Never a good title.  That means I’ve dug 21 straight wheaties without seeing a silver coin.  I’m not sure if that is a record for me, but it might be.  Whatever it is, it sucks.  I hate wheaties, cause they prove you have done all the right things, and haven’t gotten the payoff for it.

In all fairness, I haven’t been out alot over the past week, but still, based on a long running ratio, that should have translated into about 8 or so silvers.

Last weekend, I hit a site I have been drooling over for a couple of years.  Its huge, by far the largest site I have ever worked, and it is far from me, meaning it is likely only a weekend site, and I rarely can hunt on weekends.  But, it looks like a 100 silver site, and I ain’t had one of them in quite some time.

I spent 5 hours there last Sunday, and pulled 13 wheaties.  No deep clad quarters, but a deep non-silver high tone religious pendant, and several deep copper objects.  Not sure if the site has been cherry-picked, there are technical reasons for missing the silver but seeing the copper, bad luck, or a combination of all three.  I still think the site has potential, but until you the shiny, you have to be discouraged.

The beginning of the week had me just cleaning up the embankment area of the site from the last entry, where I did manage to find silver.  I expected 2 silvers, and got 6 deep clad quarters instead.  Oh well.  The main part of this site is more or less done (25 silvers), but it also has a huge area which I’ve never spent much time in, cause there seemed no reason to spend much time it it, except another detectorist claimed he found a seated quarter in that zone.  I didn’t believe him (I certainly would not have said that, if true, unless I had cleaned out the zone, so what would be the point?), but it is so huge maybe he didn’t have the patience (but of course he did, who wouldn’t?).  I didn’t find a seated quarter there.  I found a 1912 wheatie, tho.  Maybe I’ll be back, maybe not, it was quite boring.

A couple hours yesterday and today were spent at an old abandoned house site, which was built in 1824.  These sites are hard to work, due to rough ground, brambles, and the like, and tend to be hit and miss (usually miss for me), but a big fish can always lurk at such.  I had a very nice site like this early in the year where I pulled a beautiful 2 reale and semi-key IH. so you never know.

First day (Thursday) was 6 wheaties, no silvers.  Not only that, another detectorist has been there recently; I could see his plugs.  Prolly just a week or so old.  Funny thing is that I pulled wheates from 2 of his plugs.  Weird.  Cherry picker or incompetent, who knows?  The hunt was cut short due to rain.

Today went back to finish it off; I figured 6 wheaties was a good tell, especially with the competition working the site and missing so much, but didn’t get much in the end.  Did, however, get one beautiful, to die for deep high tone, which turned out to be an 1818 largie with a hole.  Always copper.  Always bridesmaid.

Its so rare to see a copper come out of the soil around here in a relatively unabused state, and my luck, the thing has a hideous hole right down the middle.  Should have been a bust quarter, why wasn’t it?  I figure for every 25 coppers you dig, you should get a bust quarter, right?  Its just simple math — 25 cents is 25 cents.  I’ve dug 82 coppers, so I’m owed 3 bust quarters.  Of course, I’ve dug 2 2 reales (2 bits, as it were, which is actually what they were), so there goes 2 of them (Spanish silver circulated much more than American silver in those days), and coppers are easier to detect than silvers, due to the halo.  So, I guess I’m on budget, especially since I also have a seated Q, and the copper era extended into the seated era.  Did that make sense?  it wasn’t supposed to, but it did, at least to me; the endless rationalization of missing the big fish once again and forevermore.

So, I guess the next thing to blather about is that whatchamacallit on the right.  That came in as a deep 12-37, which I figured could be an IH, or, even better, an exotic like a half dime oe 3 center.  Problem was the pinpoint was big, and that rarely ends well.

But, down about 6 inches, out comes this massive piece of iron, at least golf ball size.  Are you kidding me?  Deep iron never falses in the 37s, so I figure there’s more, and, of course, there always is.  Pulled some small copper cruft, and a nail just below the iron, and there was still something there, and it was the whatchamacallit, about 8 inches deep, directly below the golf ball sized iron.  Are you kidding me?  Just shows how amazing the E-Trac is.

Too bad it wasn’t something amazing.  It it silver, tho, at least the outer part of it is.  I have no idea what it is, but it seems to be a copper interior with a silver exterior.  I’m not gonna say silver plated, cause after 200 years, that would have worn off.  So, its some sort of 200 year old semi silver bling.  Kinda cool, I guess.  I imagine in those days, it was a big deal.  Too bad its more or less garbage now.  But here are a couple more views of it, by far the oldest silver (or semi-silver) bling I’ve ever found —

So, that’s that.  Sort of a pedestrian documenting of the hunts sort of entry.  That’s what happens when you are not getting any, I suppose.  The one more odd thing about today’s hunt to mention is that there are endless fields at the site, and I just felt a sort of contentment swinging aimlessly thru these fields hoping to randomly find something (scarily, I found a nice 1 reale this way in the past, so there is something to it, maybe).  It could mean I’ll do more of these sorts of hunts going forward, we’ll see.