Thursday was a train wreck, 3 hours of bupkis at a park I was working the beginning of the year.  Its a 6 silver site, (plus one copper), but it is just so dead.  Pulled 73 cents in clad in all that time (and I dug most of it; usually I get 2-3 bucks only digging the quarters and what I get by mistake in that time).  Could not even muster a wheatie from the place.  The only reason I went is cause I had an appointment in that area, and I do want to finish the site eventually, but it is just so damn boring.  So, the hunt snapped a short silver streak, I think.

Friday (today; yeah I know its dated Saturday; we get the morning edit and first draft all in one this time), I went back to the woods trifecta place to finish off the patch of woods, and explore other parts of the site more.

Man I got a nice beautiful hit in this patch of poison ivy (and I figured this entry would be titled “what we do for silver”), but, after spending quite a bit of time weeding it out (I’m really allergic, and so much for “leave no trace” ethics”), and then working thru the roots (which also contain the allergen, I believe), the damn thing was a memorial penny.  Are you kidding me?  I was pissed; who wouldn’t be?  But what detectorist would have passed on the signal?

Anyway, the rest of the woods gave up plenty of everything, including more bottlecaps, except, of course, more silver.  One of those “everything but the girl” sort of hunts.  No quarters again, tho.  Weird.

So, off to explore the rest of the site, specifically the grassy area near these ancient trees and a very old building, which of course is gonna be hunted out — the only thing going for it is that it is on the large side, and that can sometimes defend a site.

I started at the very edge, like I almost always do now, and did get an old bottlecap, which is nice, but just not much of anything else.  This section seemed real rocky, meaning less sinking than usual, and thus easier to hunt out.

Only one high tone other than the bottlecap, and it turned out to be this silver starflake (that’s what I call it, cause it reminds me of a symbol in a game I wrote that my wife likes, and that’s what we call it).

I dunno what it is.  I do know that it is about the size of a quarter, and is 8.25 grams of silver.  Its not a broach or a pendant, cause there is a broken shank on the back, almost like a button.  I reckon its rather old, cause it is not stamped (meaning its older than 1905 or so). It was only a couple inches deep, but it was in rock, so it could have been dropped in the 1800s, or not that long ago for all I know, but I imagine that it was in the dirt for a while as it took quite a bit of cleaning.

My wife thinks its really cool.  I say melt it if silver prices ever rebound.  Since I reckon that is many years away, we have a while to fight about it (she wants to make it into a necklace or use it in our Wiz-War games somehow, maybe we will).  The way I look at it, it could just have easily been a bust or seated quarter.  Another big fish that got away.

Anyway, here’s the back of the thing —

But, there’s more.  Just a quick link to a useful web site this time, that I think is cool, anyway.  If you are ever detecting, and want to know how old particular trees are (and I always find myself wanting this info, don’t you?), use the formula on this site.  I don’t know how accurate it is, but it seems better than guessing, doesn’t it?   If I don’t know the species, I just use 4.5.  If the tree is free-standing in a park, rather than the woods, I divide by 1.5 to compensate for the fact that they are better tended and have less competition.

Again, didn’t find any silver coins (oh well), but did see this really massive terrapin ambling along.  I don’t see too many of those in the wild, so that was kinda cool. (Too bad I don’t carry a camera or a phone).