Wheat Penny Heaven!

[qlipphotic]

Not really wheat penny heaven.

Question for you guys. I've been working on cleaning out a park near San Pedro in so cali. So far I've come up with four silver rings, tons of trash, and THIRTY wheat pennies. Should I expect to find some silver on the site as well? It seems like it's a lot of wheat pennies for them to be without silver. But, I've yet to find any.

Also, what TID's are you guys used to seeing for wheat pennies and silver on the CTX while in the Ferrous-Coin Setting? Also, running in Ferrous-Coin, Auto +3, Combined, Open Screen. My sensitivity (the left hand number) is usually at about 19. Should I be running ground-coin with that type of mineralization sensitivity? There's a TON of trash at this site, so I'm running with my 6" as my 11" and 17" just go nuts.

I know this is A LOT of stuff in one post, just though I'd ask as this is the MOST informative place to go to for CTX info

-Chris

 

[GKMan]

welcome aboard! Good job in finding all the wheat cents, I imagine there a silver hidden around there somewhere.

I would check out the thread I attached a here which has a list of the tid's for US coins, using different modes..

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?87,1731336

 

[qlipphotic]

thanks for the link GK, I appreciate it. Any thoughts as to what settings I should be using in said ground?

 

[GKMan]

Ground coin is generally for mineralized ground but I'll let some of the folks with worse ground than we have here in the Northeast answer that part more thoroughly. That sensitivity seems quite low, I would try boosting it manually and see if the detector stays stable enough to use.

 

[martygene]

If u r not having problems with mineralization I would stay with ferrous-coin. I kind of use a scale of 10 wheats to a silver. You should be getting them there for sure. Keep listening for little squeaks and deep numbers. I find silver at 12-46 .. 12/47 but can be anywhere from 12-41 on up depending if there are two targets under the coil. I can find wheat's at 12-39 to
12-43. Keep going, you will strike silver. GL& HH

 

[qlipphotic]

Thanks for the tips! I'm gonna take the machine out this morning to see what I can find

I'm sure it's been talked about on the forum quite a bit, but is the 6" coil enough to find that deep silver or should i throw the 11" on?

 

[GKMan]

A lot of folks have said the six inch coil is great on depth. However, the stock 11 is bigger and probably goes at least a bit deeper, albeit you are going to have a slightly harder time isolating iffy signals.

I would recommend trying the stock coil first to clean out the easy targets, and then going back over it with the 6 inch to find any targets that are masked by trash. But, I am not the one there so perhaps the place you are detecting is just too much for the larger coil.

 

[qlipphotic]

What I've been doing is using the 6" coil to clean out the areas of EVERYTHING, then my thought was to follow it up with the 17" coil to really get the deep deep stuff. I have a really hard time using the 17" though, pinpointing with it feels impossible and it seems to get signals from feet away, horizontally. I probably just haven't had a lot of practice with it yet?

 

[GKMan]

Well, you sure as heck should get every worthwhile signal with the 6 inch on.... Pinpointing with the 17 in a really trashy area is going to be tough. I primarily use that coil for fields and woods hunting where I don't have to worry about a lot of masked signals.

 

[old lobo]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is over the past 30 or 40 years a lot of people have concentrated on detecting for silver coins, and because of age, physical condition, or just personal preference, didn't want to get down to dig for pennies, that's why now we find those pennies they didn't want to bother with, and not the other coins they were after.

 

[GKMan]

That of course is true. But if he is finding that many wheat pennies amongst trash then most definitely silver is hidden in there...I agree that if its a public place most likely, like you said it has been cherry-picked and silver is going to be tougher to come by.

Your mentioning of this reminds me of Subes post about not having a hunt like he just did since the 70s.

I wish I could have been around for those glory days.

 

[sube]

If mineralization is bad a smaller coil will run hotter than a bigger coil so depth will be the same big or little coil, try running seawater enable and see if it brings up your sence #s .If all that's left is wheat's than what silver is left is with trash and the 6 is great for this situation . sube

 

[Dirtbag Kevin]

You are hunting in Southern California with very high mineralization.. Always manual gb with ground coin on and like sube said, use saltwater mode and crank your manual sensitivity to 27 to 30 for depth, You should not use 50 conductive because your TID will be a bit splattered and you might miss a good target. Try making a combined program with the last bin on line 38. Set this to a high tone and it shouldn't matter if your TID is splattered, it will still ring up high. I guarantee you are not the first to hunt that park being in SoCal so all easy silver is gone. You need to go REAL slow and listen for deep signals.

Dirtbag K

 

[qlipphotic]

Thanks for all the tips guys, you really do help quite a bit! I'm happy that I finally have somewhere to talk about my CTX and such great people to talk with. I haven't found anyone locally to hunt with yet or that has a CTX, so i've gotta get all my information remotely unfortunately.

Ok, so i'm gonna try ground coin tomorrow morning and manual sensitivity etc.

Today I found 1 wheat and 1 indian head at that park! Attached are ever single wheat I've found at that park so far in the past couple weeks, 5 silver rings from that park, 1 indian head (1902) and 1 steel wheat (1943). Even though all of these wheats and that IH are still there would you still say that people have gone through and cherry picked the silver?

Also, I wish I could have hunted in the 70s....I wasn't born until 82 and just started about 5 years ago so I'm WAAAAAAAYYYYY behind and trying to catch up

[attachment 292514 IMG_0358.JPG][attachment 292515 IMG_0361.JPG][attachment 292516 IMG_0362.JPG]

 

[Dirtbag Kevin]

Most likely that place was gone through for the silver but I guarantee there is more. Dig lots of iffy signals and swing low and slow. I'm in San Francisco, I can't remember digging an easy silver coin. How deep are you digging your wheats?

 

[old lobo]

Kevin asks an excellent question that I didn't think to ask. From what to what depth are you digging the majority of those older pennies?

 

[Agseeker]

I think my worst wheat to silver record for a single site was 50:1. Hang in there -- there's silver there if you're finding wheats.

 

[jas415]

I dig a lot of pennys, like 5,600 in the last 18 months. 2100 wheats. A lot of penny signals were silver coins. The 6" will pick them up if you go slow and really work the high tones. From 4 or 5 directions, slow and little tiny 3" coil movements. Works for me as I have about 275 silver coins in the last 18 months off demos in the Houston area. Sort of like the old detectorist and the newbie. They saw a great location and the young guy said , "Come on, hurry up, let's run out there and get a silver coin!" The old guy said, "Why dont we walk over there and get them all!" That originally was a story about a young bull and an old bull regarding a herd of young heifers.

 

[qlipphotic]

I"m typically digging my wheat pennies at this specific park anywhere between 2-6 inches. Depending on the part of the pocket park.

I didn't get a chance to detect today, was too busy doing work crap blah blah blah....I hate when work gets in the way of our hobby

I did, however, obtain a box of pennies and pulled about 20 wheats out. I roll hunt whenever I can't get out to detect.

I plan on going back to my park tomorrow morning and just basically CRAWLING while in GC with seawater on. Should I have target trace/trace pinpoint on as well? I usually run with those. What about Deep and Fast (sounds like a lot of fun to me )? I've never hunted in GC, the only thing I know about it for sure is that you need to greatly reduce your swing speed and to use it in high mineralization.

Oh, and another thing, I run with a wide open screen pretty much always. That way I don't get any iron or trash masking my good signals. However, there is a TON of pipes under this park for whatever reason and they all sit about 10-12" below the surface. My detector loves to ring them in as quarters and tell me they're only 1" down. Drives me nuts. I've started to put little plumbing flags at these spots so I know to stay away from them

One more thing that I did do. I've started doing research so I know which locations I should be hitting for chances of deep silver. The park I'm detecting at was put in place in the early 20s....it's been there almost a century. I just need to find the right key to unlock it.

 

[Dirtbag Kevin]

You will lose a lot of depth in ferrous coin while in mineralized soil.. I mean A LOT.. You are going to gain more depth with ground coin and high manual sensitivity.. Try these settings over the same area you have already been but real slow.. You should have tons more coins deeper than 6 inches.