Ed Steinhoff
Active member
I have been hunting an old school site where they tore down an old building and leveled the ground. I have been detecting for 2.5 years now with a tracker 4 and a pioneer 505. I have mainly been coin-shooting parks, playgrounds, sledding hills and have been reasonably successful, having found app. 6000 coins, 45 rings and a multitude of matchbox cars and other misc. stuff. What was being elusive was much old silver. I had bagged around 42 wheat's and 8 Rosie's and one merc. My longing, dare I say lusting, was for a sliver George wash. quarter. When I saw the torn down school site and noticed that they had used a scraper and removed the top 6 to 8 inches of sod and soil off the area my heart raced! At last, maybe some oldies! Eagerly I attack the spot with vim and vigor. After an hour of racing randomly around the site I had 25 or thirty clad and an encouraging number of wheat's, some going back to the teens. The second trip I slowed down some and hunted in a more controlled pattern, east to west, basically the same results. Every instinct in me is telling me that there are some old silver to be found here. It has to be technique not machine because with the top layer removed, everything I am finding is 2" to 4" deep. A week goes by before I can hit it again and I have decided to carefully pattern the spot, north to south this time. As I began I said a little prayer that I could find my coveted silver georgie. I began having the same results, mostly clad mixed with a high number of wheat's, but this is ground that I have already hunted at least twice before and the number of finds has not diminished. Conclusion, these are coins I have already gone over and missed! Shame on me, how could I be so sloppy! I slow down some more, concentrate on keeping the coil as low as possible, no "golf" swings and overlap, overlap. I have already set the disc. at 12:00 and the sens at 3:00. app a third of the way ac-cross as I reported in a previous post a high quarter sound with a "scratch" and at less that 2" of depth I turn over a 1942 silver quarter stuck to a 1960 Lincoln! Only one of us that has been bitten by this "wonderful addiction" can understand and appreciate the feeling of seeing one of the things on your "want list" come out of the hole! Three more swings later I pull a .925 silver ring with a green stone and two more wheat's. Five a six days go by and I return to finish the other two thirds of the area. I set the disc at 12:00 and turn the sens all the way up! WE are living large now! Same pattern, picking up where I left off with thoughts of " wouldn't it be nice if I could find another silver quarter"? I make three passes and dig at least one coin each pass, whenI get a broken nickel to cooper penny bouncer signal, got to be worth digging! Up turns another first, a 1904 V nickel, now we are cooking! two more passes and I stop for what I now am recognizing as wheat signal. While pinpointing the wheat, ahead 3 feet and slightly left on top of the ground I see what is unmistakeably a mercury dime! (191
and yes I smugly dig the wheat before I casually pick up the dime with an air of indifference like this sort of thing happens all the time. Two passes later a nice penny/dime signal reveals another first! a very worn but very beautiful to me 1901 barber dime! It just cant get any better___ right? Wrong! I now have from this hunt the aforementioned coins, plus 6 clad Lincolns all early sixties, a clad nickel 85 a clad dime 67 and 5 wheat's 1910, 1916, 1942, 1951. It time to go, maybe one more pas or two and wham! another 1942 silver quarter a duplicate of the one found on an earlier hunt. I have since made one more trip to this spot and tho I didn't find anymore silver I did get more wheat's and clad and can finally say that it has been well hunted.My conclusions are do not neglect the basics, go low, go slow ,overlap ,know your machine, listen to what it is saying and above all don't get all nervous about the posts on this or any-other website about all the fantastic finds others are making with their high dollar high powered deep seeking machines. Work with the tools you have to be the best hunter you can with what you have and you will probably beat the pants off the guy with gizmo laden "next big thing" for I am convinced that in this series of hunts, technique was more important than power ,and no Epro F 8000 T mine G 20,000 with 20" coil spectra V dash there goes all my cash machine would have done a bit better than my lowly pioneer 505! first texas pilot has my heartfelt thanks for making economical machines that get the job done! hh Ed in co.
and yes I smugly dig the wheat before I casually pick up the dime with an air of indifference like this sort of thing happens all the time. Two passes later a nice penny/dime signal reveals another first! a very worn but very beautiful to me 1901 barber dime! It just cant get any better___ right? Wrong! I now have from this hunt the aforementioned coins, plus 6 clad Lincolns all early sixties, a clad nickel 85 a clad dime 67 and 5 wheat's 1910, 1916, 1942, 1951. It time to go, maybe one more pas or two and wham! another 1942 silver quarter a duplicate of the one found on an earlier hunt. I have since made one more trip to this spot and tho I didn't find anymore silver I did get more wheat's and clad and can finally say that it has been well hunted.My conclusions are do not neglect the basics, go low, go slow ,overlap ,know your machine, listen to what it is saying and above all don't get all nervous about the posts on this or any-other website about all the fantastic finds others are making with their high dollar high powered deep seeking machines. Work with the tools you have to be the best hunter you can with what you have and you will probably beat the pants off the guy with gizmo laden "next big thing" for I am convinced that in this series of hunts, technique was more important than power ,and no Epro F 8000 T mine G 20,000 with 20" coil spectra V dash there goes all my cash machine would have done a bit better than my lowly pioneer 505! first texas pilot has my heartfelt thanks for making economical machines that get the job done! hh Ed in co.