Eric in RI
New member
Hey everyone, been a while since I've been able to get out swinging. The ground in my neck of the woods has been like chipping thru ice or digging thru concrete! We finally had a break and had rain for most of Saturday. My roommate / detecting buddy and I decided to head out Sunday morning to try our luck at some goodies. We started out at 8:30am at a highschool in the next town over from us. The school was built in 1918 and plenty of oldies have been given up here in the past. The most recent goodies that we heard about from another hunter was he found a nice Barber half about 9" deep a few weeks ago. We started off in the trashiest part of the school, knowing that most hunters get frustrated with their concentric coils.
Right off the bat I found a wheatie, found the really cool "old as dirt" key. I love finding keys. I am a locksmith and it always puts a smile on my face when I find a key, especially ones that I've never seen before. Digging was pretty tough here. There's tons of fist size rocks within the first 1 - 5 inches so you constantly have to pry them out and hope not to scratch any coins while doing so. We stuck it out there for a little over 3 hours. I had 5 wheats for my take and I was satisfied with that. I knew this place has been pounded to death, especially recently, so finding wheats that were missed by others is a-ok by me
My buddy found mostly clad there.
We then took a 30 mile drive to an elementary school north of us. This school we refer to as "the dungeon". Old brick work, huge school and it just gives you this eerie feeling when you detect there lol. This school was built in 1903 and has given my buddy and I a lot of nice older coins over the years. We never hunted this school since we both purchased our AT Pros and it was time to see what they were made of. We started off concentrating near the flag pool near the front of the school. This has been my personal hot-spot over the years and it still has oldies if you go really slow and concentrate between the iron grunts. I first started off finding a wheat very shallow. This gave me hope that silver was still hiding there. Then another wheat, then another and then another. My buddy at that time had found (2) play dimes and a wheat. He ventured off towards another part of the school. I then got this textbook silver hit mixed in with trash. From 5 inches came the 1941 Mercury dime. I was so happy, the AT Pro proved itself right then and there for this particular school site. I then started hunting really really slow, and was rewarded with a wheat about 10 feet away. I then came across a textbook pulltab signal. Bouncing from 60 - 62 and had some depth to it. Dug a nice big plug, flipped her over and saw foil. I was like that was strange, considering that should've came in the low 40's on the screen. I removed all the foil and then took another pass with my pro-pointer and had a faint signal. Dug another 2 - 3 inches of dirt and a nickel came flying up at me. I never dug an old nickel at this school and kept hoping it was at least a buffalo. I wiped off the dirt and found the backside was worn smooth. The front still had a little bit of detail so i gave it a little spit and saw the liberty head. Sweet! Turns out it is an 1892 V-Nickel. My oldest coin dug at this school, my first old nickel at this school and my first v-nickel I found with the AT Pro. Absolutely awesome!
At this point my buddy and I sat down for a smoke break
and reflected about how good this school has been over the years. It is a sh*thole, dont get me wrong, but if you take your time and really listen, good items will come. After the smoke break I went back to where I dug the V-nickel and found 2 older buttons. We then went to the other side of the school where most of the oldies came up to find they added fill dirt and put in a picnic area. I did find a couple more wheats over there and a bunch of clad, but that was it. My buddy found a wheat over there and said he had enough lol. So in total my buddy found 2 wheats for the day and the 2 play dimes as well as clad. I found a total of (12) wheats, the silver dime, the V-nickel for my goodies. My clad count was 7 quarters, 9 dimes, 1 nickel and 35 pennies for a total of $3.05
What a great day, thank you AT Pro
Right off the bat I found a wheatie, found the really cool "old as dirt" key. I love finding keys. I am a locksmith and it always puts a smile on my face when I find a key, especially ones that I've never seen before. Digging was pretty tough here. There's tons of fist size rocks within the first 1 - 5 inches so you constantly have to pry them out and hope not to scratch any coins while doing so. We stuck it out there for a little over 3 hours. I had 5 wheats for my take and I was satisfied with that. I knew this place has been pounded to death, especially recently, so finding wheats that were missed by others is a-ok by me
My buddy found mostly clad there. We then took a 30 mile drive to an elementary school north of us. This school we refer to as "the dungeon". Old brick work, huge school and it just gives you this eerie feeling when you detect there lol. This school was built in 1903 and has given my buddy and I a lot of nice older coins over the years. We never hunted this school since we both purchased our AT Pros and it was time to see what they were made of. We started off concentrating near the flag pool near the front of the school. This has been my personal hot-spot over the years and it still has oldies if you go really slow and concentrate between the iron grunts. I first started off finding a wheat very shallow. This gave me hope that silver was still hiding there. Then another wheat, then another and then another. My buddy at that time had found (2) play dimes and a wheat. He ventured off towards another part of the school. I then got this textbook silver hit mixed in with trash. From 5 inches came the 1941 Mercury dime. I was so happy, the AT Pro proved itself right then and there for this particular school site. I then started hunting really really slow, and was rewarded with a wheat about 10 feet away. I then came across a textbook pulltab signal. Bouncing from 60 - 62 and had some depth to it. Dug a nice big plug, flipped her over and saw foil. I was like that was strange, considering that should've came in the low 40's on the screen. I removed all the foil and then took another pass with my pro-pointer and had a faint signal. Dug another 2 - 3 inches of dirt and a nickel came flying up at me. I never dug an old nickel at this school and kept hoping it was at least a buffalo. I wiped off the dirt and found the backside was worn smooth. The front still had a little bit of detail so i gave it a little spit and saw the liberty head. Sweet! Turns out it is an 1892 V-Nickel. My oldest coin dug at this school, my first old nickel at this school and my first v-nickel I found with the AT Pro. Absolutely awesome!
At this point my buddy and I sat down for a smoke break
and reflected about how good this school has been over the years. It is a sh*thole, dont get me wrong, but if you take your time and really listen, good items will come. After the smoke break I went back to where I dug the V-nickel and found 2 older buttons. We then went to the other side of the school where most of the oldies came up to find they added fill dirt and put in a picnic area. I did find a couple more wheats over there and a bunch of clad, but that was it. My buddy found a wheat over there and said he had enough lol. So in total my buddy found 2 wheats for the day and the 2 play dimes as well as clad. I found a total of (12) wheats, the silver dime, the V-nickel for my goodies. My clad count was 7 quarters, 9 dimes, 1 nickel and 35 pennies for a total of $3.05 What a great day, thank you AT Pro
