What's Under Foot

I added a CafePress Shop to my site. I don't plan on selling a lot of items, but I thought I would give it a try. I can always remove the shop at a later time. Feel free to browse it if you like.

Well I broke the $100.00 mark in clad coins the end of last month. I can now check that off my list for this year. Recently was detecting a school playground in a nearby town, checking near the play equipment and digging every signal as it was easy (sand) and got a signal in the lower + VDI scale. If I were digging in the dirt I probably would have walked past it, but as I said it was easy so I figured what do I have to loose? And it was near the surface!  Anyway out of the sand comes this cell phone, a fairly nice one at that. A Samsung slider phone. It was in the sand with the keyboard in the out position. Of course it needed a lot of cleaning to get the keyboard to slide in and out and it wouldn't turn on. When I removed the battery cover there was a small amount of moisture.

I was able to borrow a charger from my sister to charge the battery in an attempt to return the phone to the owner. However after charging for a couple of hours the phone still wouldn't turn on. I believe it has other issues, and I am not about to spend money to resurrect a phone for someone not knowing if they have replaced the phone yet or not. Too bad as I would have enjoyed returning a lost cell phone to someone.  At least I can add it to my list of finds. Below is a photo off the internet of the phone I found.

Still in search of the elusive GOLD. 

Haven't gotten out to swing the coil in a week. Between the heat we are all experiencing right now and work I haven't gotten out. Last weekend we were able to get out, nothing much noteworthy, a 50 wheatie, and around $3.00 in clad. Still in pursuit of my goal of $100.00 in change this season. I will achieve this barring an injury or something similar. I have also started to dig alot more of the trash signals in the search for gold. With gold running over $1000.00 an ounce a few finds could really add up. I also need to get off my a$$ and do more research for some places that would hold the elusive older coins. There is just something magical about pulling a coin that is no longer minted out of the ground. Kind of an adrenaline rush.

Sorry I haven't posted on my own site for awhile, but things have been a little busier than I would like. Let's see now what have I found since my last post that is noteworthy?? Oh yeah I found a couple of wheaties, a 65 silver canadian dime, and what I think is my most interesting find this year.

It is a token for Mount Vernon whiskey from 1950, on the reverse side is a home schedule for the Detroit Tigers for the same year. Doing a Google search I found the following: www.potomacbottlecollectors.org/request.php?73 published three years ago from a bottle collectors club newsletter. While I am glad to be able to find a bit of information relating to this find the idea that the author of this newsletter classifies us metal detectorists as "scavengers" irritates me a little. I feel it has a derogatory tone to it. I guess a person that digs in the dirt to find old bottles isn't a scavenger? I have copied in part the section of the newsletter pertaining to the token for those not wanting to download the PDF newsletter.

         Other whiskey tokens have such various uses as poker

chips (Jack Daniels), Mardi Gras coin tossed from a float (Old

Crow), and wooden nickel (Old Drum). Mount Vernon

Whiskey, about which I have written for the Pontil as recently as

the January issue, in 1950 distributed an aluminum token that

featured a bottle and the slogan “Tastes good all the way down.”

(Fig. 11). On the reverse side was a list of Cincinnati Reds

baseball home games.

Figure 11: Mount Vernon 1950 - front

         While bottle diggers may uncover one from time to

time, scavengers with the metal detectors are the sources of most

whiskey tokens. Those made of copper and other heavy metals

often are deteriorated but an amazing number are recovered in

good condition. Collectors tend to be linked with numismatists.

While many such items sell modestly, rarities can fetch

hundreds of dollars.

We were in Indian River camping last weekend and decided to hit a local park, this park is fairly large, it has 6 ballfields, two seperate tennis courts, two playgrounds, an ice skating rink, rollerblading or skate boarding park, pavillion, two concession stands and of course soccer fields. In other words lots of potential. Myself and Propointer, aka Austin, were there on Saturday and again on Sunday for a couple of hours each. Propointer found a hot spot next to one of the fields that was really productive for him, nearly $4.00 in modern coinage over those two days.

I wasn't finding any hot spots, but I did find a first for me again this year, a 78 Kennedy half dollar, not silver but a half dollar none the less. Consider how many half dollars you routinely see in your change and you'll get an idea how difficult it is to find one. Add to this the approximately $3.75 in modern coins I found and my two day totals come in around $4.25. 

Propointer-$4.00

Myself-$4.25

Combined two day totals a couple of hours each day-$8.25

Not bad for a hobby huh?

I was hunting a local school that I have hunted many times Saturday, an area of that school that I have yet to search. I got a repeatable signal reading +30 and +80 on the VDI scale. Normally this is a signal that I would walk past, I decided to dig this one as I am still learning this detector and the VDI #'s were all in the positive range. Knowing that the deeper the target is the less reliable the the target ID can be I decided what the heck. I pinpointed the signal at around 4.5 inches and began to recover the target. When I probe the hole with my pinpointer I get the beep confirming the location. I reach in and find a foil gum wrapper! What a bummer! I consider filling the hole and leaving the foil in it's place, but I remember the code of ethics and reach for the foil, much to my surprise it is heavier than expected, there is something wrapped up in it, I remove the "wrapping paper" to find a 1979 Susan B Anthony dollar coin! My first dollar coin this year, not a Morgan but I will take it none the less. Those finds sure can make the hunt for the day!!

Had time for only a short hunt Memorial Day. We went to an elementary school in a nearby town, one that I have never hunted yet.

I was finding the usual stuff, clad coins, pull tabs, foil, and those pesky little metal bands on pencils. I got a solid signal in the +80 VDI range, repeatable, pinpointed it at 3.5 inches and started to retrieve the target. There in the hole on edge was a 1943 Mercury dime, my first in more than three years of hunting! I can finally cross this coin off my most wanted list.:D

Well this morning after work, I loaded the DFX, stock coil, and my accessories into my truck along with a snack and a lemonade and headed out for the park. I made a stupid mistake that any outdoorsman should have known better than. I forgot the bug spray. It was a beautiful morning, the sun hadn't come out yet, temps were in the 60`s, the only drawback other than the bugs was the dew making my shoes wet.

However I wasn't going to waste my trip so I began hunting. The site was extremely trashy, I got numerous signals every sweep of the coil, so many that I switched to the stock coil. The signals were still plentiful, but I was able to separate out some of the trash. I decided that the river was the area I wanted to concentrate most of my efforts on. Along the river next to a rather large tree I got a shallow signal bouncing around in the coin range, actually it sounded like several signals, I pinpointed and found a recent pocket spill, a quarter, dime, nickel, and two pennies.

I hunted for about two hours with a total of $1.20 in modern coins and dug more fishing weights than I wanted. However a few of the pennies I recovered were from the early sixties which leads me to believe that there are more older coins there, I have every reason to believe that this park has been used for decades.

Did I miss alot of potential good targets by not digging every signal? I am sure I did, but when your time is limited and the insects abundant I felt it a good compromise. I will return at some point this year to clean out the trash and hopefully the goodies.

Been thinking lately about finding a new site to hunt. Remembered a park that I seen on a non-metal detecting trip last year. Found it on Google Earth and hope to get out to it sometime this week. It has a river running along it's perimeter, picnic shelter, playground, horseshoe pits, and more grassy area than you can shake a stick at. So if indeed I can get out to it this week, I will share pics of the finds with you, stay tuned....

This is my latest story published on White's Electronics website http://whiteselectronics.com/component/story/title/199.html

And here is another story I had published Sept of last year http://whiteselectronics.com/component/story/title/08-treasure-outing.html