Same site, different day.  Had trouble with the ring, it was only at 4 inches, but it was tough to hear at first.  The auto rec was only 10 in that section.  I gave up on that section and moved onto others, and found a couple of dimes.  I’m losing hope of finding a real old one here due to the mineralization.

Went back to the same site as the last few days, and pulled 3 more silvers, two quarters and a dime. It  was a beautiful day, and I wanted to hunt all day, but my pinpointer battery died.  Of course I had a spare, and of course it was dead.  This is the 2nd or 3rd time this has happened with this cheap generic brand; I never thought battery brand matters, but apparently so.

After yesterday’s post, today’s hunt gives an inverted ratio at this site, 7 quarters, 6 dimes, and a war nickel.  This has never even come close to happening before.  While the sample size is a little small, it is fine, especially as the clad is showing the same inversion.

So, probably not been hunted too hard (at least with any skill or with a machine that can deal with the mineralization), probably a low density site, but most of all, the mineralization is brutal.  Auto rec in the 13-17 range. Yikes.  I feel lucky I’ve pulled what I have from this site.

Today marked my ninth straight hunt of pulling at least one silver coin.  A far cry from my record of 52 straight, but we’ll take it.  Silver coins are still hard to find, and every one is a gift, especially as me and my competition continue to hunt the area out.

On the subject of stats, economists like to look at data, and look for explanations of that data.  That can even have relevance to metal detecting.  For example, my current site has given up 11 silver coins: 5 quarters, 5 dimes, and 1 war nickel.  This ratio is consistent with modern change (and while I don’t track pennies cause they ain’t silver, the quantity I am finding is consistent with modern change as well).

Normally, at a silver site, the ratio of dimes to quarters will range from 3:1 (good), to 10:1 (normal), or even worse.  These ratios, skewed well off the modern change ratio, suggest the site was hunted, especially in the 80s (cause quarters are easier to find than dimes). The worse the ratio, the harder it has been hunted.

Judging how hard a site has been hunted is important.  You don’t want to waste your time at a hard-hunted site while the competition is picking low-hanging fruit elsewhere; you need to be the one picking that low-hanging fruit, and come back to the hard-hunted site later.

But this one is hard.  The ratio suggests that it has not been hunted (and given that it is a permission site, that is possible).  OTOH, the quantity suggests that it may have been (its not alot of quantity per square area).  OTOH, the research suggests the site may have had a low density usage during the silver era, meaning the quantity and ratio of finds are consistent with a low usage, never been hunted site.  OTOH, the mineralization is god-awful; I can’t get an auto rec above 19, and even some of the quarters have iffy signals, suggesting many deep dimes may be being masked by mineralization, skewing the data!

Are you kidding me?  These are the things an economist thinks about while metal detecting, all in the name of optimization.  My guess is that there are not many economists who metal detect.  My guess is that there are even less that blog.  And, after that, even fewer readers. You (if you are not a searchbot), are likely unique.  Cheers!

But, the question remains, why hunt such as site?  Cause its damn old, and there could be a big one here, but with the crappy dirt, it may be tough to hear it.  The hope is it has not been detected before (giving you a shot at a shallow big one), but the evidence is inconclusive.  At least the Dismal Science gives you a way to think about the problem, and that’s what I’m trying to do.  Cut and run, or press on?  Tough call.

Got out late, due to work issues, then it started to rain, and while the rain doesn’t bother me, it totally hoses out the E-Trac.  I want that new waterproof one.

In the meantime, I pulled a pair of quarters, 3 wheaties, and only 5 clads,  That’s some nice efficiency.  One of the wheaties is a 1923.  I don’t get ’em out of the 40s and 50s too often, so that’s cool.  Its also one I’ve never gotten before.  Not counting mintmarks, I need a 1912, 1922, and 1932.  Have a 1943, which is probably the hardest one I have.

So, check this out.  The above pic is all the targets that came out of one hole.  Those chicken nugget like things are actually blobs of iron.  You can see how big they are relative to the Q.

So, I hit the target, and it sounds like silver, but not the cleanest signal.  Open it up and pull out one of those big chunks.  Ok, probably what I call “bulbous ferrous”, those big hunks of iron that can sometimes give a silver-like signal.

So, I rescan (as always), and still hear the damn silver in there.  Open her up again, and pull out another chunk.  At this point, I figure I better poke the pinpointer around in there, and see if there is silver in there or not.  Of course there is, and I get a hit on the pinpointer, but its not silver, its yet another iron turd.  D’oh!

So, I close her up again and rescan, and damn thing still sounds like silver.  This time, I get the goods, and find the quarter.

The E-Trac never gave up on that silver tone, and glad I didn’t either.  I just love the E-Trac’s ability to pull silver out of the iron.

As for the rest of the hunt, started out slow — this site is thin on targets, and today was no exception, working and working and working, got one rosie, but not much else.  Decided to bail on that section of the site and work another, which gave up a couple of quick wheats, which is always constructive, but then not a single target of any kind (including conductive trash), which is a bad sign.

Back to the original section, which had given up a few coins, and more dead, and I was about to call it a day, but hit another rosie.  Kept going for a while, then the war nik, and a pair of Qs in quick succession (including the one above), for a fivespot on the day.  Had to go to work at that point, so that was that.

Oh my, that’s an ugly sight, isn’t it?  $5.15 worth of the dull stuff.  Maybe I can get a bag of chips and a soda, or something.

I shouldn’t be so derisive, cause this is my all time favorite site, haven given up 140 silvers, including today’s hunt.

The interesting thing about all that clad, tho, is that it is from a section that I have previously worked 3 times before!  This is my quadruple dip.  First, I hit the site normally, pulling mountains of silver, and ignoring the clad.  Then, they stripped some dirt off (which, of course, had all the ignored clad), piled it in huge piles, and I hit the underlying layer, pulling more silver that was pretty much exposed.  Then, they pushed that dirt around, revealing more silver.

Then, just recently, they took those old dirt piles from step two, and pushed them back over the site (with all that clad I ignored).  This created an inversion situation where you can have modern clad at 4-6 inches, and silvers at 1 inch, and that’s what I was seeing.  (Of course, there was clad at 1 inch also). Not only that, for some reason, TID on the E-Trac breaks down in this situation; pretty much every silver dime I found at one inch or less in the pushed around dirt and disturbed dirt after they first started construction rang at 12-44.  Quarters were a little better, but not conclusive.  Ergo, you had to dig all that 12-44 clad to make sure you got the shiny. Yikes.

I did get some more shiny today, tho, a Q and a rosie, as well as an ugly ring, and an old charm.  I also pulled 14 wheats, which is a total ripoff; generally my ratio is 2.5:1 wheats to silver, meaning I should have pulled about 5 silvers.  Of course, on my first pass thru here, I ignored some wheaties as well, so those got revenge today also.

Thanks to minelabforums.com for voting my 1777 Spanish 2 reale as coin find of the month for April.  Thanks to my facebook MD friends for also recognizing it as an awesome find.  This is a hard coin to find, and you don’t see all that many of them posted.

And, this stuff actually matters (and its not about me an my finds).  Too bad not everyone understands this.

Today’s plan was to attempt to get permission at a site I’ve been looking at for a while, and stop off at a park on the way that I’ve never hunted before.

The park was a bit of a dud.  I got some deep clad, which is usually constructive, but no wheaties, and no silver.  The ground was pretty bad, auto rec in the 16-19 range, which no doubt was a part of the problem.

I also had the cops called on me while at this park.  This is the first time this has happened to me.  The cop told me that someone was complaining that I was “digging holes and not filling them in”.  This was odd, since no one else was in the park.  The cop said they probably called from one of the nearby houses.

He asked if I was digging holes and not filling them in.  I said no, and described how I cut a plug, and how there was no evidence of my presence.  He looked at the grass, said no problem, carry on, which I did for about a half hour.  I guess whatever asshole called had to claim that I was not filling in the holes, otherwise the cops wound not have bothered to come out at all.  At least I know there is a asshole in that neighborhood now, tho if there was actually evidence of silver in this park, I’d spend more time there, just to give them something to stew about.

Onto the site I wanted permission at, and it took a bit of time to get to the right person, but once I did, they said sure, but there’s nothing here, it would all be in that field over there.  Well, the field dates to the silver era, which is fine, but I was hoping for permission for the whole site, as there is certainly probably something “here” (which happens to be some of the older sections).  This individual was very difficult to talk to, as he would just keep saying — there is nothing anywhere but in the field.

So, its not clear what my permission includes except the field, so I decided I’d at least start there, and once comfortable at the site, work towards affirmative permission for other parts of the site some other time.

But the field had been hunted hard, very hard.  Which was surprising.  There is public property about a mile down the road that had given me 47 silvers, barbers, walkers, SLQs; how could this site, on private property, with poorer prospects, be hunted hard?  I’ll never figure this game out.

The targets were very sparse, but in 3 hours, I got 2 dimes and 4 wheaties, and 2 or 3 pieces of deep clad.  There just wasn’t much, even trash.  The auto rec was, like at the last site, still 16 to 19, again telling me that the dirt was really bad, and that deep targets would tough.  I cranked the sens to man 30 anyway and put up with it.  The silvers were deep, iffy signals.  Type of site where you had to go slow, and be willing to dig alot of ferrous.

The merc, tho, is a 1916.  My heart always pumps when I find one of those, but it was not to be.

Today I was fortunate enough to hunt the private yard I mentioned yesterday.  The home was built in the 1920s, and, I was told, had never been hunted.

I managed to pull 4 silvers in a 4.5 hour hunt, as well as 5 wheaties and some sort of Chinese coin.  The mercs are dated 1919 and 1920, while the wheaties are on the old side as well, 1911, 1918, 1920, 1926, 1938.  Interesting that there were not 40s and  50s wheaties.  All the coins were shallow, due to very rocky soil.  The Chinese coin was in a spill with 2 of the wheaties, (seems odd), so I guess its from the 20s as well.

On one of the forums, there was a debate as to whether the front yard, back yard, or side yard of private property was the best for finding old coins.  Sounds like a stupid debate to me — IMHO, it depends where people hung out, and that depends on solar exposure in the afternoon, and where the clothesline was (which also, of course, depends on solar exposure), and where shade trees were (which sometimes indicates where the clothesline was).  All perhaps can be figured out by careful research and observation of the site.

In this case, tho, its a fairly small yard, so I figured I’d grid the thing out, and see where things fell.  As it turned out, all 5 wheaties and the 2 mercs were in the front yard, the rosie was in the side yard, and the Q in the back yard.  That said, I only did about 5% of the back yard, while the other yards are finished.  So we’ll see if the backyard gives up anything else when I go back.

One other point, (and, as expected), 3 of the wheaties and both of the mercs were in the path from the front door to the mailbox.  Of course I focused on this the hardest.  That, of course, is usually in the front yard, but that does not make the front yard necessarily better.  The path to the mailbox is a specific and distinct paradigm that should always be focused on.

Today’s plan was to hunt a private property site, but my permission allows such only if the owner is home.  I of course had a backup plan, and of course the owner was not home.  Not only that, the backup site was taken over; it had become a temporary parking lot for construction equipment.

The backup site, in reality, is a small section of a larger site I’ve been working on and off the whole year, so I headed off to a less promising section of that site.  It was a weird hunt — memorial at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, walker at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, memorial at 3 inches, and so on.  Just weird.

There was lots of big canslaw, and what I think was happening was this.  The competition thought the walker was just another canslaw.  But, on the E-Trac, it has “that sound”.  I knew it was a walker before I dug it.  Cherrypickers be damned, score one here for the good guys.

I would have liked to hunt the area around the walker the rest of the day, but I imagine the cherrypicker got the dimes and quarters (tho of course I’ll be back someday), I mean, I couldn’t even muster a wheatie in this zone.  But, it was raining, and I had to do other errands.  If I can’t get on the private property tomorrow, I’ll work around this zone.

This is my 9th silver half dollar (7th walker), of the year.  Hard to believe.

Back to a site I hadn’t been to in a while, but it often gives up the goods, tho like most, it is thinning as well.  It did give up a pair of dimes, and this odd token, a 1 cent coupon for a food store in Philly. It dates from the 50s or 60s, and rang up like a silver dime (tho I believe it is base metal).

Who goes to the trouble of creating a token for 1 cent?

This is only the second vintage token I’ve ever found (I don’t count Chuck-E-Cheese and modern transit tokens).  The other was the Baltimore one from just the other day.

Today was the farewell hunt for my recent private property site, it had given up 8 silvers, a pair of buffs, a crotal bell,  two compacts, and a token, but nothing really old, despite being over 200 years old.

There was still plenty of area to hit, but I had been coming up empty, so I decided to farewell it, at least for a while.  Usually I get a silver on farewell day, but it wasn’t giving it up.  I spent alot of time in the woods, where I had reason to believe that there was activity in the past, and I even discovered the stone ring of an old garden, but all I found was one wheatie.  Whoever had been here before was good.

After no silvers, and about an hour and a half left before having to get to work, I drove by my recent honeyhole which had one unpromising section left, and I noticed that the grass had just been mowed, so I set up shop there, and pulled just one coin in over an hour of hunting, but fortunately it was a 61D rosie.

Any silver is good, especially at the end of a long, frustrating day.

Yesterday I went back to the site I hit a random silver on 4/17, which I had given up for dead.  A long hunt gave up a pair of silver coins.  I was lucky, as the grass had just been mowed as I arrived, and both coins were on the edge of detectability. One wonders what I could find if I had just one more inch of depth.

Today I was skunked on silver at the same site, but pulled a 3-ringer.  This site is no where near civil war activity, so go figure.

I hate writing skunked entries, so I’m glad I found the 3-ringer to give me something interesting to post.  I did find quite a few wheaties today; it seems the dimes were just out of range (remember, the wheaties are a bit bigger, and will have the halo the dimes won’t, so they are just a little easier).

I’m in a bit of a slump, no mega silver days, no big or spectacular silvers, but you have to just keep soldiering on thru it. The 3-ringer is a cool thing to find and talk about (especially in this area), but there is no substitute for that rush of seeing the shiny in the hole.

Got out to Saturday’s site again today, and did not pull a single silver coin in a long day of hunting. Another very long silver streak (in my home terrain), down the tubes (I don’t track how long they are anymore; I know I’ll never get to 52 again).

I did pull some old relics tho, a couple of compacts, and an old token for a furniture store in Baltimore.  The token is from the 1920s, as near as I can determine.  I’ve never pulled a compact before, and today I pulled two.  Visions of caches of old silver coins contained therein where dashed — one had junk, the other was empty, but appears to have a silver backing to the mirror.

Got out with my wife today to the recent private property site, which gives it up, but you have to work for it.  First target was what I call a 35-50 silver, deep and iffy, and hard to tell from iron, but turned out to be a modern silver quarter.

My wife had to leave, but I decided to stay on, and I got another dime.  Its always fun to hunt with company; I wish it would happen more often.

Well, had high hopes for this site, but the only real old thing it has given up was a crotal bell.  Its also given up 8 modern silvers and a couple of buffalo nickels.  I’ll give it another hunt or two.

On 2/22, I wrote about a hunt at my newbie site, the idea being go back to your newbie site and see what you can get when you have more skill under your belt, and I got 3 silvers on that day in 5 hours, in a site I figured was pretty thin.

I went to my newbie site, rather than some other recent sites, cause the ground is really rock hard around here, and the silvers at this site are not deep, they are in trash, so the rock hard, dry ground is less of a factor.

I started pounding the area I found the three silvers at last time, and, in 2.5 hours, dug just two coins of any kind (a wheatie and a nickel).  Unbelievable. How could a site be so dead?  I mean, this is a modern site, people are here all the time.

2.5 hours is alot of patience, but I gave up and went to a different section.  I just wanted to dig some clad cause my arm gets sore if I dig nothing for so long.

I started digging clad, then started digging deep clad, which is a good sign, as deep clad often indicates deep silver (cause it ain’t been hunted as hard in the old days).

Well, I didn’t find any deep silver, but I did find a shallow rosie in the trash in this area to keep a long silver streak alive (well, not counting that New England day, which I guess should count).

Well, now I have at least a new small section of this site to hunt someday, but rain is coming, so I may get back to other sites where the stuff is really deep.

Today it was a choice between the site that gave up the random silver yesterday, and the older site which gave up 3 the other day.  Tough choice, but the latter site is very difficult to hunt, and gives it up grudgingly.

Today it gave up a pair of silvers, a 44 merc, and a 41 quarter.

Those who know me know I tend to be rather meticulous, and only go to sites where I think there is a reasonable probability of pulling silver, but I had business in a town with a site that had given up 16 silvers last year (including a walker and a barber quarter), but I had given up on it after a few unsuccessful hunts since.

But, I had to be there, and researched a few other places, none of which panned out, so I went to this site, even tho I only had an hour, and managed to pull a rosie rather quickly, in the rock hard dirt (is it ever gonna rain?).  Mark this site down for another visit.

Back to yesterday’s site, hoping for a big, old fish; instead pulled a 3 spot of modern silver, as well as a buffalo nickel.  I get the feeling this site has been picked over by an expert (with or without permission).

All three silvers were hard — deep and on their side.  The war nickel was 10 inches, and on its side.  There is nothing shallow here, and no clad.  Maybe the site hasn’t been used since the 50s or 60s (I do know that is the last time it was in scheduled use, tho such use, I was hoping, would go back much farther than that), but you would expect to at least find some clad.

Given that the modern silver is just on the edge of detectability, I’m betting, unfortunately, that the older silver (if any) has sunk out of range.

I’ve been scoping a site that just looks awesome for weeks now, but it is on private property, and I’ve never had the time to make a go of getting permission, with so much else going on.

But with farewell, farewell on my last goto site, I finally got up the nerve to go for the permission, and got a yes.  This is the perfect site for right about now, given that the dirt is starting to get rock hard (it hasn’t rained in months, it seems), and this site is low-lying, with wet ground.

The site dates back to the early 1800s, but a three hour hunt netted just a rosie and a buffalo nickel (not shown), as well as a crotal bell.  That’s certainly constructive, and the good news is that I have permission to hunt it when I please.

As for crotal bells, some people are gaga over them, I’m not one of those people.  I dug almost a foot for the thing.  Yeah, they are old, and cool, but give me silver anytime. Today’s hunt did keep a silver streak alive, tho.

I don’t think I’ve written about this before on this blog (tho I have on AD), but one of my rituals is a farewell hunt when I think a honeyhole site is played out.  I like to go to a local restaurant, spend the clad I’ve found for lunch (well, of course I use a credit card, but cover it with the clad), have a couple beers, and do a final hunt on the site.  I’ve been bashed for my farewell ritual, but its what I do, cause its fun, and it is sort of like a travel experience, and always leaves me with fonder memories of the honeyhole.

The restaurant meal was lousy, but the site’s final section (other than the section I gave up for dead yesterday), gave up the goods.  First target was a rosie, and it is always special to get silver on the farewell hunt.  But the next target was a dateless SLQ, followed by a walker.  Unbelievable.

But that wasn’t the end of it, I pulled 2 more dimes, and another walker, for my second ever 2 silver half day (both at this site), and my 8th silver half of the year (and it is only April, tho I don’t expect to pull any more this year).  5 of the silver halfs have been pulled from this site (a barber, 3 walkers, and a benjie).

This was a very fine farewell hunt, and marks my 40th silver from this site.

After pulling 11 silvers on Monday, I was obviously anxious to continue milking this honeyhole.  There wasn’t much real estate I hadn’t yet covered, and there were basically 2 sections left to cover.  Over yesterday and today, I covered the section I felt was most likely to give up the goods, but it was not to be, just a 45S merc yesterday, and a 45 quarter today (neither shown).  I didn’t cover this zone completely, but wrote the rest of it off as dead, as it was further and further from previous hot zones and historical features.

Both kept a long local silver streak alive (not counting that day in New England), and any silver is good, but these slow days are the patience required to get the killer days.

Itching to get back to my honeyhole, which is slowly turning into a monster site, I managed to pull 11 silver coins today. This marks my 2nd double of the year, and 12th in my career.  Its weird how sometimes you just hit a hot zone, and can do no wrong.

Had some business in New England this past weekend, and had some ulterior motives as well, one of which was to visit each site where I found silver during my blowout year last year, and have a local restaurant meal near the site.

Next stop on the tour was a very large park in CT, where I found a couple of mercs and a very old silver thimble last year.  The targets are few and far between at this site, but like many sites, patience is often rewarded, and I dug my first 2 reale Spanish silver, dated 1777.  This is my second oldest silver coin, and it is quite a treat. Yeah its worn, but we’ll take it.

On Sunday, I met up with a couple of folks from the American Detectorist forum at some sites near Ashburnham, MA, but I was skunked.  These sorts of old field sites are generally all or nothing (contrast with my steady bulk silver approach), and I generally end up with nothing.  But, it was great to be invited to these sites, and the company was great. There is always the possibility of an awesome score at these sites.  The Sunday hunt broke another nice silver streak, but I’m not sure if I should count the break or not.

Went back to my favorite site, to the excavated section, which gave up 8 yesterday, but the targets were much thinner today.  Finished off the sections I was unable to complete yesterday, and I dug 3 silver coins over a very long day of hunting.  All were very shallow.

The last was a beautiful barber dime, just one inch deep, which surprisingly, rang up as a 12-44 on the E-Trac.  Its my first barber at this site, after 138 total silvers, and I think a fitting end to the site.  All things must past.  Farewell, Farewell.  (Until they excavate some other section, of course!). (Of course, I’ve already done two farewell hunts here, and it still seems to give it up.  This time, I do think it is really over, but of course I’ll be back someday).

Had business near the location of my best all time site, a site that, prior to today, had surrendered 127 silvers (previously written about in this story).

I thought the site was pretty much finished off, (save for the stray few that I will eventually round up), but every time I drive by, I check it out (I mean, who wouldn’t; its a shrine for me), and low and behold, they had scraped some dirt off!  I always have my machine handy (chance favors the ready mind), and I was able to get some detecting time in, and was able to pull 8 silver coins.

These coins were all shallow, being in the excavated zone.  None deeper than an inch or two.  How cool is it to get a signal, and look down, and see the rim of a silver quarter sticking out of the dirt?  Unbelieveable.

135 silvers from this site now.  I know where I’ll be tomorrow.

Note: this is being simultaneously posted on American Detectorist (its one of my “stories”), so if you’ve read it there, its the same here.

Told my wife this morning that I was gonna go out and dig a 200 year old coin, and that is exactly what I did.  Of course, I had some inside information, as a couple of years ago I discovered an unmapped 1700s homesite where I pulled 13 coppers from a 90×90 grid, and while I gridded the area hard at the time, I’ve become a much better detectorist in the past two years, and figured I might have missed one — so I figured I’d give it another go now that I was a bit better with the E-Trac, and sure enough I did miss one.

But, it was a pyrrhic victory of sorts, as 3 hours of gridding netted only one, which, due to the abusive low pH of the Chester County soil, realistically must be scored as a smoothie

Yes, I can see a bust, and yes, it is either a George II or III (the bust is facing right, but I can’t remember which is which).  The cool thing, tho, is that it is actually made of copper (air tests as 12-46 on the E-Trac), so it is a British import, not a contemporary domestic base metal counterfeit, so we take small wins where we get them   Still worth melt value, and just as ugly.

Well, enough whining about low pH and Chester County coppers (I’ve found 51 now, and all 51 have been abused to melt value by the local condition of acidic soil); it was time to move on to what I do best, and that is bulk modern silvers (too bad most of the old silvers around here are in the old parks, which around here are under the purview of the Fairmount Park Commission, which has decreed detecting illegal), at a different site that gave up an ’94S barber half, and has always given up at least one silver per hunt, but takes a bit of patience to work.

And patience was needed, as the first 7 coins where wheaties   I don’t believe in universal constants, but if I did, one of them would be my golden ratio of 2.5 wheats to one silver.  This has never failed me, and when it has been out of whack, it has always come in.  So, I kept going at it  and eventually I got that sort of 2/3 silver rosie. Are you kidding me?

I decided right then and there that it was counting as a full silver, and not only that, I decided that if I found the other part of it (which I extra carefully gridded for), it was gonna count as a full silver as well, ’cause, you know what, silver coins are hard to find, and had I found the small half first, I certainly would have counted it as a silver, wouldn’t you?

But, I didn’t find the small half, and not only that, I didn’t find much else for quite some time (I mean, a really long time, like shoulder sore E-Trac time (as much as I love the E-Trac, aside from the fact that the pinpointing is more or less useless, the thing is not balanced well for long periods without diggable targets — I have two tendinitises directly caused by the thing, but we love it anyway).  But, press on I did, and eventually I got a beautiful 10-47 on the E-Trac, which turned out to be a walker.  This is the second time in recent memory where a silver Q signal turned out to to be a walker, but, as you can see (and this is why I shot the reverse pic), it is ferrous stained, and no doubt ferrous in the hole was affecting the signal.  Just a word to the wise (but of course you would dig it, but who knows what the competitions’ machines were saying on this one?).

The next signal didn’t have that problem, and it was the best dig me I’m silver signal I can remember hearing in quite some time.   It turned out to be my first ever Franklin half, and my 6th silver half dollar of the year.  It also makes a career five pack on big silver (seated half, barber half, walker, franklin, ’64 kennedy), and I am quite excited about that  Alls I need is one of those really hard to get old ones for the six pack, and that is what I’m gonna do someday.

So that’s that, two big silvers in one day in a first for me.  I was ready to call it a day, but, as always, I finished out the rank of the grid, and hit a pair of dimes in the same hole  How sweet is that?  It was, outside of digging one junk target, 4 silver targets in a row (2 halfs then the 2 dimes in the same hole).  But, that doesn’t account for the hour after hour of dead.  Sometimes it just works out that way.  If you know the site is a winner, just press on, even if it feels like a loser for longer than you’d like.

Well, its been quite a long time since I’ve written one of my stories (probably be just as long before the next one).  Hopefully its all good.   Hopefully Dixie Rebel will have the appropriate response.

Back to the honeyhole that gave up a barber half earlier in the year, and I pulled two quarters from the same hole.  How sweet is that?  It is so much fun to hear that sweet sound of silver; even more fun to hear it again when rescanning the hole.

These were the only keepers of a long hunt, however.

Back to the weekend only site, working the areas of lower grass, and pulled 4 silver coins.  Its nice to feel somewhat back in the saddle, but this site needs to be tabled ’til more accommodating lawn management policies are enacted by the powers that be.

You know, I’m temped to start a lawn care business.  I mow, I detect.  It wouldn’t even be close to being either profitable or rational (and, as an economist, I can’t suffer either of these), but damn it would be fun!  Imagine having complete control of situation, jacking the blade housing down to the lowest level, then detecting while the competition is losing two inches due to detector-unfriendly lawn management policies.

Monday I pulled a couple more rosies at the private property permission honeyhole, my 42nd silver from that site, and while it is thinning, I don’t think it is done.  Problem is, the grass is getting high there, and it may need to be tabled til elsetime.

And today I pulled a rosie at a sort of standby site; its the sort of site you can often get a stray silver dime or two, or a couple of wheaties, but I’ve never pulled a silver bigger than a dime there, and there is little prospect of older silver, so it is sort of a site for when I have little time and when I am in the area.

The problem is, what happened between those days.  I received a tip as to where an old fairgrounds and baseball field were.  I did the research (the tip checked out), drove by the site, took one look, and said this is a 50 to 150 silver site.

It was private property, but I located the owner and secured permission.  Not only that, the owner, who had been the owner for a very long time, claimed it had never been detected, nor had the evil fill and grade twins been there.

What could be better?  What could be better is finding a 64 rosie with a hole in it, as a colleague of mine once  put it.  Not a single silver from this site in two days of hard hunting.  I did pull a couple of wheaties, but this snapped a 22 hunt silver streak, and I had visions of a monster site.

What went wrong?  I have no idea.  I’m rarely wrong about judging a site (my weakness is getting access to sites, but once I’m there, I’m pretty effective). All I can say is that the grass was high overall, but I found plenty of sections where the grass was low enough to at least prove the site.  Most likely, the site has been hunted without the owner’s knowledge, but even so, hard-hunted sites give up silvers to the mighty E-Trac.

I don’t know what went wrong.  Once you think you have this game figured out, something like this happens.  Well, I have carte blanche to hunt the site; I will try again when and if the grass is ever really low (by nature of the site, they don’t mow it, but there should have been evidence of old coins in the low grass sections).

Back to the double digit site from last weekend, it it only gave up a couple of dimes.  The grass was high, and both were very deep,  May have missed some today; this may have to be a project for the fall or winter or next year, the grass is really coming in now; although outside last weekend’s small hot zone, the site is pretty dead.

Today was the group hunt at Brandywine Springs Park, in New Castle County, Delaware.  The site used to be an old amusement park and a couple of old hotels were there, but I didn’t hold out much hope for the site, as word on the street is that it is pretty much hunted out.  Moreover, it was supposed to rain, and my E-Trac gets wonky in the rain — I simply can’t hunt if it rains above a drizzle, or I risk the machine.

Sean did an excellent job of organizing it, and its always fun to meet up and hunt with others, even if you don’t expect to find anything.

First thing I did was head right for the most difficult terrain, a steep, wooded, hillside.  I figured that if there was any chance of finding anything, it would be there.  I did find an old butterknife, which is constructive (any big, old, metal target is at such a site), but no coins.

After a bit of that misery, I went for some of the more obvious areas, and found nothing, not a single coin, even a clad, except for one wheatie, and only found that cause the dirt had recently been disturbed.  Unbelieveable how clean this place was.  Couldn’t even find trash.

Rain started, and was gonna call it a day, one coin the entire morning just isn’t enough to keep me motivated, but when the rain stopped, I went out for a bit more to a different section, as I have a very long silver streak running that I wanted to continue, and I pulled a deep barber dime on its side.  I figured that was the only way I would get one in this place. Rain started again, and I had to go in.

After that, Dogpound pulled a seated not 10 feet from where my barber was, which would have been mine, had it not been for the rain cutting my gridding short, so after that we both really attacked that area, but no more coins were given up.

Total on the day, 4 or 5 hours of hunting was exactly 4 coins, the barber, the wheatie, a  clad dime, and a zincoln.  That’s it.  Amazing. Also amazing was that Sean pulled both a barber quarter and dime from the site, and his friend pulled a barber half.  I believe that that is all the silver the 20-30 detectorists pulled on the day, tho.

This marks the 6th state I have pulled silver in (CT, DE, MD, MI, NJ, PA; see, I track everything).

Despite pulling only one silver, it was quite a fun day.  Thanks Sean, if you are reading.

After last year of pulling 516 silvers, I didn’t expect to pull even 10% of that total this year, figuring most of my sites were washed up, and the warm end of the year was simply pulling this year’s total into last year.

But, I’ve had a good winter so far (and I guess its spring now), and I managed to pull just one dime today, a 43D merc, but it is my 100th silver coin of the year.  Certainly not on last year’s pace, having gone thru almost a quarter of the year already, but we will certainly take it.  Each and every one is fun to dig, and that’s what it is all about.

Yesterday I also pulled a rosie, and this treasure, a liberty cap large cent. Some people go gaga over these.  I know, they are really old, and sort of rare, but this is the third one I’ve dug, and they always come out of the ground totally abused.  Maybe I should be more grateful, ’cause I know someday I’ll be begging to pull a wheatie.  Its just the abuse that annoys me, I think.  Were it to come out of the ground clean, even if worn, I’d celebrate for a week.

Back to the site I was working last week, and today I pulled an 1811 largie and a few modern silvers.  The 1811 largie is a pretty low mintage coin, about 200K or so — less than a 1916D merc.  Too bad it isn’t worth anywhere near that.  This is also my 50th career large copper coin.

Yesterday pulled a trio of modern silvers, 2 dimes and a quarter (not pictured).

What do you do when you are on a roll at a honeyhole?  Go to a different site, of course.  That’s what I did earlier in the year, and that’s what I did today, ’cause I thought the reasons were compelling.

In this case, the honeyhole is a permission site, and this new site, by its nature, can only be detected on weekends (gee, I wonder what sort of site it is?).

Well, this time it was a good call.  Day started out very slow, and even clad was hard to find.  Clearly I wasn’t the first one here, but eventually I pulled a very deep barber dime, and a couple of wheaties.  That keeps you going.

Still pretty dead after that, until I got a deep, iffy signal that turned out to be a dateless SLQ. But then, right near the SLQ, I could hardly swing the coil without getting a deep silver hit.  Unbelievable! I pulled 11 silvers from that one area.

How can a site be so dead then have these hot pockets?  I’ve seen it before, and hopefully i will see it again.

This is my 11th double digit silver day, and first of the year.  Hopefully many more to come, tho I am certainly not expecting it. Oh, and I guess it is a trifecta as well.

Well, this is turning into a monster roll now.  Pulled 7 silver dimes today.  These rolls are rare, but they are fun while they last.

After the mild slump I went thru in Feb, it definitely feels sweet to be on a major roll now.  Pulled five more modern silvers today.

Thought my recent site was thinning a bit, then I go out and pull six silvers.  Once you get to five or above in a given hunt, that really gets your heart pumping.  They are all modern, but fun to dig nonetheless.

Back to my recent honeyhole; last two hunts netted 3 silver coins (a dime and a quarter yesterday, not pictured), and a dime today. Also pulled a buff, abused 1853 largie, and a silver ring.

A nice mix of older coins, but definitely thinning in the silver dept.  Keep a streak alive, tho.

Won the find of the month in the non-coin category for Feb on minelabforums.com.  That’s a fun forum, small enough to know everyone, and lots of cool, smart people there, and you are not overwhelmed by post volume and drivel.

Well, here’s the find (not previously posted), found way back in Feb at my 500th silver of last year site (and first silver of this year site), on a day I was skunked for silver.

Continue hitting the same site I have permission for.  It is certainly working itself into a major honeyhole.  Its weird, ’cause when I first hit the site, I almost gave up on in after a few hours of dead, but hit a merc and kept going, and worked into a bit of a hot zone.

That hot zone seems to have played out, but I worked another section and got a couple more silvers, as well as a largie.  The largie is abused, as all get in our acidic soil, but I can make out a date: 1837.  This section of the site is very near where an old farmhouse stood, so I’m hopeful for more older silvers in this section.

Definitely on a mini-roll.  Not much time to write, too much time detecting and working.

Four silvers today, all dimes, but we’ll take ’em.

Received permission for a piece of private property that has promise.  Had a good day, dropping a 5 spot.