have been. Turns out that the installation security forces took their job seriously, and part of that job apparently was to keep curious treasure hunters away from the heavy machinery for safety's sake. Didn't matter if it was a weekend when nobody was around, the entire area was "look from afar and do not enter" for the entire two years of demolition and reconstruction. A buddy of mine and I tried a couple of times, only to be run off with a stern warning almost immediately. We considered our jobs to be more important than a few coins, so we complied. We figured we'd get our chance, sooner or later.
Later is now here. The new housing areas opened to much official hoopla a few months ago, and my buddy got first crack at seeing if he would be run off by the sky cops again. When he parked his car, to his glee he saw that about one fourth of the previous housing area was now totally devoid of houses. The paved streets are still there, the street signs are there, most of the trees are still there, but no houses. Due to a draw-down of forces over the years and civilian contractors taking over what used to be GI jobs, the need for so many housing units simply didn't exist. So they just didn't build as many as had been there before. Instead there's a beautiful park-like area of about 30 acres where the building contractors did a wonderful job of cleaning the place up, using fill dirt from other parts of the housing area instead of just dumping it off base or hauling it to parts unknown. There's that dinner bell again.
To make a long story shorter, there are TWO of these wide open areas of gently rolling landscape, each area about the same size. The cops have left us alone, even driving by and waving without so much as a "what the h##l are you doing out here?". My buddy, Nic, has been at it for several weeks now. I've been unable to get out there due to job commitments (just my luck) until this weekend. Nic has pulled out "lots" of Mercury dimes. "Lots" of silver Roosies. A Franklin half. So many wheaties he can't keep track. Foreign coins.
And this was my take for about 3 hours today. The small pile of pennies are all wheats.
[attachment 48473 P1000172.jpg]
This is the area, about 50'x100', that I pulled the coins out of.
[attachment 48474 P2170003.jpg]
This gives a small idea of what the place looks like, just one shot looking towards the new housing.
[attachment 48476 P2170006.jpg]
This is the silver.
[attachment 48479 P1000171.jpg]
We have many months of searching ahead of us, the photo showing the new housing area can't begin to give you an idea of how large an area there is to search. I figure that once we clear the hotspots (maybe another 2 months), it's going to take a year or more to use the big coils, no discrimination and long days just to cover the place for the first pass. Some of the gold jewelry will pop up then. For now it's just a "run and gun" to get as much time in as we can, having figured out how to find the really sweet spots. Some of the stuff is lying right on top of the ground, if you can stand it.
I'll try to get more pictures with a camera that can take the "under 120KB limit" for posting here, photos of Nic's finds and more of what the place looks like. At least I know where I'm going to be spending all my free time for a while!
Steve
