A couple more mercs.  Aren’t they pretty?  You should see the backs of both of them.  In truth, tho, there is no such thing as ugly silver coming out of the ground.

These are from a new site, hunted a couple of days ago.  An old, abandoned farmhouse (as opposed to a new, abandoned farmhouse, I guess).  The site is incredibly difficult to hunt, with tons of wheaties and other high tone trash.

Silver can’t be ugly, but I am going to write today about some non-metal detecting ugliness.  I don’t think I have any readers, so I can write whatever the fuck I want to (of course, I could do that even if I did have readers).  Even the comment spam bots have gone away since I revived this journal and moved it to my other server.

So, I work at a bar, and this dude, one of my customers, hits a woman. I have the bouncer throw him out, and ban him from the venue.  Bouncer and security system saw it all anyway.

Pretty ugly, but there’s more.  This ‘hole claims he didn’t do it, despite multiple witnesses outside me and the victim, and calls me a “racist” for throwing him out and banning him.  He’s lucky I didn’t call the cops, but that call is up to the owner of the bar and the victim.

Well, you hear about this narrative, do something illegal, and if an authority tries to remediate said atrocious behavior, accuse them of racism, and it all goes away or gets worse or muddled, and the original crime is obfuscated, because we care more about the bogus racism claim than the actual original crime. That concept has always been a bit of an abstraction to me, until the firsthand experience.  Of course, he also called the victim a racist.  Remember the victim?   What sick world we live in.

Well, turns out, on top of the actual incidents of this that happen all of over the world all the time, there is an insidious externality to all of this (us economists who work in bars like using fancy economist words (when not working at the bar, of course)), and that is this —

Another victim of this sort of thing are actual victims of racism.  As the din of these bogus “racist” claims rise in these situations, it dilutes the legitimate ones.  A “cry wolf” sort of thing.  So, one selfish ‘hole, who can’t control his temper and thinks hitting women with a security camera rolling is a good idea, causes more damage to the greater good than his pea brain could manage to comprehend.

If he is so concerned about racism, he should shut up, and not cry wolf, but human nature tends to be dark and selfish, and will seek any advantage it can (I wouldn’t be a good economist if I didn’t state this bleak, but true fact), and leveraging the stupid narrative our society is in the process of creating, that every non-white who is accused of a crime is a victim of racism, is one way to do so, at the expense of true victims, and the gullible public buys it hook, line, and sinker.

Well, hopefully I’ll find a wheelbarrow full of silver tomorrow, and I’ll be able to get this train back on the metal detecting tracks.  We’ll see.

This measly haul represents 4 hunts this week; one merc from Monday at my “bulk silver” site, now up to 20 silvers included that seated quarter, and a new site, a sort of out of the box field between where 2 old farmhouses were.

2 hunts at the field produced the merc, a buff, and a handful of wheaties.  Its always the sort of site you can get a big fish, tho.

Someone on a forum suggested that they no longer got excited about finding mercs.  If its not a seated or reale, forget it.

Me?  Never!  I love the experience of finding even a lowly rosie, and the hope, when you get “that sound”, it could always be something spectacular.  You’ve gotta dig the mercs to get that big fish.

As for the title, Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito is an awesome book I just finished.  Its fiction, for those who read science books, but it is not science fiction.  It is also hilarious, which is rare in science books.  It is hard to describe.

I didn’t know this was a thing, but apparently you can make rings from coins.  There are a ton of videos out there on how to do this (basically, you hammer down the edges into a ring shape, then drill out the middle, at least that is how they appeared to have made this one).

Well, I found one of these yesterday, at the same site I’ve been working recently that has given up some barber silver and a few IHs.  You can see the lettering from the edge of the coin on the inside of the ring, if you look hard enough.

This one was made from an SLQ; you can see the words “QUARTER DOLLAR” and the stars.  No date, so it was probably one of the dateless ones.  Good thing, I suppose, as I would have had a heart attack if it were a 1916.

Also found a regular silver quarter (1934), which I got pretty well with my digger.  Oh well, good thing that wasn’t a 1916 SLQ either.

Back to the seated quarter site, which, aside from that coin, is really modern silver site. So, scored 3 modern silvers from the site over the last 2 days.  Site is up to 19 silvers given up, not too bad as these things go.

Six hours of detecting, 3 silvers, so 1 for 2 hours.  A far cry from the one per half hour days, but the thrill of seeing the shiny in the hole never goes away.

I suppose I’ll just have that experience less frequently.

Back to the site where I found that seated quarter (duh, who wouldn’t), and no more silver coins after a long hunt, but at least a sterling ring.

Then back to another site in my current rotation, an old site that has given up several Indians, and a handful of silvers, including 2 barber dimes, where I am certain I am going to get a real old silver, but today, a 1910 wheatie, a modern silver quarter, and a 1893 Chicago/Columbus World’s Fair medallion to show for a morning of heat and bugs.

And some idiot drilled a hole in the medallion, presumably so they would not lose it.  How did that work out for them?

I did find a picture of it online, but no info on rarity; it is probably a common one, and given its condition, its likely worthless even if a rare one.

Now, why couldn’t that 1893 medallion been an 1893 quarter?

Finally got my seated I was hoping for over the past few weeks, but not at the site I expected.  And not at the field either, but at my bulk silver site.

4 hours of hunting, and nothing but clad.  Clad clad clad.  Quarter after quarter, and since I’ve found a couple of silver quarters here, and even a half, I was feeling like, statistically, I should have found a few by now.

Eventually I got a shiny coin in the hole, and figured it would be a 40s or 50s quarter like all of the silver here, and was shocked when a seated quarter popped out of the ground. Not only that, but a CC silver on top of it, my first ever.

Then, not 15 feet away, I found 2 dimes in the same hole for a hat trick of silvers on the day, but the seated quarter is one of my nicest, and I am still stoked about it.  Only career seated #7 for me.

Hit a new site for me, an old house in the woods. Not many good signals, but I did find two coppers in one hole.

One was an 1847 LC, and the other was a copper pendant, looks like from around 1914 and railroad related [info from the Token Catalog]

In the process of alternating between 3 sites right now — the site with the indians where I’ve found a couple of barbers and hope to find a seated, a huge field with no silvers yet but a handful of coppers and an indian, and the third site being a “bulk silver” site that  dates to the 50s.

Worked the latter the other day, and pulled a walker and a quarter.  12th silver from the site; site is huge, hope there is more there.

Back to last weekend’s site, and another barber dime.  This one is quite a bit nicer.  Saw the back on this one as well, and again hoped it was a seated, but it was not to be.  I’ll get one tho, I can feel it.

Back to the site of the last couple of entries.  As I said previously, there should be old silver here, and after a dry hunt yesterday, finally got one, a toasted 1892 barber dime.  (Also found a religious pendant stamped “CHAPEL STER”.  Not sure what that is, but it sounded sort of like silver, and tested as silver, tho it doesn’t look so much like silver).

Missed a seated by one year.  And, I could not tell in the field as all I could make out was the back, and the backs are basically the same between the two types.  Oh well, better luck next time.

Site also has an abundance of wild raspberries, which are now in season.  I love these things fresh off the bush.  Managed to pick about 3 cups worth in 20 minutes.  Probably got about 20% of what was in the patch.

New site, and dug some Indians over the past couple of hunts.  I rarely find these; only my 45th over 10 years, despite 1328 silvers over the same period.  But this is a very old site, so I opened up my range a bit, as I really want to find a seated half dime, and they are in that range.

Three hunts here actually, the first also produced a rosie, the second 3 of the Inidans and a toasted copper (probably a Connecticut copper), and the third one of the Indians and that honking silver ring, coming in at a beefy 25 grams.  Somebody had pretty big fingers.

Well, I hope to get back here in the next couple of days.  The copper and the IHs say something spectacular could lurk, and giant ring says it hasn’t been hunted too hard.

A recipe for success, we’ll see.

Yesterday went to a site that I lasted detected in 2013.  Always had promise, as it had given up 7 silvers over my few hunts the last time.

Was surprised to find 3 silvers in a little over 2 hours of detecting, including the 1943 coin from Uruguay.

Also surprised the place wasn’t hunted out in all that time.  As I try to come back after missing a few years of hunting, it gives me hope.

Just really a test post, but I did find 4 silver coins a couple of days ago, including a toasted 1916 Barber dime.  This is a new site, but a site I have known about forever.  I believe this is my first 4+ silver day in several years.

This blog is moving. I know its been a few years since I’ve updated it, and it may be a few more, but I do want to save it.  I hope to update it more someday, if I find interesting stuff.

I expect it will be at www.puzzlemaze.org/df/blog, or somewhere else on the puzzlemaze.org site.  We’ll see.

Dug this treasure today (yeah, I’m talking about the merc), which happens to be career silver #1300.  We always celebrate our milestones.

That toasted copper is a first for me, tho, a King George one penny (as opposed to the more commonly dug halfpenny).  You can tell by the size (half dollar size), and the weight (25 grams; it is supposed to be 1 oz, or about 28 grams — compare to the last KG III halfpenny I dug at less that 7 grams).  You can also tell by the raised rim, which let to these coins being called “cartwheels”.  This thing is thick as well as large.

It is of course dateless, but they were only dated 1797, so it is a 1797 KG III penny.  We also know it was actually minted in Britain cuz the colonists did not counterfeit these (most KG II and KG III halfpennies are colonial counterfeits).

I’ve actually never seen one of these posted, so in that sense it is an uncommon find.  Too bad it is still worthless.  Its the thrill that counts, I suppose.  It was about 10 inches down in a small park that was established in the 40s (and a new site for me).

The merc was really weird, came in at CO 38, which I rarely dig in a park, but since it was a new site, I wanted to see a wheate, and saw one.  Scanned the hole again, and got a 42 (ok, another wheatie), and found the merc instead (then the second wheatie).  Really weird.  The E-Trac is usually good at sniffing the silver out in this situation.

First, I found this barber dime at the same site as the “Bizarre Hunt” entry from the other day.

8 inches down, iffy signal, but a typical E-Trac silver.

Anyway, regarding the class ring, also from the “Bizarre Hunt” entry, it was rather quite simple in this case — found the yearbook online, the initials were unique, and a little bit of googling and I knew the guy’s life story within 2 hours.  Prolly had enough info to take out a mortgage in his name.  The internet is scary.

I’ll admit I did two things.  I looked at his house online to see if it was old and detectable (it wasn’t), and I looked to see if he was a good person (he was, volunteering, supporting firefighters and police, which, at least to me anyway, seems good).  I just didn’t want a bad person, like if he was a rapist or something, I would not have returned the ring.  Does the detectorist ethic allow the finder to judge and decide if they want to return the ring? Yeah, at least if it is me.

So, it was really cool, looking at the pic in the high school yearbook from the mid 70s, and a modern pic, and talking to him and all that about the day he lost the ring about 40 years ago, which he remembered quite well, the circumstances of why he was there, his girlfriend at the time who was with him, how he lost the ring, where he thought he lost it and how he tried to find it, and all that stuff.  I could prolly write a pretty decent short story on the whole thing; I just don’t want to, cause its his life.

All I can say is that he was happy to get the ring back after 40ish years.  And no, I did not nail this one, but how could I?  I would have loved to, as it is a great story, (but his privacy trumps my ego).

Anyway, that is what makes metal detecting cool — people who don’t know what they are looking at think it is about the money, as if finding loose change is cool — no, its about puzzles and stories of the past.  A story, in this case, so few will ever know, but it is so cool to experience just the same.  The tapestry of normal people living normal lives, experienced thru a lost ring.

Yesterday found a bizarre mix of stuff in a field.  I had hit this field a couple of times before, finding a reale, an old ring, and a button from the 1870s or so.

Yesterday I hit a section where I had found a few musket balls.  Found a few more (8 to be exact); are you kidding me?

And that doesn’t count the ones I didn’t dig, which was prolly just as many.  These things come in at CO 30-35 on the E-Trac, and nothing good that I’m looking for lives there except half dimes and half reales, and these had a bigger sound, so I felt safe in leaving a few for the next guy.  I’ve prolly found about 15 or so myself in this area over the years. Why so many in one spot?

When I posted this pic on Facebook, someone suggested they may be “canister shot”.

Who knew such a thing existed?  I sure didn’t.

Anyway, I think he is right, cause they are all sort of in one place, and they do look more that color than lead that has been in the ground, and these were supposedly tin or tin-plated, tho one is definitely lead.

So, this is a Civil War era weapon.  Who knew such a weapon would have been fired in Chester County, PA?  I wonder under what circumstances?  You’d need a pretty big gun to fire off one of these things.  I have found no other old relics in the area.  Very weird, and kinda cool when you think about it.  Problem is, the area where these things are is at the corner of the field, so I’ll never find anything else to help solve this mystery.

Anyway, about 15 feet from this area was the most beautiful deep silver quarter sound you’d ever hear.  You think of all the cool things it could be, like bust or seated, and all the lame things it prolly is, like a copper buckle or toasted large cent, and you are digging, digging so carefully not to hit it with the digger, and what you get?  A 1962Q.  Are you kidding me?  It is the last thing I expected to find in an old field near these canister balls.

Yes, you can be disappointed when finding silver.  But, silver coins are hard to find, so you always take them.

I then proceeded to find a war nickel, which came in at CO 24 or so on the E-Trac, (usually they come in at 15), and a 15 gram 10K white gold class ring dated 1975.  All in the same field.  Very bizarre.  I will try to return the ring, but in past experience, that has been hard.

Found 2 silvers today, as well as a pair of silver blings.  2 hour hunt at a new site for me.  Just a small park in a small town.  Maybe, at best, a 5 silver site.  Prolly will come it at 3.  We’ll see.

Found the merc in the first 5 minutes, under a large nail; the nail was on the surface, and the merc was just a half inch down.  Q was found on a deep enbankment, as were the 2 blings.  Some people go to a park and start in the middle; I go to a park and start in the most awkward sections, usually the sides.  It worked today.  It often works.

This is my 6th hunt of the year.  A mix of old and new sites, including a ruin near my house that produced a merc.  No other silvers from those sites, so I’m at 3 for the year.

Its nice to be back.  That said, I will prolly only spend about 10-20% of the time hunting as I did in the past.  I will also prolly only blog month end summaries, unless I have a fantastic day.  I expect to spend about 70% of my hunting time in random fields, cause even tho you never find anything, it is just relaxing (and BTW. my last random field a couple of years ago netted me a very nice bust half, and a pair of seated dimes next to each other, so you don’t always don’t find nothing, but you get the idea; when you don’t find nothing, it can end well :)).  My goal is to find 15-25 silvers this year.

I still love park and school hunting, and figuring this and that out about these places, and where they were.  During my hayday, I found 1227 silvers over a 4 year period at such places.  Its just you run out of such places with 45 minutes of where you live.  There are only so many.  I don’t think I’ve found them all, but I’ve found a good number of them around here; maybe I’ll find some more, we’ll see, but the odds of that seem low.

But, that is not why I took a pause.  I took a pause cause I wanted to write a puzzle hunt.  So that is what I did, and it is cool.  If you figure it out, you even find silver.  The problem is, there is no real audience for this sort of thing.  But, I did it anyway, cause I wanted to.

https://www.puzzlemaze.org/games

I didn’t metal detect since April, and found a total of 3 silvers on the year.  I expect to get back to it this spring.  The scripts that run this place need this entry at the end of the year, so that is why I’m bothering.

Got out last Fri to my second best all time site; the Q was the 125th silver I have pulled from there.  Started hunting the site in Nov 09, and pulled the bulk of them in 2010 and 2011, but it always seems to give up something each year.

I keep meticulous records of where I’ve been at a site, so what I’ve been doing is going over the hot zones in the spring when the ground is wet, and with the Big Unit to see if more would be coughed up.  Nada, never really seems to happen, so I guess I’ve done a pretty good job the first time.

The Q was from a way out of the way section that I had never gone over, and it was more or less a random field theory find.  I have one more really dense hot zone section from before I want to go over, and one out of the way zone, then it will be adieu to this site.  Sad to close such a special site.  The question is, when will I get to it?

Yesterday I pulled a barber dime from a very sparse random field theory site.  I had found my 4th and 6th ever silvers there, in 2009, using a DFX. in those days, but all it has given up since is coppers (I think 20 or so total, but I’m not a big copper guy), so its a 3 silver site, but there is always a chance for something special, especially as the first silver I found here was a half reale.

I hit a zone where I was finding lots of shallow buttons, buckles, an IH, and the like, so I thought I had a good shot at something, prolly a copper.  When I got the silver dime signal, and I knew it was going to be a silver dime, I thought it could be a bust or at least a seated, given the general age of the relics, but it wasn’t to be.  Tough to be disappointed over a barber silver, but I often am, as I spent nearly 4 hours gridding this section of the field.  I think in terms of hour per silver, and modern silver should be 1 per 2 hours worst case (gone are the days I could pull 2 per hour :()

Got out for the first time since whenever today (I think last August).  2 hour hunt at a site that has never given anything up, but I wanted to try it in the spring when the ground was wet.  Frustrating, hunted out site — only 4 deep coins in 2 hours, but fortunately one was a 1937 merc.

Well, this was a one off — I don’t expect to have the time to do much detecting for a while, but hopefully I squeeze out another silver or two this spring.  We’ll see.

Well, the scripts around here require a Year End Summary post to make everything work right.

Not much here, really, only found 42 silvers this year, but also detected, for the most part, only in late March thru May.  Last year’s endless winter knocked out most of the days in the early months, and by early Aug, I had stopped completely, with only a few stray hunts over the summer.  Lyme disease sort of did me in for a spell, and I went onto other things, which are still ongoing.

I wanted to get out this holiday period, but it just didn’t work out.  I’m not the sort of person who can go out only once or twice a month — when I get into something, I get into it full force, and I’m into many other things full force now.  I will try to get some hunts in in 2015, tho.

The highlight of 2014 was a pair of seated dimes on the same day, within a few feet of each other, in a random field.  These were found on 3/28.  Seems like a long time ago. (Note to myself — I still don’t think I’ve put this on my best finds page).

Well, folks, have a productive year in whatever it is you decide to focus on this year.

Not sure if anyone checks on this page any more, but if so, Happy Thanksgiving.

I’ve only detected twice since the last update (Aug 6).  Both for a couple of hours, and both nothing but clad.  One was an old site that was never really that promising, and one was an old piece of private property that just became public; a huge site.

I had high hopes for the second site, but had obviously been nighthawked over the the years, as there really wasn’t even much clad.  Its not the sort of site permission would have been granted for.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll try again someday.

I expect to remain on detecting hiatus for a while (and now we’ve even got snow, so another endless winter looks like its here), and I do miss it.  In the unlikely event I get out soon, and find something good, I’ll post it, otherwise the blog is dead for now.

(For the curious, it all started when I got Lyme disease, and the meds kept me out of the sun (I tried detecting, but got a really bad sunburn), so I went onto other projects, that now seem never ending).

First multi-silver day in like forever.  A couple of dimes at a new site, a 50s era ballpark.  Not much density at this place, and they were deep.

The site doesn’t seem to have much potential.  Figured it would be a 5-10 silver site initially, now I think I’ll be lucky to get 5.

Also, turns out I have Lyme disease, which I guess explains why I haven’t felt like detecting much lately.  This is the second time I’ve had it, for some reason it is worse this time.  I’ve just felt like laying around and doing inside hobbies instead of detecting.  Hopefully it will go away and I’ll feel like doing more stuff outside again.

Got out a couple of times early this week.  First site was a school I hit last year that gave up a few silvers.  Site is huge, and I spent a long time there, but didn’t get any silvers despite getting some good tells.  Very frustrating.  Did get a silver ring, and a bizarre silver wheatie pendant.  Have no idea what this thing is actually coated in, or why someone would go to the trouble to make it, but it rang in as a silver Q.  Very frustrating.

Next day did some random field theory at a brand new field.  Somewhat promising, as I pulled a pair of wheaties and a silver dime.  Field goes back to the 1700s; a bit of a letdown when the silver dime signal turns out to be a ’51 rosie.

Haven’t detected since the last update, except for a couple of days this week.  Only find of note was a deep sterling ring.

I’ve been traveling and working alot, including an exotic trip to South America, where I managed to catch an equally exotic virus, and had to cruise on back home prematurely, and lay around in bed for a while.  Yikes, its been a rough month overall, in all honesty.

Anyway, hopefully all that badness is behind me.  I’m still not sure how much detecting I’ll be doing the rest of the summer, but hopefully slightly more.  I feel I’m in semi-retirement mode, but one good day or good site could change that.  We’ll see.

Got out a couple times this week to close out another site, which turned out to end up at 24 silvers, and pulled a lone ’63 rosie.

Beautiful, isn’t it?  We’ll take it.

Started working this site for real last fall, and finished it this spring.  An old park in southern Chester County.  Interesting that I tried other machines there, such as the DFX and V3, and even the E-Trac a little bit, but it was only the E-Trac with the Big Unit that was able to solve it.

Well, I don’t really expect to do any detecting between now and the middle of summer, as I am just way too busy, so this may be the last update for a while, tho, maybe I’ll get out for a random hunt and find a random silver between now and then (sort of like what this was since the last post), we’ll see.

Not much detecting so far this week, but on Monday, I did manage to nab this 7 gram sterling ring at my Boyertown site mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

The Boyertown site also gave up the barber and merc from my last entry.  I didn’t mention it then, cause after the first entry, I noticed someone had come in to the site with fresh plugs.  Are you kidding me?  I don’t know if it was anyone reading me, or just coincidence, who knows?, and who cares?, but dude, if its you, hit me up, and we’ll hunt sometime.

Anyway, I closed the site out today without silver.  Bummer.  Total take, three silvers including a barber dime, and a 7 gram ring.  Not bad.  The only reason I was there was cuz there is a locally renowned sports doctor in the area, and I needed some serious PT, but hopefully (knock on wood), I won’t need to go back.

So that’s that for my Boyertown adventure.  I love going into unfamiliar areas and pulling silver (who doesn’t?  I mean, who doesn’t like going into any area and pulling silver?).  Anyway, its back to Chester County which we know and love, tho with so much going on, I don’t expect to do much more detecting this summer, so the entries will be even more sporadic.

Couple of barbers recently, one on Thursday’s hunt, one on Friday’s hunt.  These are from different sites; both previous silver sites from recent entries.  Came up one short of the trifecta on each day.

Thursday’s dimes —

Friday’s dimes —

Both sites are on the stingy side, and I don’t get too many barbers, so we’ll take ’em.

Thursday’s was shallow and a bit weird, rang in like a silver quarter, and was right in the middle of the park.  Really weird.  I think it was on its side, cause coins on their side tend to ring higher on the E-Trac, or maybe it was affected by something.  Hard to believe it was missed in a smallish, sparse park.

It also cleaned up quite nice, aside from a blemish on the back, which may have been caused by being pressed up against a mineralized rock for 100 years.  I wonder how it would grade, ex damage —

Not the best pic, but it looks good in person, trust me 🙂

Friday’s barber was a really difficult dig, in a trashy site where everything was difficult, and the density was much less than I had hoped, tho I did have the merc, a few wheaties, and what I thought were a couple of coppers (they weren’t, as it turns out).

This one was just a tiny silver chirp thru all the trash.  What I call a “good ears” silver.  Down I went into the hole and didn’t find it, and I often give up on these, but another scan of the PP and I heard the faintest chirp on the side of the hole.  Worked the spot, and out it popped, another one on its side, and deep.  This one was possibly one of the most difficult silvers I ever dug.  Too bad I don’t have a video camera, as it is hard to describe these.

Turned out to be a 1902.  The merc was a 1939D, my first one, which fills a hole in my dug merc album.  Only need 23 more, including all the hard ones (except the 26S).  Good luck with that project.

Career copper #100 today.  And, it true tradition, it is a complete unidentifiable toastie.

Also a 1919 buff with the front toasted, a sterling turquoise ring, and a handful of deep wheaties.  No silvers, and that’s too bad, cause there should have been.  Oh well.

This is a new site, a field where there was a baseball diamond on the 30s aerials, but it was gone by the 50s.  I had high hopes that no one remembered it, and the competition had overlooked it, but it was not to be.  Targets were sparse and deep.  There prolly were not a ton of targets to begin with, as it is not near a large town, but there should have been at least 1 stinkin’ merc for 3 hours of trouble.  Thought I had one right at the end of the hunt, but it turned out to be that sterling ring.

Also found another ring that rang in high, but was stamped 18 and then a crown symbol.  I think that means its supposed to be 18K.  I think it was gold-filled, as the metal tested as gold, but I could see copper everywhere.  I think it was pretty old,. cause it was deep like everything else.  Prolly $10-20 bucks of gold on it, but the refiners won’t take ’em.  Too bad.

Sometimes doing this blog gets so tedious, especially with all the real crap that’s going on, that you just have to throw a completely different title out there, one the gives away the location of the site.  Maybe a better idea is to shut the whole damn thing down.

Boyertown is a town about a half hour from where I live, and despite having lived where I live pretty much my whole life, I’ve never been there.  I have no idea why. cause I just like to drive around an explore places, just to piss off the enviroalarmists who think my doing so causes global warming.

Its actually a pretty cool town, and is a nice place to metal detect.  Best of all, it has silver,  Hopefully it has more, tho I don’t think it has much as the site I was on had been hit hard.  Only there for about 90 minutes and managed to score a Q that was deep, on its side, and affected by ferrous.  No slam dunk silvers here.

Have a nice holiday everyone.

Got out yesterday for a rainy day hunt at the same place as the previous day.  Just a dime.  Machine was really going crazy in the rain, as it usually does.  I should not have gone out, but I just had to, as my hunting opportunities are limited these days, so I take ’em when I get ’em.

Found three silver dimes today.  Woohoo.  I never get tired of it, baby.

This is from a site I worked back in October of last year.  Everyone says its hunted out.  At that time, I had 19 silvers.  Now I have 22.  Not bad.  Interesting that pretty much every site that gets past 21 silvers in my log makes it to 40, with only a couple of exceptions.  I expect this to be one of them.

I’ve been out once since 5/7 before today.  Just to close off my 76 silver site.  Didn’t find anymore silvers.  Oh well.  So sad to see such a special site go.  Found 2 half dollars there, including a Barber, a shield nickel, a largie, and of course all the silvers.  Just a normal town park.  Who says you can’t find silver in parks anymore?  Bet there are quite a few still there.  Found most of them in the summer of 2011, my 516 silver year.  Learned most of what I know about metal detecting at that place.

Back to the real world, where I am no longer finding silver, but, in all fairness, I rarely have to time or the circumstance to get out anymore.  I did get a rare weekend hunt in this morning tho, at an abandoned house.

Frustrating hunt, as I got alot of deep high tones, but not one single coin for about 4 hours.  It was hard to tell if the place was hunted out or not.  I did get 5 old copper buckles and a big ass skeleton key (about 5 inches long), which suggested that there could be goodies here, but there weren’t.  Those buckles sound so good too, like silver pretty much.

I also got a silver relic as a consolation prize, looks like the back of a pocket watch.  Its marked “junior coin No 1”, with some number stamped below it.  I couldn’t find anything on this, but I’m guessing that means it is coin silver,  It certainly tests as silver, and comes in at a hefty 12+ grams.

Finally, at the very end, got the only coin of the day, a toasted King George III copper with 3 (are you kidding me?) holes.  Certainly not photo-worthy, there just for reference for the big silver thing.

Well, it looks like that kind of year, where I don’t get out much.  We’ll see.

Well, not much too exciting going on around here.  Went back to my “pennies from heaven” site from recent days, just hoping to score one old silver, and instead got another penny, another 1912.  Site is too overgrown to do more there, so that’s that.

Yesterday pulled a another rosie, woohoo!  They all start to look the same after a while, don’t they, tho I’ll admit I never tire of finding them.

This was from my (now) 76 silver site, which pretty much now has all the loose ends cleaned up.  One more day there, just to do a farewell hunt at some point.  Its sad finishing such an awesome site.  Not only that, its a really beautiful and pleasant place to be.

Well, I’ve been swamped lately, and had some particularly unpleasant business to deal with recently, plus I’m injured, so I’ve been a bit cranky and haven’t been able to get the hours in detecting.  At least the unpleasantness is over, but I doubt I’ll me getting many more hours in anytime soon.

Well, nothing too exciting, a dime yesterday, and a dime today.  Also got a silver bling yesterday — its been a long time since I’ve gotten a silver bling (and nearly 2 years since I’ve gotten a gold bling).

Yesterday’s site was my third best site, now at 75 silvers.  I was happy to get it to that 75 milestone.  Most of my production there came in the summer of 2011, and I’ve rarely been back since.  Still going thru my old sites and cleaning up loose ends from the days when I wasn’t such a meticulous record keeper.  I was going thru unfinished zones from memory, and I’m sure I went over the same areas twice (one thing I hate doing, as it is obviously inefficient).  I think the place is more or less dry now, but there are still some loose ends.  We’ll see when and if I get to closing it out.  Its an amazing site, and I miss it.

Today was a rare weekend hunt — a more or less new site.  The problem with this site is that it is far from home.  I hunted it once last fall, and IIRC, had a double digit wheatie day, but no silvers.  I’ve been drooling over this site for years, and always imagined it as a triple digit site, as it is so massive (well larger than any site I’ve ever worked), and quite old.  Also apparently hunted hard, as I only pulled a few targets today; 3 wheaties and the merc.  Density is also an issue here, as it is with any massive site.  On the upside, it is impossible for it to be hunted out.  Still could be a triple digit site, but it might take 10 years to get there at my rate.  More realistically might be a 10-20 silver site, we’ll see.

I have 2 monster sites, one that has produced 140 silvers, and the other 127.  That’s alot, as these things go (40 is alot as these things go).

I went to the larger of the 2 today.  Most of the silvers were found in 2011, but I keep going back, and occasionally find a stray silver.  Some areas I’ve gridded over 6 times now, and still get the goods.  (The whole thing isn’t that simple, and merits a long article (a small part of which I posted to Minelab’s find of the month site when I found 112 silvers over the span of 17 days, including a 23 spot, in 2011), but today isn’t the day for that article, as I’m just way too pressed for time.

Now, its just a normal site that I’m in the process of closing out, but it gave up #141 and #142 today.  Whohoo.

Back to the ruins of 4/24, where I pulled 8 pennies, all of them old, including 4 coppers ranging from a Jersey copper to 1826.  Figured I had a shot at some bust silver, or at least some dead zone silver, but it wasn’t to be.

Spent a couple hours working new parts of the site, but found bupkis. Decided to do something I rarely do, but figured it was appropriate in this case, and re-grided the hot zone where the 8 old coins came from, from a 90 degree angle of the first grid.  The theory was, with so much awkward vegetation and iron, it would be impossible to hit every target the first time, so no doubt I’d get that seated half dime from a different angle this time, wouldn’t I?

I didn’t, but I did yet another largie.  Just proves re-gridding has some value.  I’m not surprised I missed it the first time, cause I almost missed it the second time as well.  Was a deep, iffy, 11-45, maybe silver, maybe ferrous, that I was certain would be a seated, and was a grueling 8-9 inches deep in rocks and iron.  Took me 10 minutes to dig it out,  I was, of course, a bit disappointed that it was yet another penny, but, for Chester County coppers and our acidic soil, its not half bad.  Possibly my best largie ever, but that ain’t saying much.

Its an 1816.  The coin is better than the photography.

I’m a bit mystified by the site.  A large colonial era ruins, active til the 1930s aerials, derelict in the 1950s aerials, having bupkis everywhere except a very small hot zone which produced 9 pennies spanning 3 centuries.  And, this hot zone is only 10 by 30 yards.  Well, I’ll never figure this game out, will I?

A rough week (but with some good coins), but no silver, and I needed a fix, so I went to a park which has given up the goods in the past,  Just a 3 silver park, last visit was Jan 2012.  I don’t always walk into these places when I need a fix and drop a hat trick, but it is sweet when I do, isn’t it? 🙂

I could write more, but I’m swamped.  I thought the park was mostly dead last time I was there, except the out of the box section I worked at the time, but now that I’ve gotten better, and have a big unit, I figured I’d give it a go.

Merc was on the edge of the park.  Silver Q was with a memorial penny (weird signal, but should have been dug by the competition), rosie was a slam dunk,  After that, about 90 minutes of dead.  So now, a 6 silver site, not sure if there is more.  Tough to read,

Had a couple of rough days in the field of the last entries, like, I didn’t find anything, like not not even junk.  My swinging arm felt like lead.  I decided to move on, at least temporarily, and most likely permanently.

Hit a brand new site, which is some ruins in some woods I recently discovered via some research (as if there are other paths to discovery, like random wandering or space aliens implanting visions in my brain :)).  Had only 90 minutes to hit the site yesterday, and pulled my second career 3 ringer.  I’m not a relic guy, but I do know these things are rare here in Chester County.  That said, all this is to me is a tell for the hope of dead zone silver —

Today was the first full day of hunting at the site, and I managed to pull 8 coins, all of them pennies.  Are you kidding me?

4 coppers, 2 IHs,. and 2 wheaties.  Not the greatest pic, so it doesn’t show that the coppers aren’t as abused as what usually comes out of the ground around here.  The dates on the largies are 1810, 1816, and 1826.  The shield copper is a New Jersey copper, the 3rd of my career, and by far the nicest of them (tho admittedly, the front is toast).  The IHs are also somewhat decent for around here, a 1901 and 1902.  The wheaties are 1912 and 1944.

I guess that means this is a double penny trifecta.  Whohoo!  Those who follow me know there are only three types of coins I like to find: silvers, silvers, and well, you get it.  But this seems actually kinda rare, 4 coppers in one day, as well as the IH’s.  Whatever, where’s the dead zone silver?

The interesting thing about this hunt was that all the coins were concentrated in a very small area of the site.  Yesterday I spent 90 minutes with only one diggable target, and today the first hour or so went by with bupkis, until I hit this hot zone, with diggable target after diggable target.

The site was extremely awkward — thornbushes, other bushes, downed trees, and so forth.  It was hard detecting (and digging, thru rocks and roots), but that is the nature of colonial era sites in the woods.  It was so grueling that I left an hour before I had to, due to burnout (imagine tight low and slow swinging thru thornbushes and downed trees in an iron infested zone, and you get the idea), but in all fairness to leaving early, I’m sick, so I just had to walk off.  Too bad, cause the one section with all the stuff almost seemed like a virgin site,  at least based on the run rate of diggable targets.  I may grid that section the opposite way sometime.

Here are some of the relics from the hot zone —

A couple of buckles and a monogrammed spoon.  I found most of the spoon, but not the middle part.  It looks like silver, but, sadly, is base metal (prolly silver plate, actually).

I also found this cool whatchamacallit —

Its hollow thru and thru, including the bulbous part being totally hollow. I have no idea what this is, or could have been used for, but it must have been cool, given the effort to make such a thing in that era.  If you have any clue what this thing is, please comment. (Edit: I’m told on one of my Facebook groups that: It’s the top to an 18th(?) century fireplace andiron [sic]. I have yet to google any of that to see what it means).

Back to yesterday’s site, just one good target, a beautiful 01-44 with a silver sound.  Could have been something older, but turned out to be a Franklin half.  We’ll take it.

I don’t get too many of these, in fact, its only my second out of 33 silver half dollars, which includes 5 barbers, and 22 walkers.  I guess they fell out of favor.

Well, that’s that, no time today.

RFT = Random Field Theory, for our new readers, in the unlikely event there are any 🙂

Anyway, first, running an ultra is hard.  50K is alot of K’s (and miles as well, 31 or so to be more or less exact, which is 5 more than a marathon, which doesn’t sound like alot, but try running a marathon, then run 5 more miles on top of it).  Then on Monday I had a plumbing crisis to deal with, and went DIY rather than calling a pro, took 4hrs when calling a pro prolly would have taken 15 minutes, but DIY is so much more satisfying, isn’t it?  (well, only when it works, of course).  Tuesday it rained like all get out, but today I went metal detecting.  Woohoo!

I just wanted a stress free experience, so I hit this huge field that I’ve known about for a while (which is public property), but never thought it worthwhile until I did the Random Field Theory thing over the past few months.  That site was private property, and possibly had never been detected.

This site had been detected, cause I saw some other clown’s plugs.  Are you kidding me?  Who detects random fields?  It sounds so inefficient, but it is so relaxing, and, as I’ve shown before, you find great stuff once in a while.

I didn’t get great stuff, but I didn’t come away completely empty-handed either; I nailed a barber in the first hour, but the next 3 hours were deader than a [well nevermind, I was about to say something highly political which would have offended someone, despite it being correct :)].  In any case, we’ll take it, cause silver coins are hard to find, especially in random fields, but a 1 in 4 hour run rate takes some patience indeed, doesn’t it?

But, there’s a bit more.  Not related to metal detecting, but tomorrow I see Iced Earth live at the Troc for the first time, prolly my all-time favorite metal band.  I get to see if I can survive my first ultra, a DIY plumbing crisis, and the metal pit all in the same week.  No doubt the plumbing will be remembered as the hardest of the three 🙂

Too bad, cause I was having a bit of a lucky run lately.  A couple of days ago, I went to my favorite metal detecting town, where I’ve pulled 205 silvers, by far my most for any town, to close off a couple of sites.

One was a 40 silver site that just had an hour left to do, always the completist, and I guess I could have blown it off, but if its a silver per hour site, or better, you have decent odds, so why not?  Not only that, I once got a barber half in the last hour cleanup section, so I always do it.  But, I didn’t get anything.  Oh well.  Onto another park in the same town, a small park that had only given up 7 silvers, and I had already covered it, but 6 were all in one small area, including a barber Q, so I wanted to cover that hot zone with the big unit.  Bupkis.

Onto a third site in that town, which I’ve only hunted briefly, and I figured had decent potential.  It doesn’t.

So, that was the end of the mini silver streak on Wed.  Yesterday, tho, I did score a 46 rosie at a new site in a much tougher town (an 11 silver town).  This was a vacant lot site where some 30s houses stood.  Pulled a ton of clad but just one silver and one wheatie.  Hard to tell whether it had been hunted or not.  Probably, as there should have been more silvers, but these sites tend to be hit and miss.  Anyway, a one and done site.  I don’t really have time to take a pic of lone rosie; we’ve all seen ’em, tho I’m sure I would if I had more time, cause every silver coin remains hard to find, no matter how many you get.

So tomorrow I’m running 50K.  That’s alot, as these things go.  So, no detecting today to rest, and who knows for how long after.

Gotta love that title.  I do, anyway.  Here they are baby! — a sweet sixspot:

And all shinyed up.  I have no idea why I still do dirt on, and dirt off pics.  I guess old habits die hard, don’t they?

All modern silvers, of course, but we’ll take ’em.  For me, its still about the experience of “that sound”, and then seeing the shiny in the hole.

Anyway, is there a story here?  I’m not sure.  I don’t think so, but I’ll try.

These are from a park I first hit in Feb of 2012.  Huge park, but mostly dead.  I did find a couple of silver dimes then, but wrote it off, due to the lack of a good run rate (especially compared to what I was getting elsewhere in those days), and no clad (not that I’m a clad hunter, but those who follow me know that clad is a good tell).  I found my third silver there in Dec of 2012, but bupkis since.

I went back cause recently I’ve been inventorying some of my old sites with by big unit and better skill, to see if one or both of those factors could make these hopeless sites sing.  It certainly worked on the one of the past couple days, so why not this one with short grass and superwet ground as well?

But it wasn’t quite like that.  5 of the silvers were found in an out of the box section, and not only that, 4 of those 5 were found on the edge of the out of the box section.  Are you kidding me?  Dude, if you are smart enough to find the out the box section (and it appeared to be mostly hunted out outside a stray rosie, which we’ll take, of course), then be smart enough to hunt the edge of the out of the box section.  I couldn’t believe I found 3 Q’s and a merc there, and bupkis pretty much everywhere else.  Two hours, 5 silvers in that section.  Not bad, not bad at all, as these things go.

But that section ended, at it was onto the main section.  Not much goin’ on there.  In 90 minutes, I dug just 4 coins, and 3 deep wheaties that all sounded like slam dunk silvers.  All were in standing water,  I wonder if the water jacks up the CO #.  Apparently.

The 4th was my 6th silver of the day, a merc that I was pretty sure was ferrous before I dug, but only dug cause I needed to rest my swinging arm, and the sound had a bit of fight to it. But it was a real iffy signal.

7.5 inches down I was surprised to see the merc, and then swung the PP around the hole (as I always do), and got another signal, figured I was in business for a second silver in the hole, but the ferrous showed its ugly head after all —

I’m not sure if I was lucky digging ferrous and happened to find a merc, or it was skill to hear the merc next to the ferrous.  Who knows?  All I know is that it was the only silver in the “main section”, and only one of 4 coins dug in 90 minutes.  We’ll take it.

So, its hard to assess this site.  Clearly, 5 of the silvers were circumstantial, and don’t count towards evaluating the site (but we’ll take ’em anyway, won’t we?), and the 6th may have been blind luck.  Its a huge site, supposedly hunted out, but similar have lead to the 30s and 40s in the past.  This one is now at 9, but I just don’t see it going much further, tho we’ll see.

Its still nice, tho, to periodically reevaluate old sites with new skill and new equipment.  You never know what you’ll find.  One more aside — my silver to total dug is now at a record 5.45%, due to the absence of clad at the last couple of places.  I think that’s good, pulling silver from parks where there is no clad, but unfortunately, the only other time it was this high, I went into a bit of a slump.  I’m expecting the same this time, due to the excessive, non-repeatable luck lately, but we’ll see.

Back to Friday’s park for another couple of hours today, and pulled another merc and an SLQ.  This one is dateless, unfortunately.

Both were on their side — the merc was just one inch deep but in a grass-free area up against a fence.  It was prolly pushed around a bit when they did work on the fence.

I’m pretty certain there was another guy’s plug where the SLQ was, but its hard to be certain.  Some machines have trouble with coins on their side, so its possible he heard it, or thought he heard it, and couldn’t find it. Or, maybe he hit another target or it wasn’t a plug at all.  Who knows?

Well, that section of the park is done.  I’ve been all over this place, but have only ever pulled silver from the one end.  I wonder if there is any more for me in other sections?