Take A "Seat" For This Story!

[Critterhunter]

I've wrote this long story out twice only to hit the wrong key and have it all erased! Why in the world would Microsoft EVER have some kind of key combination that highlights and deletes all your text instantly! And the paste function won't bring it back either!

So I'll try it one more time...

First time I have been able to really hunt since the second finger operation. Sure, I went out and watched my friend use his Etrac a few times and even swept around with it left handed for a few minutes here and there, but this is my first real hunt in about two months (before my second finger operation I was able to get out some).

We hunted an old school house today that was built in the early 1900's. It's a small lot but this site used to be part of a fair grounds up until 1890, then this school was built and houses built over the rest of the fair ground land. So not only do we have an early school here to hunt, which is now used for other city purposes, but there is a good chance of popping coins from the old fair grounds days.

We've only hit this spot three times before, and that was when we were both using Whites before buying my GT and his Etrac. With the Whites we popped a walking half, an indian, and some mercs and a buffalo. I was confident our Minelabs would do some damage even though we had gridded this site painfuly with our Whites digging any marginal coin signals. Sure enough, wasn't long before we popped some wheats, and not real deep wheats either, 3 to 6"....Well within range of our old Whites. They must have been on edge or in iron because Minelabs do better at both of those situations.

Little bit later I get a "wheat" signal about 4" deep. It sounded smooth and was going 180 mostly but dipping to 179 or 178 here and there and even though it wasn't all that deep it sounded real smooth so I was pretty sure it'd be a wheat. Clads that haven't been in the ground as long don't sound as smooth to me on my GT, so even with the shallow 4" depth I was fairly sure this coin was old and probably a wheat.

I called my friend over because we like to compare signals on old coins. So far my GT with the 12x10 SEF has easily IDed any deep coins or ones in trash that his Etrac has hit on. Since I felt this was going to be a wheat even though it was only 4" I had him check it. He confirmed that his numbers were telling him wheat penny too. I dig the plug and he yells "WAIT!" and reaches into the hole before I dug further. Out pops something silver/greyish in color and he handed it to me. As he did I caught a flash of detail. Can't be! It Is! Seated Dime! On closer inspection an 1842 "O"! That's my first "O" mint mark coin, only my second seated dime (the first being an 1891), and my second oldest silver coin (oldest being an 1835 bust dime). It's pretty worn but not nearly as bad as the 1891 seated dime was.

There had been iron nearby but the 12x10 on my GT easily saw the coin from any direction with a good and easy signal. It must have acted like a wheat for both of us because of the wear on the coin causing it to read slightly lower.

We are for sure going to go back and dig everything above iron there because I had passed over shallow "penny" signals prior to this, ones we missed with the Whites. And he dug a very old looking girl scout button. We were mostly cherry picking coin signals today but with the history of this place and not too much trash we need to grid it out and dig everything above iron. I'm just shocked at how many coin signals there were that we missed with our Whites, probably due to iron or being on edge...where the Minelabs do better. I'm sure there are also some deeper coins around that the Whites couldn't see too.

Nice way to end my first hunt since getting this finger fixed for good!

By the way, a guy with an 1875 house next door came over and I showed him the coin. After some good conversation he invited us to hunt his yard. We gridded it and found only a few wheats and clads, but we need to go back and do it better because we were in a hurry and had to leave. His property is right on the corner of this school and where the fair grounds were so I can see a lot of foot traffic cutting acrossed his property. We just did the front yard and still need to do it again/better and also his back yard.

 

[JimmyCT]

I am drooling....I would like to find my first seated dime. 1842-O sweet find indeed. Yes, I would be hitting that thing until in bled lol. Great find crittterhunter! Could you post a picture? That got me thinking about the old fairground across town that is now partially used as a ballfield and another section is now gated and locked as it is a private baseball field. At least I can still hit part of it. I haven't been there in over 20 years.... time to take a trip. Thanks for sharing.

 

[fwcrawford]

Good find and also a great lesson learned.. you never know what will come out of the ground and even shallow signals can be some amazing finds as you have found out.
I was searching an old house site a couple of years ago that has been searched over and over again and wasn't getting any signals when finally I got a signal that wasn't deep at all and the ID was jumping all over the place.
I figured it was just a piece of junk metal, but since I wasn't getting any other signals up to this point, I decided to get it out of the ground.. boy was I surprised to see an 1892 0 Barber dime come out of the hole.
I checked the area after recovering it and did not get any other signals.. maybe it was on edge is all that I can figure for the jumpy ID readings... this was not with the Sovereign, but an X-terra 50.
It pays to check out any signal when hunting a potentially good spot for old coins.
Congradulations,
Felix

 

[GunnarMN]

boy thats a hot spot , I would dig everything out of that park Iron or not must be alot of masked coins and no detector will see them under a nial but i would agree get the easy stuff 1st you are starting to make me a beleiver in that 10x 12'' but I am still hesitant having had a badd experiance with exelerators in the past .

 

[JimmyCT]

Your right Felix - the majority of my finds this year alone( IH cents, wheat cents, mercury, roosevelt, and barber dimes) etc were all shallow 1,2,3,4, 5 inches deep at most. It is not always the fact and case an old coin ( like Critters1842-O seated dime) is going to be found at 10 +". I am actually amazed at how shallow these coins were when I found them. The older a coin is does not neccessarily dictate it is going to be deep. Many variables go into this. Again - awesome find Critterhunter!

Good find and also a great lesson learned.. you never know what will come out of the ground and even shallow signals can be some amazing finds as you have found out.
I was searching an old house site a couple of years ago that has been searched over and over again and wasn't getting any signals when finally I got a signal that wasn't deep at all and the ID was jumping all over the place.
I figured it was just a piece of junk metal, but since I wasn't getting any other signals up to this point, I decided to get it out of the ground.. boy was I surprised to see an 1892 0 Barber dime come out of the hole.
I checked the area after recovering it and did not get any other signals.. maybe it was on edge is all that I can figure for the jumpy ID readings... this was not with the Sovereign, but an X-terra 50.
It pays to check out any signal when hunting a potentially good spot for old coins.
Congradulations,
Felix

 

[Rick(ND)]

This reminded me of a newer school grounds that used to be a very old fair grounds we run into. I knew it was a old fairgrounds in Fargo that had been moved back in around 1966 before I started detecting in 1973 and was made into a JR high school. A few had tried it anyway and some very deep coins did show up once in a great while, but not enough to get anyone excited to spend any time there. Then come a Friend I got into detecting with my Sovereign XS demo and it was on his way to work so he tried it a bit and was surprised as he was finding a few IH, wheat's and 3 walking lib half's the first 3 hours he was there with some deep and some not so deep. He did well there and kept it for his own little spot as he let no one know about what he was finding with his Sovereign, Later that summer they started tearing up the ball Fields to put in sprinkler systems and were digging down a good 2 feet or more and pushing the dirt in a big pile and let a couple of us know where he had been detecting before and now he felt it was being put in a big pile and hauled away. I took my Sovereign XS2 there and tried the Fields first, but it was almost a solid null for all the iron in the ground of the nails from all the old buildings, so I went to the dirt piles and it too was solid nulls, so I went to the edge of a ball Field that wasn't dug and got a silver quarter and a few mercs.I seen another guy in the dug out area with a Bounty Hunter detector and went to talk to him and see what he had found, told me the day before he got a Merc dime yesterday and today got a IH penny in the dug out area, so I tried it again after I walked about a 100 feet from him and I started picking up some older Wheaties and some older silver working these nulls as the coins where there, but hiding in all the trash. I called my Friend up and told him to come back out and work it slow with his XS in the dug out area which he did the next day and started getting some very old silver and many wheat's and IH pennies. I met him there later in the day as I had to work and he told me him and his Friend did well with the Sovereigns. The next day it was raining, but he went out anyway and got 4 barber dimes and a 1856 seated half before his meter got wet and quit, so I told him to take off the meter and use it without while letting his meter dry out.
We had found our self a great spot, but during the week it was being worked on and we talk to the construction Foreman to see if it would be OK to detect while they worked and was told that we could if we stayed away where they were working with the heavy equipment as they didn't want to bury us under some of the dirt they were moving.
As one of the guy was detecting a roving reporter for a local radio station seen him and ask him what he was doing and told them picking up old coins with his detector and said one guy got a 1856 half dollar, well in the next hour people were showing up with detectors of every makes and models with most leaving after a hour as there detectors wouldn't work as there was just too much iron. It seem like the Minelab Sovereigns worked the best and there were a few of the new Minelab Explorers XS out there too and did OK and my wife's Troy Shadow X2 would do OK too, but the rest just couldn't work in this much trash, so we still had it nice and I had more people asking about buying a Sovereign or a Explorer from me.One guy with is detector brought his boy with him and the boy found more coins on top of the ground than he did with is $800 detector.

I wasn't able to get down to the spot much other than weekend after others had gone over it first as I worked in my bar in the evenings, so many times I would go in just as the sun was coming up and worked until the worker showed up and then got out of their way. My friend got off work right before they quit working and would be ready to go when they quit, so he had new ground to go over every day and did well. For the little I could detect I got around 60 silver coins (2 walkers)and some nice tokens and over 150 wheat, My Friend got if I remember right 280 silver with 8 of them half's and one of them a seated half, IH pennies were 50 some of them and over 300 wheat's. It was a great spot and wish I would have had more time to detected it. I heard that after they planted it with new sod some people had went in and dug on the new sod, so when they did the parking area over which was big area they put up a fence around the area so no one could get in and detect.
On our Sovereigns and we seen this on the Explorers too we had to use 8 inch coils as the 10 was just too big for the iron that was there. The 8 inch coinsearch worked great and the S-8 of Sun Rays I felt did the best as it could see the coins in with the iron better as it seem the hot band was smaller and why I recommend this coil to those that know their Sovereign well. The Tornado coil were not made yet and wonder how they would have done and feel the 8 inch Tornado coil would have worked great, but feel even though the 10 inch Tornado coil is one great coil and does well I think it would have been just too big to work right. I know the stock 10 inch coil on the Explorers were too big as my wife walked behind me with her Shadow X2 and picked up many coins I missed and when she got a signal and my Explorer didn't and it was a silver quarter my Explorer made a trip to the car and my Sovereign with the 8 inch coil went to work.

 

[DDazzzle]

Good find Critter, Am I right in thinking that the "O" refers to the New Orleans mint mark

 

[Rick(ND)]

There was a old yard I was trying a new 8 inch coil out for my Explorer and the first signal was a dime which I thought was a new one as it was only a 1/2 inch deep and to my surprise was a 1876 seated dime. I tried this lot with other detectors too and my MXT got a shallow hit next to a tree and figuring a new coin, but was a seated dime too that was around 3 inches deep. Got some merc dime too with most over 6 inches deep and even got some pennies in the 70-80 that were over 5 inches deep, so those that only dig the deep signals are missing lot of good finds.

 

[Critterhunter]

Sorry, my camera doesn't do close ups well, but next time I'm over a friend's I'll have him take a picture of it with his camera to post.

Yep, shallow coins on edge or in iron or other trash just get walked over by most detectors. The Sovereign seems to hit coins on edge very well with the stock 10" coil and I feel the 12x10 is even better at it.

Rick, that construction spot seems like it was one heck of a place to hunt. Would have loved to use the S-5 there as it sounds like there was a lot of iron.

What gets me is that if you have asked me over the years at each spot I've hunted if I thought I'd pop a seated dime there, there would have been many more places than this spot where I thought my odds were very good. I knew this site used to be part of an old fair grounds up until 1890 but I just never had the feeling that seated would come out of there. I figured the ground had been moved/graded enough when they built the school in the early 1900's to have lowered those odds a great bit.

I forgot to mention...There was a TON of RF noise in the area to the point where I either had to lower the sensitivity almost all the way down or run it in Auto to make things pleasant enough (though still unstable and noisy) to hunt. I ended up running in Auto when I found that coin. That's not the first time where Auto has got me coins in spots that I had gridded extensively with other machines in the past. I popped a standing liberty quarter about 7" deep at one site with my GT using Auto and I had gridded the snot out of this spot using my Explorers over the years. The ground also had some heavy minerals/iron in spots and I think Auto helps to see through that stuff in a way like ground tracking by constantly adjusting if the soil is too hot or too cold for a static sensitivity level. I'm a big believer in using Auto after you've hunted a rough site using a static sensitivity setting on the GT. Even in Auto the interference was a real pain in spots. It would come and go on you. That might be also why there is still some "easy" stuff left as other machines running a single frequency might not be able to hunt due to the interference or because of the heavy ground minerals and iron. I know our Whites missed a bunch of coins there.

I think when I get off here I'm going to go back and hunt there some more today as I passed up several shallow "penny" signals that were deep enough to be old enough to where they should have been dug by us with our Whites a couple of years ago. We just plain missed those, as we did the several wheats we dug yesterday.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Critter nice find and nice stories.HH Ron