I guess my detecting days are done, at least for this week.  One of the reasons I was able to get to 500+ last year was lack of snow/frozen ground.  I did think I might have a shot at 400 this year, but I’d have to average one a day thru year end, and that does not seem likely at this point, and, I don’t really want to think about milestones anymore.

I did get out for a couple hours yesterday, this was to an old honeyhole from last fall that gave up 47 silvers in my run at 500, and I had one 20×20 section I never finished, plus the woods to still do.  I had no hope for these sections, and was not disappointed, as they gave up just one clad dime.

I did take the opportunity to run my big unit coil over the part I had already did, to see if I missed any, and this is the perfect site for that, as most were on the edge of detectability last time, but all I got was a couple of older wheaties and a a sterling ring.  The ring looks like it has a fake amethyst on it, which of course did not come out in the pic.  This site had low density the first time, so a 1 hour hunt with the big unit doesn’t prove much — a 5 hour hunt would, but I don’t think I have the patience to spend that kind of time on ground I have already covered.

Got out for a little over 2 hours to that small corner monument site from last Wed where I pulled that nice SLQ, to finish it off, and managed to pull a ’44 merc.  It was miserable, 39 degrees, and a harsh chill wind blowing.  One silver a day is good; one silver on a day like this is even better.

It was at the end of the hunt, after digging 23 clads (yuck!).  Like most, I hate digging clad, but at a really trashy site, you are not afforded the luxury of passing on any high tone, despite the E-Trac’s legendary TID.

We’ll, we’ll take it.  I rarely hunt on weekends, so weekend silver is nice,  I also took some time to scout a new site (which, by its nature, may only be hunted on weekends, at least for now), and it is small, but promising.  Perhaps a 2-3 silver site, we’ll see.

But, they are calling for snow on Tue, and I have no site for tomorrow, and may have alot of work, so it may be door knocking, random untried sites, or random driving, if I get out at all tomorrow.

Not alot going on around here due to the holidays, but I think we can cobble the last few days into an interesting entry, we’ll see.

First of all was a Sunday, 11/18 hunt — I rarely hunt on weekends, but I had some free time, and the site can only be hunted on Sunday.  Its an early 1800s saloon on private property for which I have permission to hunt, but it is tenant occupied (a business); the tenants not there on Sunday.  I know alot of guys get excited about sites like this; I’m not one of them.  The reason is simple — these high profile old sites draw the detectorists out like flies on shit, and they detect em with or without permission, and, with the yards of these sites generally being very small, my advantage of meticulously working a large site is neutered.  I do much better on public property, cause everyone scoffs at it and ignores it.

Anyway, of course you are gonna hunt a site like this when you have permission, and meticulously grid it out I did, nailing a ’26 and ’30 wheatie, and some deep clad.  Problem with sites like this is that the trash is so heavy, you have to dig all the high tones when the TID is jammed, including the deep clad.  Ouch!.  A 1967 dime at 6 inches at a 300 year old site. Well, I’m glad I did the site, and I’m glad I have permission at all of the landlord’s other properties (which, fortunately, are a bit lower profile, but not nearly as old); maybe I’ll hit them after the holiday.

Monday was a historical site I blogged about perhaps 2 months ago or so.  This was a site where I was helping the local historical people find artefacts on the site, and we finally got together where I showed them what I found and where I found it.  I had about an hour left of the site to work, and managed to find another wheatie before they came, and that’s about it.  This site is closed, and that’s that.  I think the historical people are happy, and will be using my intel on the site for further development, either to bring in an archaeologist, make a park, or both.  I’ll blog on any of that if it happens, but that may be quite some time from now.  The best part of this experience is that the historical people know the people who run a local national park, and I may get to detect said national park.  Detecting national parks is illegal, of course, and if I get this, anything I find goes to the people, and of course I’m fine with that; its all about the experience.  In the unlikely event that any of this happens, I’ll blog it.

Later on Monday was trying to develop a new site — a modern park on old farmland which included a community center which dated to at least the 1930s.  I generally have very good luck at sites like this, but struck out completely; not even mustering a single wheatie.  Go figure, when a similar site not more than 3 miles down the road gave up 47 silvers last year.

Tuesday was an intense 13 hour work day.  No detecting for me.  After all this blather, I wonder if anyone is reading (not that I care; blogs are for writers, not readers), but I think it is time to throw some silver in here, isn’t it.

Today was closing out the site from past days which gave up a trifecta just last week, but I figured was dead.  Had to confirm, and hit all the edge zones, and yet another swath thru the middle, and not much, except one edge zone which was totally loaded with deep clad and wheaties, and should have given up a silver or two, but it did not.  Unbelievable site — 2 per half hour run rate in 3% of the site; bupkis elsewhere.  Never seen it before, but what is is, and the site is closed.  97% of a 2 per half hour site just sitting there.  Have at it folks.

But, this entry will end with silver (sheesh, is anyone but a bot reading this drivel?), and I can go contently into the long weekend ending with a silver hunt (tho I don’t track it, I don’t think I’ve had three consecutive hunting days without a silver since Apr 2011).

Hit an out of the box site near the park I just closed, in the same town, one of those corner grassy areas where the streets come together at acute angles, and there is a monument, a couple of trees, and not much else, and you wonder if the competition has bothered.  Looks sorta (well, exactly, without the street name redaction) like this.  You know these sort of places, ever detected them?  I do —

Well, the monument is dated from the 30s.  The monument honors war veterans, so I detect quite a far respectful distance from it. These sort of sites turn out to be like detecting sidewalk strips,  Tons and tons of trash.  You hear the high tone, you work thru a handful of nails, just to dig high tone trash.  Are you kidding me?  It is frustrating beyond belief.

But the site was giving up the stray wheatie (and aforementioned high tone trash), and that is the tell to press on, cause its got silver.  And finally I got me one, a rather nice 1927 SLQ at just 4 inches, at pretty much the end of my (otherwise) 3rd silverless day.

(why am I still posting these pics dirt on?  If you don’t believe my finds, you are not reading me anyway (I post only a small fraction of my finds on the forums).  Its all cause of a few assholes who have doubted me, who prolly don’t read me anyway).  Anyway, it looks better dirt off, doesn’t it (and aren’t SLQs special?)) —

Oh, and BTW, found a silver ring today.  This was at the park from last week that I closed today.  I don’t get all too excited about silver jewelery, tho this one is a bit interesting, as it is stamped at 900 rather than 925.  I wonder if that means its is old.  Oh, and than park is closed at 10 silver coins.  Not a honeyhole, but not bad, we’ll take it.  Here’s the ring (3 grams) —

But wait, there’s more, if you can believe it.  After this train wreck, I have to blog about Wiz-War.  Hopefully it won’t be this bad, but, we’ll see.  And, in regards to metal detecting, I’ve closed a few places over the past few days, but have no place after the holidays. Hopefully I’ll get a new place, we’ll see.

Have a nice holiday, everyone.

Back to yesterday’s site to clean up loose ends, and ended up dropping a sixspot, including a trifecta.  Are you kidding me? I don’t get the trifecta all that often, so it is a reason to celebrate.

All I really had left was about a 15 foot section of the embankment from yesterday’s post to finish, plus prospecting in other sections of the town, then the farewell farewell lunch, then a site in a different township that was on my radar.

The embankment section provided a pair of wheaties, which always helps the morale, so I decided to drop down to the flat area by the embankment (despite the fact that it was dead along other sections), and I could not believe my luck.  Deep clad, deep wheaties, and deep silver,  I had 3 mercs after an hour of hunting.  Are you kidding me?  And this is a zone next to a tot lot!  Had the Q by lunchtime, 4 silvers in an hour and half.  (If I hunted tot lots, which I don’t, as an economist/scientist I’d hunt this one just out of curiosity to see if the competition was hunting it like the rest of the park, and blowing off the silver within 10 feet of it).

Blew off farewell farewell lunch to do research at the local municipal building based on activity I saw on the way to site; said research may be the subject of a future entry (and, more honestly, due to the fact that the aforementioned adjacent tot lot was filling with kids and their parents, and even I can get self-conscious; otherwise who but a moron would leave a site with a +2 per hour density?  It was killing me).

But back I came, gridding clad from an adjacent dead zone until the tykes and their parents migrated to Planet Elsewhere.  Good riddance.  I had only one rank of the grid to complete, and pulled the barber, then the rosie for a the trifecta.  All 6 silvers were in a 50 by 30 grid; the highest density I’ve ever experienced, and represented less than two hours in that grid.  And this in a park where the other 97% is completely dead.  In all honesty, I have no answer, but we’ll take it. (Did manage to scratch the barber with the digger; figures I’d scratch the oldest coin — fortunately its just bulk silver).

But, there’s more (admittedly, unrelated to metal detecting).  The Friday Afternoon Album (it is actually Friday afternoon, I think), has to be White Stripe’s covers of Jolene and I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself.  I’ve never had much of an opinion of Jack White’s originals, but his minimalistic arrangements of these covers is working today.  And, lets not forget Never Stops, by Lagwagon.  Its being promoted to somewhere between 3 and 5 on my all time list, and movement in my top 10 is very difficult.  We’ll see where it ends up. This is one damn awesome song.  Are you kidding me?

But, there’s even more —

Farewell Twinkies

You are probably aware of the demise of Hostess Baking, purveyors of 30 brands of junk food, including the iconic Twinkie.  What kid didn’t grow up with these?  I  did.  I went to three stores today looking for the last box of my lifetime, all sold out.  Obviously alot of onetime kids are doing the same thing.  Oh well.

Gotta love “S” words in the subject line.  Tuesday’s entry, which I didn’t feel up to writing at the time, was gonna be called “Sounds of Silver Sites”.  Maybe I’ll work that entry in now.  In any case, lots of “S” words, only one we care about.

Today I went back to Tuesday’s site, which I was to write off pending the completion of one small zone in a very large site, and I continued to expand the grid in that zone.  The zone is in the very corner of a large park; the silver I found on Tuesday was 10 feet from one boundary, and less than one foot from the other.  As the zone gave up a couple of deep wheaties and clad, I figured it had a chance for more silver.

What I got today in that zone was a shallow 01-49/01-50 on the E-Trac that blew my ears off; these are almost always canslaws, and we often don’t dig ’em, but this one seemed a bit smaller, so I figured it had a chance to be a silver bling, like a big pendant or something.  Boy was I shocked to see a barely legal Q at just one inch.  Are you kidding me?  The state clad Qs at this site are 2-3 inches.  Glad I dug it.  Not really a natural find; could not have been in the ground more than 5 years.  Either was in normal clad change, or another detectorist dropped it, seem to be the most logical explanations.  We’ll take it.  Scanned the hole again, and found a pretty clean 1979 nickel, which also suggests a clad drop.

The only other thing to do at this site after working the small zone was to work an embankment along the edge of the site adjacent to the zone.  Embankments are really hard to work — you don’t know how much of it is the evil fill and grade twins, it is awkward to dig, swing, grid, and hard on your knees, and since the coins are usually at different angles than we are used to in flat terrain, TID can get whacked, meaning you have to dig it all, including clad dimes and pennies that may sound like silver (yuck!).  For these reasons, the competition often ignores embankments, especially along the edge, and thus good finds can be made there.

So, to make a long story slightly less long, I made a couple good finds on the embankment — a tarnished ’41 merc and a barely legal ’64 rosie.  The rosie was in some nasty roots, and took quite a bit of work to pop out, but it was fun to see that shiny.  Both were only at 3 inches, giving three shallow silvers today: 1 inch, 3 inches, 3 inches.  Silvers tend to be shallow on the embankments — its simple physics, they don’t sink at a straight angle to the plane of the embankment.  Also found 7 wheaties on this embankment, compared to 5 over the rest of the site, despite having spent 3 times the time in the rest of the site. I love embankments; I often get goodies there, and the competition seems to ignore them.

I don’t know about working in what I had planned to write on Tuesday.  It just seems like too much.  The bottom line is that the lions share of the site did not sound like a silver site.  Only one very small zone.  Its hard to describe, but its no threshold nulls, no chirps, no clad, no nothing, for hours.  Are you kidding me?  Silver sites have a certain sound, and it is noisy and complicated.  Only one small zone did, and the embankment, and that’s where the silver was.

So, despite pulling 4 silvers over 2 days from this site (which seems good, and it is), and having 98% of it left to do, I will just finish out the embankment and one small zone tomorrow, and farewell farewell it.  Seems harsh, but that is the way it sounds.  Someone is hunting it hard, or fill and grade have been here with virgin soil.  Who knows?  And too bad, as the site had promise.  Now I’m back in the same boat of looking for a new site.

Pulled a 1938 merc in a 2 hour hunt today at a new site, that, despite giving up a silver, I have no hope for, and will be writing off, except for a small section.  Had an interesting (IMHO, anyway), entry written in my head on the hunt, but don’t feel like posting it, what would be the point?  Don’t have a pic either, but we’ve all seen mercs before, haven’t we?

The other day I got permission to hunt the grounds of a 300 year old farmhouse, and today I did so.  Hunting owner-occupied private property seems such a different experience than hunting parks and institutions; the latter being pounded so hard that all the high tone (and alot of other) trash has been pulled by the competition, the former having more trash (especially ferrous), not only for that reason, but cause its older.  The deep high tone trash really slows me down and frustrates me, and you also seem a bit more self-conscience, especially with the owner watching you dig plugs on a manicured lawn.

But, the hunt went ok.  Started out really poorly, getting nothing but clad, and I mean deep clad, a 1962 memorial penny at 8 inches is one example.  Are you kidding me?  If I dig for that, I expect at least a copper.  That’s the thing, deep high tone trash; generally much less of a problem at public parks.

But, about 3 hours in, I got my first wheatie,  I was wondering if I was gonna get any older coins.  Some zones seemed to have a bit of coins, but some absolutely nothing.  The owner used to own a landscaping company, so I imagine the evil fill and grade twins had spent a good bit of time in the yard, so it was a really hard site to read (usually you look for the greener grass; and it was true, the less green grass was more productive here).

Eventually I got a rosie, and then the owner asked me to find a property marker for him.  I thought this sort of thing would be hard, being a medium-sized ferrous object, which we are trained to reject, but I nailed it within 5 minutes, not bad.

Back to the hunt, pulled a pair of Washingtons and another wheatie after that.  Both Washingtons sounded like clad (the trash or mineralization was not allowing the cleanest signals).  The wheaties were on the older side, a ’16 and a ’28.  While visions of bust silver dance in your head when hitting a site like this, the results looked pretty much like a park hunt.  But it was fun anyway; the prospect of something spectacular keeps you going.

As an aside, the property had a maypole on it.  Are you kidding me?  How cool is that?  I haven’t seen a maypole in years.  When I grew up, we celebrated May Day (Beltane) in grade school.  This maypole was built in 1972, which is when I was in grade school.  The site is also in the same township where I grew up and went to school.  Maybe Beltane was a local thing back in the day where I grew up.  Certainly haven’t heard of anyone celebrating it around here in years.

Finally, I guess I should question my choice of sticking with the big 13 inch unit for a site like this.  I have such confidence in it in trash that it didn’t faze me, but my lack of success with older coins at the site leaves a bit of doubt in my mind.  I guess we’ll never know.

I’m a numbers/stats geek, so I finally finished the stats menu item which tracks the different types of older coins I’ve found.  I don’t know why I do this, why not?  Sometimes its nice to know how many barber dimes or half cents you’ve found, I guess (and all silver guys track their silver, of course).

Economists like to look at stats and data to see if anything interesting may be in there.  The one thing I’ve always looked at more than anything else is my wheaties to silver ratio.  That had consistently been at 2.5 for a very long time, and whenever it moves a few points either way, it always seems to drop back.

I don’t exactly know what that ratio tells me, but when it seems to get out of whack on the high side, it tells me I’m doing something wrong.  That is because wheaties are slightly bigger than silver dimes, and the copper leaches into the ground, unlike silver, making them easier to detect than silver dimes, ceteris paribus (a fancy economist phrase that in this case means at the same depth as each other and so forth; I love using it cause it makes me sound smart).  So, if the ratio goes high, I’m finding the easier wheaties, and not the harder silvers, which means either slow the swing speed or check channels.  Whether this is bunk or not, who knows?  I have used it in the field and made adjustments and brought more silver dimes in and the ratio in, so maybe it works, maybe its luck, maybe its bias cause I hate digging wheates (except as tells for a zone), so maybe I conscientiously or sub-conscientiously stop digging them.

(As an aside, the ratio I observed using a White’s V3 was north of 4 to 1.  That thing was a wheaties machine, but not so much of a silver one.  I went thru the same zone later with the E-Trac and pulled more silvers and not so many wheaties.  So, I think there is some science here.  Of course, the V3 has so many programming options; I had more patience to write complicated security protocols than figure that thing out, so maybe different programming would have brought it in, who knows?)

But, there’s more.  My ratio now is 2.36, and has pretty much been in that range since about August or so.  And that is a material change, especially given that that is a career number, so the actual ratio since the summer must be much, much lower (I don’t track that), to move the career average that much.

What does that mean?  What has changed?  The obvious thing I can think of is that in the summer I started using the big 13 inch Detech Ultimate.  Maybe hitting a few more silvers now down there with those wheaties I could always see with the pro coil.  Perhaps the best evidence so far that that coil is producing more silver than the pro coil would.

Of course, correlation is not causality (a fancy way to say that the change in numbers doesn’t prove anything; you still have prove the Detech performs better on the same target), but I think this change is stats is suggestive enough for me.  Stats often do point you to the experiment you need to verify the cause (I’m just too lazy to change coils on enough iffy targets to form a large enough sample size to prove this)

Now, one could counter that if you are finding deeper silvers with the the big 13 inch unit, why aren’t you also finding deeper wheaties as well, thus keeping the ratio constant?  Who knows?  While I can pretend to be an economist, I can’t pretend to be a soil scientist (I have no clue why coins sink at all, tho I think its about grass piling up on them and decomposing more than anything else), but one thing I’ve noticed is that there seems to be a point where the dirt gets harder, there is bedrock, the earthworms and grubs don’t seem to live in that lower level to push the coins down, and so forth.  Maybe there is just a limit to where those wheaties are.  Also, our highly mineralized soil could be putting an overall physical limit on the depth, who knows?

Anyway, the stat page is done, and these are the sort of geeky things I think about while out in the field. Maybe its spot on science, maybe total bunk.  Who knows?  But, I do know I like that Detech Ultimate 13.

Today was the 4th Farewell Farewell Friday hunt at my current honeyhole, and while I did not expect to pull silver from the remaining zone, I managed both a merc and a Q.  Not bad, and we’ll certainly take it, cause silver on Farewell Farewell day is special (you try operating an E-Trac on man 30 after a couple of Golden Monkey’s :)), cause you are in the least promising zones.

Got the merc 45 minutes in; its sweet getting early silver, cause you know you avoid the dreaded Silverless Drive of Shame, and you can enjoy lunch even more knowing that it will be a successful hunt (and any detectorist will tell you one silver is a successful hunt).  You have that glowing feeling that the rest of the hunt is on the house.

The merc was just on the edge of a roadside swale; I love detecting roadsides cause the competition avoids them in droves, but I’m not too fond of swales, cause obviously the evil fill and grade twins have been there, but when you think about it, the dirt had to be pushed around from somewhere (most logically the local honeyhole), so there could still be silver there, and you may luck into one, as I did today.

After lunch, the zone seemed quite a bit tougher.  Was it the aforementioned copious quantities of Golden Monkey, or a change in mineralization?  Who knows, but likely the latter, as the auto rec was high teens low 20s compared to mid 20s for the rest of the site. Makes the detecting challenging for sure, but at least the E-Trac kept giving me channel 9 in this zone.  Target after target sounded like a deep silver, but each ended in frustration with either a wheatie or deep clad.  Had 4 10-46s in a row, and each of them turned out to be a memorial penny.  Are you kidding me?  High mineralization tends to confuse the E-Trac’s brilliant TID at depth, but I think it confuses the competition more, given the amount of deep clad I dug in this zone compared to the rest of the site.

Eventually got a deep 09-48, difficult signal, and said, ok this must be silver, and sure enough it was the 42 Q.  We’ll take it.  My guess is that several silver dimes were missed in this zone due to the mineralization (I’ve got 2 Q’s and a half, and the dime on the swale which doesn’t really count; were are the deep silver dimes?).  No doubt out of reach — need a land-based PI machine to get them, and I don’t have the patience for such.

Anyway, this honeyhole gave up 54 silvers in the end (including a dime grand slam, Q trifecta, walker, half reale, draped bust LC, KG II copper), over about a month, making it my 6th best site ever (missing a tie for 5th by one silver), and my best site of the year.  Turns out to be my 3rd honeyhole of the year, and I’m not expecting another, maybe ever.

It was fun while it lasted, but all things must pass.  There is always a sadness in closing a site, especially a honeyhole.  Today’s Farewell Farewell artist has got to be Annie Haslam; just feels like that sort of day.

Man, that’s gotta be my favorite subject line (well, “bust silver” would be better, but good luck on that one).

Anyway, back to the honeyhole, hoping to finish it off today, but it was not to be.  Hitting some edge, less promising zones that remain.  These are the sort of zones that prolly are not detected much, but also prolly don’t hold much, so its a density vs hunted out problem.  Started off hitting a good bit of deep clad and bottlecaps (in contrast with the rest of the site), which tells me its not been hunted much, so its just a question of density in the silver era.

And I got a nice one, a slam dunk CO 48, which turned out to be a 1960 Q. We’ll take it.  A bit later got a slam dunk silver half signal, and sure enough a walker was in the hole.  I can see how this one might have been missed in the past (assuming the zone was detected) — it was in the root system of a bush stump; likely the bush had been there for quite some time, until recently removed.  I love detecting under bushes, often alot of goodies there; even easier when the bush has been recently removed.

(As an aside, you have to picture this section of the site — the absolute corner, bounded on one side by a very busy main road, and on the other by a busy strip mall, quite far from the main part of the site, and a section where many detectorists might feel self-conscious, forgetting the fact that both bounding features generate a ton of trash. Of course, not like that in the silver era, in fact, representing a “flow paradigm” (have I ever blogged about that? Who knows?), where people would walk from their houses to the main part of the site.  Anyway. as long as there was enough density, I knew I had a chance, and I got lucky (well, some is skill too, I suppose).

Well, I wanted to finish the site today, but I didn’t think I could, and an icy wind was biting, so I called it a day after 2 silver coins.  I don’t like leaving an hour on the table, but given that I could not finish the site, and I can tomorrow on Farewell Farewell day, why not?  I don’t expect another silver here, but I’m gonna cover the last part, and we’ll see.  Then its onto next week, where I have permission on private property, but I’ve never been to the site.  We’ll see how that rolls.

But there’s more (those who read my blog regularly expect that phrase from time to time, and they may even get an “are you kidding me”, a bit later).  And that is this —  I rarely blog the days where I don’t find silver (and I rarely have such days), but Tuesday was such a day.

I only got to hunt the site for 2 hours on Tuesday, cause they were using some zones I wanted to hunt for election day voting parking (there’s a clue for all you site jumpers), and I was skunked in the zones I could hunt.  Moreover, I had to call the hunt short so I could get to my voting place, which is far from the site.  Are you kidding me?  Why don’t we have online voting?  I can bank online.  I can trade stocks online.  I can by music online.  But I can’t vote online?  Are you kidding me?  Give me a break.  I’ve co-written an Internet RFC on online security, and while I’m no DJ Bernstein on the subject, I know my way around the security space, both physically and digitally (and I point out that modern countries actually have online voting).  Anyway, the physical security at the place I was required to vote was much worse than any online security would have been.  But, you don’t want an editorial on voting security (be thankful that it was not on the election and all the abject hate on both sides, which makes me wonder why I bother to vote at all).

So, the election day hunt didn’t generate one damn silver.  But, I found a bottle dump on the property.  Some metal detecting guys love bottle dumps.  I’m not one of those guys (but maybe a handful of those guys read me), but I did bring home an old (presumably) bottle, just in case I had nothing to blog.  Even got a natural terrarium in the thing.  Hopefully its obvious why us silver guys aren’t bottle dump guys.

Oh, and to the observant, the Friday Afternoon Album is by Melidian, its the one with On Top of the Rock,  Totally nailed this one, baby!

Back to the honeyhole of recent posts, and further into the less promising zones, and after about 4 hours, had only 3 wheaties to show for the day, but kept at it, and eventually got a deep, crappy signal which I could not pinpoint, and figured more likely than not was ferrous, but was delighted to see the edge of a silver coin at the bottom of the hole.  Worked it free, and was surprised to see an 1895 barber Q.  Missed a seated Q by a mere 4 years.  This is the second oldest quarter I’ve ever found.

Pinpointing failure was either due to heavy mineralization, or something affecting the target (almost certainly the former).  I was lucky to get this one.  Had the site not been a proven honeyhole, I likely would have given up on the day well before 4 hours, especially cause it was brutally cold and windy (for me, anything below 85 degrees is cold :)).  I did go home with a half hour left, as it was just at the edge of a zone I was finishing, and I did not feel like starting another (although if I did not have at least one silver, I would have pressed on until I had to leave).

I don’t get many barber Q’s (this is only my 8th since 2010), so they are quite a treat.  All have been found on public property, so its not all “hunted out”, as some people claim, at least not around here (tho one was found in Nebraska).  So, that’s that.

Anyway, 50 silvers from this site now, but down to a run rate of 1 per 4 hours.  I have 2 zones left, not promising, but we’ll see if they give anything up going forward.

Found 3 dimes today, a rosie before lunch, and a pair of mercs afterwords.  Also pulled an abused 188? Indian, and a 1912 wheatie, (none of which are photo worthy), as well as another crotal bell.  This site has now given up 49 silvers, which ranks it as my 6th best career silver site.

A couple of times very recently I’ve whined about not getting into that mid 1800s zone on the silver at my current honeyhole, but not today.  Nailed an 1845 seated dime; only my 2nd career seated dime and 4th career seated coin overall, out of about 1000 silvers and about 19,000 coins dug,  That’s how rare they are for me.

Day started out slow, only 1 wheatie in the first 2.5 hours, but that’s the nice thing about a proven honeyhole, you keep at it.  And then I got a rosie, the seated, then another rosie, all within 15 minutes, and within 5 feet of each other.  Are you kidding me?

Why is that?  I dunno, but the site has always been bursty.  I gave up on it once, and came back, and almost gave up on it again.  Now that’s its been declared a honeyhole, every blade of grass gets gridded (and most have been, by now), but it seems to me something technical may be at work here.  Why is a site so bursty?

I dunno, but I do know that the pinpoint on each of these three silvers, all very close to each other, came in much shallower than the coins were.  That suggests to me extreme mineralization that fooled the pinpoint, and perhaps fooled the competition’s machines, but not the E-Trac in “see-thru” mode.  I dunno.  I think it is possible due to the variable mineralization at this site, and the large swaths that appear to be hunted out.

Now, one more technical observation.  Those who read me (and I’m not sure if I should use the plural), know I am obsessed with channel management on the E-Trac.  Here’s what happened on the seated —

It was a deep, iffy signal that I wasn’t sure was worth digging or not, but I had decided I would.  I had just pulled a tough rosie, and was feeling hot.  I was running channel 2 (one of the best for silver, IMHO, and the channel recommended at the last noise cancel).  Whenever I get one of these deep iffy ones, I play with the channels.  I did a noise cancel on the dirt next to it, and it recommended channel 7, one of the very worst channels for silver according to my previous data.  I ran it over the target in channel 7, and it gave a sorta kinda i’mnotsure kinda signal; would I have dug it had it been the initial signal? I dunno.  It was slightly worse than 2, but since I was already predisposed to dig the target, it is hard to judge.

Then, I put it on channel 9, the best silver channel, IMHO, and it did not give a dig me signal.  Had I been running 9, I most likely would have missed it.  So, its still a game of managing the best channels for silver, and the best channel for the local dirt.  Noise cancel alot, with the coil on the ground, especially in dirt with high, and highly variable, mineralization. Learn the good silver channels in normal dirt (2, 6, 9, 10 IMHO),.  And play with it alot.  It matters some of the time: I wish could offer a cookbook, but I can’t.  You’ll “get it” if you play with it alot in the field.

Anyway, the seated is thin, and was at about 6-7 inches, on its side.  What a joy to see down there when I sliced away more dirt from the side of the plug.

But, there’s more.  Are you kidding me?  Maybe the seated wasn’t the best find of my day (tho it was certainly my favorite).  Also pulled a copper ring today.  I don’t even get excited about KG II copper coins, cause they are so abused, and this ring is no exception, but it could have been a wedding band from over 200 years ago.  Who knows?  How cool would that be?  Amazingly, the ring has some sort of stamp, hallmark, or inscription in it.  Are you kidding me?  Given that it is abused copper, I can’t read the hallmark now, and may never be able to, but if I am able to, it could be really cool.  Will work on it when I have the time.  Not much to look at, but here it is —