I am in quite a slump, having hunted all week without finding a single silver coin.

Tuesday and Wednesday at the same site that gave up 2 silvers last Friday, which I thought had the potential to be a monster site, simply dudded.  Someone better than me had cleaned it out.

Thursday was at an old park in a new town (for me, anyway), that likewise seemed hunted out.  Problem was the bedrock was very shallow, meaning coins could not sink, meaning no advantage for my big unit and E-Trac.  I did find an abused Indian head there (which I don’t get excited about), and there is likely a couple silvers there if I had more patience, I just don’t.

Today (Friday), was a hunt at a church from the 1740s I got permission to hunt.  The churchyard was totally hunted out, not a single high tone to be had anywhere, and I gave it a good three hours.  There is alot more to this story (as those who may have read the pre-edited version know), but that’s that.

In the field behind the church, I did find a liberty cap half cent, my first ever of this type of coin.  Its totally abused.  You can make out that it is a liberty cap half cent in person, tho I could not get a photo that shows it really.  Too bad it isn’t in passable condition; it would be quite a find for me, and something to feel good about during this silver slump.

Family is doing a mall crawl (something I will not do under any circumstances, especially this time of year), so I got to do some detecting this morning.  I may even get to tomorrow morning if it doesn’t rain.

Anyway, a member of our Facebook club put together a hunt for this morning, it was an hour and a quarter drive for me, but I decided what the hell, I just wanted to meet some of the other people.

I had no time to do any research on the site, and had no idea where to go, so I just started milling around these woods more or less where everyone else was, and was finding nothing.  As far as I could read the terrain, the woods were second growth (reclaimed farmland), so it was like hunting a farm field.  I couldn’t even get iron nulls, and if you ain’t gettin’ that, the odds of getting anything else at an old site are between slim and none.

Eventually I did find where an old house was, you can tell from the domestic vegetation, bricks, and so forth, and most importantly, constant iron nulls.  So I focused there for quite some time, carefully gridding, and still got nothing but junk.  I did have one heart pounding moment when I found a small ceramic jar with a metal lid, I says, ok here is my first cache, but it was empty.

I was about 2 hours in, and still had not found a single coin or other keeper.  These sorts of hunts can be like this, and more often than not they are for me.

Burnt out on constant nulling/TTF, I decided to go into the purer woods from the homesite grass for some peace, got a 12-43 which I figured was a wheatie or a copper, but it turned out to be an abused 1919 merc.  Are you kidding me?  Just randomly in the woods when the homesite turned up bupkis.

Then I found an old road bed, and this was something worth focusing on, and I hit a spill of a wheatie and a 1946 Q.  On the board with my second silver of the day.  Two ahead of what I expected.  There was also a huge hunk of iron in the hole.  First I got the iron, and I said, are you kidding me?  I hear silver in here.  Scanned again, got the wheatie.  Scanned again, got the Q.

Found another old roadbed and got another weird signal, but I heard silver in there.  I pulled out of that hole 2 coppers fused together, a silver dime (1913 Canadian), and a huge hunk of iron.

The above pic shows the coppers fused together.  I cannot identify either one.  Here is a side view of the fusion —

After forcing the coppers apart, I still can’t identify them.  Since they were shallow, were in a hole with a Canadian dime, and rang a little light  (12-40 range), I’m think the possibility is that they are Canadian large cents (tho some early 1800 American LCs have been pulled from this site by others), who knows?  The one with the X looks like it has a bust, the other looks like a mirror image of that bust.  The one with the X also looks like it has the LC wreath on the back.  I’ll never know; scored as unidentifiables/smoothies.

One final thought on the iron.  At sites like this, it seems if you are not getting lots of iron junk, your odds of a silver or copper are low (occasionally you get a random one in the woods for fields, but that is rare, at least for me).

Below is the iron I had to deal with in 2 of the 3 holes with silver.  The Q is for size reference.  The smaller piece was on top of the wheatie and the Q in that hole, and the E-Trac still heard the silver; the larger piece was in the hole with that Canadian dime and fused copper pair.

All in all a fine morning hunt when I did not expect to find anything.

I had alot to write tonight.  Stories are dead, but it totally would have been a story otherwise.  Too bad, cause it was good, but, there simply is no time.

Tue went to a buddy’s site, and was skunked.  Wed worked a 13 hour day,  Thu went to  4 sites and eventually got a pair of silvers and an abused KG III copper; (1761 or 1767), at the 4th one.

[12-7] Well, I’m told I can’t have a KG III at 1761 or 1767.  Maybe it is a 1781 or 1787.  Who knows? [12-8] Now they tell me its a KG II and the date is 1751.  It might be.

With the snow, and not much time to hunt, and no good place, it had been a while since I saw silver.  Three hunts in a row to be exact, but got a few today.

I did get out Friday once I found out it didn’t snow to the south of me, and went to a town south of me, that despite several tries, has yet to give up one stinkin’ silver coin.  I went to a small park that a buddy of mine once said gave up silver, but it had been picked clean — just a couple of wheaties.

Sunday I got out for 2 hours to the site I scouted last weekend — also picked clean, just 2 clad quarters were the only two coins.  That’s the problem with small sites, easy for the competition to pick clean, which I why I generally avoid them.  My technical skills with the E-Trac just didn’t help.  I did find a crotal bell at just one inch, which means it may have been regraded, or another detectorist could have dropped it.  There was lots of deep, high tone trash, just no coins or other keepers.  Oh well.  There is a bit more terrain here, but I don’t think I will be going back.

Still without a place, but the weather today was too nice to stay in and do research, an undertaking that has been quite frustrating lately, so I went to a huge site that had given up 20 silvers, but most zones that are left seemed dead, except one, where I got a stray rosie out of the blue last time I was there.

Got 3 more silvers, all in the first hour, right near where the rosie was.  I imagine they were all one or two events, cause this is an out of the way section, and the rest of it was dead as well.  I’ll take it, but it is more luck that skill silvers.  This is the sort of site that is so huge it would take a lifetime to cover completely, and I don’t really expect to find anymore there, but I guess I’ll be back someday if I am desperate for a place.

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 —

First, hopefully everyone who endured the storm has come thru fine.  The eye of the fucking thing came right thru southern Chester County, a direct hit, more or less.  But Chester County took much less damage than other areas to the east and northeast.  Chalk that up to the cold front that was coming from the west at the same time, trapping the hotter wind from the ‘cane above the tree line, for the most part.  So sorry those further east weren’t so lucky.  We lost power for about 24 hours, and had alot of road closures, but that was the extent of our inconvenience.

I’d write more about the storm, especially about its politicalization, from assholes on both the left and right, but this is a metal detecting blog, and we don’t do “stories” here anymore,. so lets talk about the silver.

And I did manage to get out today after spending the earlier part of the week hunkering down — to the same honeyhole that has been the subject of recent posts, and I scored both a slam dunk Q in an out of the box zone (that really trashy section right next to the road that no one ever wants to detect; it was only 4 inches deep), and a really nasty to recover rosie in the next zone to work; the damn thing was on its side under a pull tab; it took a good 5 minutes to recover — these are the hardest ones, cause you can’t pinpoint em, and they sound good from so many directions.

It was really muddy and cold out there, and my morale was a bit sapped due to the storm and my empath nature, so I only spent 2 hours, but we are still clocking in at one per hour here.  The fact of the matter is, in all honesty, that I should have been doing something to help out rather than wasting the midday jacking my silver count, but how does one?  They say (and “they”, sometimes being fellow economists) that capitalism is the most optimal system for the allocation of resources.  Its on these days that I know that “they” are 100% full of bullshit.  And, just multiply the inefficiency both in order of magnitude, and number of people, and it is disgusting.

Well, enough pontificating.  Just demonstrates, once again, the meaningless of milestones.  But not in the Nordkapp or Mt. Washington sense (i.e, we drive there), cause silver coins are hard to find and take a bit of skill and talent, but it is not the occasion  to celebrate a milestone, so I can’t.

A couple of days ago, I was whining about not being able to get into that dead zone of 1800-1890 silver at my current site, when coppers, IHs, and modern silver are present, as well as colonial era relics.  This problem pretty much haunts me at most sites,

But today I got in there with an 1822 half reale.  Technically, its not a “Spanish silver”, but a Mexican coin.  According to my Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins, it is from the “Empire of Iturbide”, whatever that means (I don’t know much of Mexican coinage or history; no doubt it means alot to those so endowed with such knowledge).

For the curious, the coin is the size of an American half dime; slightly smaller than a dime, and thinner.  On the E-Trac, came in at a CO of 35 to 37.  Not something you would normally dig cause its in the dreaded zincoln zone, but if it has “that sound”, and is deep in an old field giving up colonial relics, you gotta dig em all.  Of course, I dug a ton of zincolns today as well.

As much as I love the find, I’d love to nail another American silver of the same age. The universe mocks my every move.

As for the rest of the hunt, of course it was Farewell Farewell day, so the hunt was cut short a bit by a long lunch, but before lunch I pulled a silver Q along with the half reale, and after lunch I pulled 3 rosies, for a fivespot on the day.  Not bad.

The site is now officially a “honeyhole”, having given up 41 silvers.  I have named levels for sites at 3, 7, 14, 21, 40, and 100 silvers (as I said at 14, nevermind).  This is my 9th site to reach 40 silvers; and I’m about 85% done.  High 40s is possible here, tho of course we continue to work from expected most productive to least productive.  We’ll see.

Day started off slow, 3 hours of gridding, and 3 hours of nothing, not even a wheatie.  After three hours, I had about 70 cents in clad, and nothing else.  Most people would have given up, and I would have as well, except that this site has already given up 30 silvers, and is characterized by dead zones and bursty zones.

Eventually got a merc, it was right on the edge of the field against the woods, and not only that, it was in trash.  I almost didn’t dig cause I was so frustrated, but glad I did.

Things picked up from there rather quickly; soon thereafter I got a rosie and a another merc in the same hole, the badly worn merc, then a couple of slam dunk rosies, all in about an hour.  Six silvers in one hour.  Are you kidding me?  Of course, it was also six silvers in 4 hours after 3 in the dead zone, still not too bad.

The last hour was also dead, but I got one beautiful hit that turned out to be a deep clad dime.  Not sure why I keep getting fooled on these here — I think the mineralization is goofy here, or something.  The good news is that the dead last hour was less dead than the first 3, got a couple of wheaties and some deep clad, and was leaving tons of clad in the ground, in contrast with the first 3 hours, so there is still hope for this zone for a couple of more.  We’ll see.

Yesterday’s hunt at the same site as recent hunts gave up a pair of mercs and a 11.57 gram silver object; I have no clue what it is (other than that it is big and silver, and that works for me), but someone suggested that it was some sort of jewelry that a woman would put in her hair.  Maybe, who knows?

Yesterday’s hunt was a struggle ’til the end, where I got one merc in the zone I was working, and with a little time left before I had to get back, was freestyling thru a zone I had little hope for, and got the other one.  That merc opened that zone up for me.

And today I hit it, and did quite well, pulling 5 silvers.  The day started off quite slowly; I pulled just 3 coins in the first 90 minutes — fortunately the first one was a rosie.  Getting a silver early really helps your morale thru these tedious and slow zones, and it often pays off.

I kept working it, and eventually got some targets, mostly deep clad, but deep clad is good, says the competition hasn’t hit it that hard either now nor in the 80s, and also says something may have been going on in this section back in the day (the site is a huge, nondescript field).  Eventually got another rosie and a barber dime.

I’m thinking trifecta now, and had I gotten it, I would have written a blow by blow story of how I pulled it out in the last 3 minutes like my double digit day, but since I didn’t, I guess I won’t, except there was still plenty of drama, so I will anyway.

With about 75 minutes left, I got a deep, jumpy signal, that sounded pretty loud, with alot of bounce to FE 01, and lots of CO 47+.  These are almost always silver half dollars, but I figured it could be a merc, but it turned out to be the silver Q. I’ll take it.  Got 3 other beautiful silver dime signals, one with just 15 minutes to go, but two of them turned out to be deep clad dimes, while one was another rosie.  Oh well, missed the trifecta, but 5 silvers is still nice.  One thing about this section is that the ground is really crappy, giving me an auto rec in the teens, which makes the TID iffy, and is probably why these last few targets fooled me.  Also probably explains why this section was so loaded; my machine/program may be better suited to it than others.

Also an indian in there that I pulled, rang at CO 30, and is totally abused.  It is an 1886.

One thing about this site is that it had some modern silver era use on top of a field that dates to the colonial era, which explains the finding of modern silvers over stuff like the KG II copper and 1803 LC I’ve found.  I love sites like this, cause the modern silver keeps you going, while you dream of the big fish.

But they can also be frustrating.  I always seem to get the coppers, and colonial era relics, but nothing in that mid-range, say from 1850 to 1890.  Just can’t get in that dead zone (better known as the seated era), for some reason.  And that’s the zone I really want.  Don’t understand it really.  This site had 1950+ usage, but before that was just a field.  If I can get coppers, why not something from the dead zone?  Did get two kinda dead zone coins today, the 1886 IH, and the 1911 barber dime (which also pre-dates any but farm field use), but where are the seateds?

Well, there is still some even less promising real estate here left to cover, maybe I can get something from the dead zone one of these days.

As for colonial era relics, outside of countless buckles, I got a crotal bell, and a small button that was really deep (telling me the machine is hitting deep, very small conductive targets here, so where are the seated half dimes?).

And finally, today’s silver cleaned up, which doesn’t look much better, given that most of it is tarnished.  But hey, will take it.  Its beautiful to me.

Didn’t get to hunt at all this weekend, but today made it back to last week’s double digit day site, and got a couple more silver dimes.  Site is definitely thinning, but hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a couple more out of it.

It was quite a day, as I dropped my 14th career double digit day, pulling 5 mercs, 4 rosies, and a 1937 Q.

Started working the field from yesterday’s site which showed some promise at the end of the day, and got a merc right off the bat.  Shortly thereafter got the Q; it sounded horrible, blowing my ears off — I thought it was going to be a canslaw.  It was only 4 inches deep, not sure why it sounded so horrible, but we’ll take it.  2 silvers in the first half hour.

Hit a slow spell, but about 2 hours later, hit a deep, iffy one which I thought could be a silver, and on these I like to take a bit of time to test the channels on it to see which one sounds the best.  Was running channel 10, tested a couple of other channels where it also came in iffy, did a noise cancel with the coil against the ground (as I always do), it recommended channel 2, tried that one on the target, and could hear the target much better on channel 2.  Was sure it was a silver.  Once again demonstrating that channel management matters (I usually noise cancel about 15-30 times a hunt).  It turned out to be a rosie on its side.

Then, just a foot away, got quite a bonus, 3 silvers in one hole, a merc and 2 rosies.  Are you kidding me? I dug each one out separately, and the E-Trac with the big 13 inch unit had no trouble separating them.  I wonder if they sounded like trash to other machines.  3 hours in, and 6 silvers, tho admittedly 4 within 5 minutes that were probably one event.  I’m thinking double digit day now, or at least a dollar day.

Next up, not 10 feet away, but I go slow, so it took a bit of time to get there, was a tough signal, 12-42 next to a big hunk of iron. Figured it could be a wheatie or a silver, since it was affected by the iron all bets are off, and it turned out to be the thin ’17 merc.  You don’t seem to lose separation with that Detech 13 unit (as an aside, pulled a merc from under a pulltab with that coil the other day).  The Detech 13 totally rocks the house, and they aren’t even paying me to say that.

Just right after that hit a nice deep 12-47 which I figured was a slam dunk silver Q for #8 on the day, but instead it was an abused copper, an 1803 draped bust large cent.  Old coppers are fun to find, but given how abused they are, just give me an 1803 quarter next time.

Did get #8 fairly soon after that tho, a slam dunk merc.  So, that was 6 silvers and a copper all within about 10-20 feet of each other.  Sometimes you just find these inexplicable hot zones.  And its not like the site isn’t hunted by others; I’ve been there 5 times, and seen three other detectorists, but none with an E-Trac with my magic program and coil.

So, I had about an hour and a half left before I had to get back to work, but that was the end of the hot zone (and given the spill, it was probably only 3 silver events, not 6), and things started to dry up.  With only 10 minutes before I had to leave, I hit a beautiful 03-47 which was a certain slam dunk #9, but it turned out to be a clad Q on its side.  Are you kidding me?  Clad on its side often fools the E-Trac (or me, I guess), into thinking it is silver.  (Maybe someday I’ll write why I think that is).

But the next target, just 2 minutes on, was a slam dunk rosie, for #9, with about 8 minutes before I had to leave.  I finished out that section of a grid, no more silvers, and no time left.

But, I swing on my way back to the parking lot, thru sections I haven’t worked yet, and, unbelievably, I got a beautiful 12-46 with “that sound” that I knew was my 10th silver of the day.  And sure enough it was.  I was about 10 minutes late getting back to the parking lot, but it was worth it.  Total hunt time was a little over 5 hours, or 2 per hour, which is about the best I ever do.

Well, there were alot of dead zones in this field, but a few pockets of silver here and there.  I’ve obviously hit the most promising sections (in my judgement anyway), but hopefully there will be a couple more in the more dead sections.

What an awesome day!  What an awesome sight —

Yesterday’s hunt was quite frustrating.  Back to the site from early in the week where I got 1 silver and 7 wheaties for a longer hunt to get a better feel for the place, and I got 1 silver and 12 wheaties.  Are you kidding me?  Well off the magic 2.5:1 ratio.

It was bizarre.  No clad, no trash, just wheaties.  Who cherrypicks to that degree?  Who digs the clad and trash, and not the wheaties?  It was just unbelievable.  This is a permission site, and I was told it has not been hunted since the early 90s/80s.  Since it is still in use and there was no clad, it is obviously being snuck into, and by someone who picks off everything but the wheaties.  Why?  I tried to think of a technical explanation; sometimes when I get wheaties and silvers out of ratio like this, it means I am swinging too fast to see the silvers, and a conscious effort to slow down corrects the problem, but that wasn’t it.  To make it worse, I gort 5 to 10 wheatie signals I didn’t even bother to dig.

So, over two days, 19 wheaties and 2 silvers over 7 hours.  I generally write off a site if the silver rate is less than 1 per 2 hours, and this ratio has me flummoxed.  I decided to give the site a break  and maybe go back someday — it has such potential, but the evidence suggests that it is a dud.

Today went a bit better; I went back to the site where I found my 300th silver for a little cleanup of sections in one zone I didn’t get to last time, and the first section had a deep, iffy merc, and the second section had a war nickel that came in at an unbelievable CO of 30 on the E-Trac.  Usually they are CO 15 or 16.  I’ve seen one before at 12, and one at 22, but never this high.  Of course, at an old site, you dig any deep, repeatable signal, regardless of the numbers, but 30 is really high for a war nik (I airtested it to be sure).  As you can see in the pic, it is quite shiny; perhaps it has a lot more silver than most.  I also dug sterling ring in this zone.

The site has two other zones, one being a large field, and I decided to hit that field in the remaining time I had before I had to get back to work.  Hit a pair of silver dimes, so that was sweet.  Maybe that opens the field up; I’ll try some more in there if I have the time later this week.  Now 11 silvers from this site.

Finally managed to get permission at a site I have been trying to do so for quite some time (problem was always trying to find someone there).

Got 7 wheaties and an abused rosie in 90 minutes before the rain hit.  My E-Trac hates rain (the buttons stop working), so that was that.

The site has been hunted quite a bit before (and they told me that), but it is large, so hopefully I’ll get a few when I have a few more hours to put into it.  It did seem a bit dead tho, nothing but really deep coins, none of that mid-level and deep clad, trash, and especially bottlecaps which tend to be the tells of a honeyhole.

Original estimate was that it could be a 50-75 silver site, but we’ll dial that back to 20 for now.  We’ll see what a couple of good days of hunting reveal if I get the chance.  Could be dialing down the estimate even more.

Today was Farewell Farewell day at my recent site, the gist of which we described yesterday, and Farewell Farewell day is usually fun cause of the local interaction, local food, and local beer, but the metal detecting generally sucks due to the fact that when farewelling a site, its usually a cleanup of loose ends and corners of the grid, sounding of very low probability zones, if there are any left, and so forth, and they rarely seem to give it up, but we do it out of completeness, a) cause its the anal thing to do, and b) Farewell Farewell is tradition, and c) twice I’ve pulled silver halves in those unwanted zones, and another time pulled an SLQ and another time a merc, and nothing rocks the house more than pulling silver in the early part of Farewell Farewell day out of those crap edge zones, then going off to the downtown or village for local food and drink to celebrate.

But today wasn’t like that.  This site has been tough, the 6 silver day a week ago notwithstanding.  I got nada in the morning, and more nada in the afternoon, til I dropped a rose with just 9 minutes left before I had to return to work, in a very improbable zone.  We call those last minute silvers a “huntsaver”.  We’ll take it.

The fact of the matter is that this site is so huge it would be impossible to ever grid it out in a lifetime, and I know nothing of the low probability zone I just scored in, so maybe there is more, but I need to Farewell Farewell this place and move on for now.  I’ll probably be back someday, tho.  20 silvers including a reale is the final count from here.  Not bad for a hunted out site.

After a rough couple of hunts, yesterday’s hunt was also rough.  Back to to last Friday’s six silver site for another round of abuse, and it delivered that in spades, 8 wheaties, and no silvers.  I did manage to pull a 6+ gram sterling St. George slaying the dragon pendant, which took some of the sting off, but silver bling just isn’t the same as silver coins.

Over the last three hunts, its been 18 wheaties and 1 silver.  Are you kidding me?  My lifetime ratio is 2.4 to 1, and that has been consistent, more or less, for a very long time.

I didn’t have too much hope for today, as I was going back to a relatively new site from the beginning of the month; the first hunt produced 3 silvers, an IH, and a 1740 KG II copper, but the second hunt, which was moving closer to that “middle” we talked about in the last entry, only generated an IH and a buff, neither target all that constructive, as many silver guys (myself included sometimes, ignore these lower tones).

But today went well, as the first target, within the first 5 minutes, was a deep rosie on its side that the E-Trac had no problem with, putting me at #299 for the year.  The next target, about 20 minutes later, rang like a deep silver quarter, but turned out to be another rosie, putting me at 300 for the year.  So, that’s that.  Not all that close to 516, but we’ll take it.

Ironically, after the second silver sounding like a Q and being a dime, the next sounded like a silver dime and turned out to be an SLQ.  God, those a so fun to dig.  Just love seeing them come out of the ground more than pretty much anything else.  Even dateless, even abused, still fun.

Rounded out the day with an abused merc, a thin 35S.  This was in a section that gave up a ton of targets (mostly clad), in a site that was otherwise pretty sparse.  The reason for this, again, is the E-Trac; something was funky about the dirt here, you could not pinpoint, and the propointer went bonkers on pretty much every rock in this section.  Extreme mineralization, and the merc was only at three inches, and an iffy signal at that.  Just goes to show that mineralization matters, and having a machine (and the skill) that can deal with it is important, as it is clear the competition missed plenty of targets in this zone.  I did as well; who knows what lies at 5-6 inches, as I couldn’t see beyond 4.

I’d write more about the silliness of milestones, and why we think they are important, when in fact they are not, but I’m tired, and I will leave that to another day.  302 silvers for a year seems good (tho not as good as last year), and I’m content with it, and glad I don’t have to think about milestones for a while.

Tomorrow is farewell farewell day at last Friday’s 6 silver site, where we hit a local pub, drink some local beer, do a final detect of the site, then go home and listen to Sandy Denny sing Farewell Farewell.  What could be better?

After last Friday’s six silver/$1.00 hunt, it sometimes feels like you can do no wrong, but silver coins are still really hard to find, and it only takes a hunt like the last two I’ve had to remind me of that fact every day.

Yesterday, of course, back to Friday’s site (wouldn’t you?), working the grid in the same direction that I pulled the six silvers (in fact, the last rank produced both the walker and a rosie), but it was nothing but bupkis.  Are you kidding me?

FWIW, the way I work a site is that I start in the out of the box, edge sections, try to establish a few old coins/silvers there. then slowly grid out towards that central middle grassy area that is always dead.  The reason that central middle grassy area is always dead is cause newbies often drive up to the park, look at  that inviting area, dive in, get bupkis or a stray wheat, then get frustrated after an hour or two of nothing else, then go home, leaving the more out of the box sections untouched, so they end up seeming a bit less pounded.  Those nice beautiful middle grassy areas/where the ballfield is are so pounded and dead, and sometimes tend to defend old sites well.

But, its hard to tell beforehand where the boundary between out of the box and pounded land is, and this site has worked out quite differently.  The edge/out of the box sections were more or less dead, just enough to keep my interest (and in fact, a couple of coppers and a reale, which justified working an apparently dead site), and so I kept at it, and the closer I got to that beautiful obvious grassy middle/ballfield section, the more silvers I got!  Who am I to blow against the breeze? So, I figured press on for even more silvers, but It wasn’t to be.  Just proves I either happened to find the boundary between out of the box land and pounded land, or that I have no clue about what I’m talking about.  No question in my mind its a combination of the two.

In any case, Monday’s 5 hour hunt of expanding the grid past the 6 silver zone generated a total of 3 wheats.  I then called that huge promising zone in that direction as hunted out, and started gridding another direction, and pulled one more wheat.  4 wheats in 5 hours.  At least one of them was a rather nice 1910.  The sort of site many write off (and I would (and should) too), but I’ve pulled 19 silvers (including a reale and a walker), as well as a pair of coppers.  Just suggests that there may be a method to my madness.  The question is, how much juice, if any, does this site have left?

Today wasn’t the day to find out.  Hit a new site that another detectorist suggested I hit (and that rarely ends well — would you tip your honeyhole?), but I decided to give it a go anyway, mostly cause it was in the direction of an area I wanted to scout anyway, and cause it was in a township that has given up manyilvers in the past (and I’ve found tracking silvers by township/municipality has worked really well).

Drove up to the site and almost had a heart attack.  Said to myself it was 25 to 35 silver site, based on my experience.  But it was not to be.  Knew after 30 minutes that the site was dead.  Dead sites and silver sites have their own sound.  This site had a dead site sound.  No trash.  Clean threshold.  Auto rec at 28. You know the drill.  Dead site sound.

Prolly a 5 to 10 silver site, and given it size, maybe a 1 per 4 hour site.  Did get a rosie and 6 wheaties in 2.5 hours, which doesn’t seem bad, but its a dead site.  Consider the rosie a hard won victory. Maybe will go back and reassess next year, when and if they mow the grass (one problem was that it is an abandoned schoolhouse, with unmowed grass, which disrupted my grid it out/low and slow/partition the site method, which maybe has biased my assessment). My rule is only write off a site after two substantial hunts without silver, but sometimes you just know, and in this case, I just do (or at least I think I do).

So, 7.5 hours of hunting over the past 2 days nets a single rosie and 10 wheats.  It seems lame to post a single rosie, but it isn’t.  It always serves to remind us all how extremely difficult it is to find silver coins in the game, and that cannot be stressed enough.

I wasn’t able to get out much this week, due to work, and the weather, but today I managed to get out in the beautiful weather for about 5 hours, and had quite a lucky day, scoring 6 silvers, including a walker, and a pair of bison, dated 1927 and 1935.

Two of the dimes were in the same hole.  All were very deep.  The walker was about 9 inches, and came in as a silver quarter silver pretty much, but was bouncing around.  I’ve gotten 19 silvers at this site, and aside from a 1 reale, all have been dimes.  I was hoping for my first quarter, and was shocked.  I actually thought I had junk when I got down to it, cause I hit a rock right above it that was black and looked like metal junk.

The walker marks my 13th silver half dollar of the year.

Pulled a coin from three centuries today, a George II copper which appears to be dated 1740, an 1899 Indian, and a hat trick of silver dimes, the oldest being a 1916 merc.  Second one of those in as many days,  They are always a heartstopper.  Also pulled 9 wheaties.  This is the most detail I’ve ever gotten off of a dug KG II copper.

First a little bit about yesterday, where the family whet to the Celtic Classic, in Bethlehem, which claims to be the best Celtic music festival in the world.  It may be, but I’ve been to better  There is no question in my mind however, that it is the best free Celtic festival in the Mid-Atlantic area.  It was good, and we will probably be regular attendees going forward.

We, of course, went to see Barleyjuice, who nailed it in spades, and were by far the best Celtic rock fusion band we saw on the day, (and the only band on the day that we saw who managed an encore). But, an honorable mention goes to Girsa; we had not heard this band before, but will go out of our way to do so going forward.  A six piece all female outfit wielding the traditional Celtic instruments (including dueling accordions (are you kidding me?), but sadly, no bagpipes).  Good stuff tho — its online, check it out if you like this sort of music.

But, the highlight of the day was a band called Brother.  A fusion of Celtic and Australian tribal music with some electronic wizardry thrown in, but were not remotely close to sounding like an electronic band.  Are you kidding me?  A three piece outfit: polyrhythmic drums, bagpipe/guitar/vox, dithery-doo/keyboards/sampling/sequencing/playback.  Are you kidding me?  Incredible sound.  We’ll be doing more research, especially in regards to whether the online sound is as good as live, but its time to move onto the silver.

And the silver is this.  I didn’t expect to het out today, but I managed to, and found some abused silver.  Silver is rarely abused, but I got a couple of ’em today.  Check out the first one —

Are you kidding me?  I almost threw the thing in the trash pouch, as I thought it was an iron false, but I saw the parts of a merc on one side.

I worked on this thing for 45 minutes to get the iron crap off of it.  First thing I found was that the date was a 1916.  Next thing I found was that the condition was likely XF-40 (ex external damage), based on the lines on the fasces.  Finally, looking at the mintmark area, it was ambiguous as to whether there was a mintmark or not (and that is a big deal on 1916 mercs, for those who don’t know).  I worked the crap off the coin as much as I could, hoping for no D mintmark (as who would want their 16D to be this train wreck), and fortunately, as near as I can tell, there is no mintmark.

All I can say is that it is nice that the E-Trac can find such a coin encrusted in iron.

The other silver was better, but not much better.  A 1914 barber dime, also ferrous abused (as is evident in the pic below).  Also pulled a 1919 buff and 2 wheaties, 1916 and 1918.  This site has now surrendered 13 coins, all dated from 1905 to 1920.  Below are the two silvers and the buff; I’m too embarrassed to show the front of the 1916 merc; it is a train wreck.

Yesterday I alluded to today’s schedule being another good turn, and that was this — a local historical society contacted me recently about detecting a property of theirs to look for a specific artefact, and a specific class of artefacts (I alluded to this a few weeks ago).

I’m of course gonna be vague, cause any detectorists who read this will be on it like flies on, well, you know, if I give details, but today was the day I finally met up with these people at their property.

I did not find the specific artefact.  In fact, after reading the site, and my research, I suggested that it was unlikely that such would be found.  But the other class of artefacts was an outside possibility, so I spent a good three hours kicking around the property.  I did not find anything in that class of artefacts either, but, I did find something in the class of the original specific artefact!  Are you kidding me? I wonder if that even makes sense?  I dunno, and it was totally unexpected, but I am totally stoked, and hope the historical folks like it.  (Maybe someday I’ll write up the details — too bad about all the ‘holes out there who would jump the site prevent a writeup at this time).

I also found a handful of coins on the property, none more than an inch deep – a 1918 merc in very nice condition, a pair of indians (1905 and 1907), and three wheaties, the newest a 1920.  I don’t know if they will want these or not, but of course I’ll offer them.  Outside the merc, they are pretty abused, tho the one IH is at least recognizable.

Back to the site from the other day that gave up 4 silvers including a reale, and I pulled a ’46 rosie, and a ’26S merc.  The ’26S is one of the few mercs I’ve pulled that’s worth a bit more than melt value, and that’s always fun (its worth about $10-15 bucks).

This site has now given up 13 silvers and 2 coppers.  I didn’t expect much at all when I first started out here, and it was pretty bleak for a while, but persistence pays off.  14 silvers from a site is sort of a magic number (nevermind); it is a level where I do a farewell farewell hunt, so maybe tomorrow, but I have another “good deed” appointment tomorrow, and it may rain, so we’ll see.

Did my good turn for the day.  There is this website that hooks up people who have lost wedding rings and stuff with metal detectorists who will attempt to find the item for them.  The detectorist gets an e-mail — so and so has lost a ring, hook up with them and help them find it.  If you hook up, they will tell you the approximate area they think they lost it, and you go out and look for it.

Well,I hooked up, and after about a half hour of gridding their front yard, I found the ring.  Whohoo!

Economists are interested in this sort of stuff.  The question is: what percentage of detectorists who get hooked up in these situations pretend they can’t find the item, when, if fact they actually did, they pocket it rather than tell the owner they found it?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I am guessing it is in the 20-30% range.  Could be higher.  Obviously a very difficult study to put on (tho savvy economists dying for a Ph. D. could leverage this web site, and a couple of hidden cameras, to do it;  I hope someone does — this is a paper I would kill to read).  (There are some papers on cheating in this fashion, but they tend to deal with hidden cameras in the break room counting who puts a dollar in the honor system cup for bagels and the like.  The evidence suggests that the percentage of cheaters is higher, but it is interesting to posit, as the value of the cheating increases, paradoxically, the incidence of cheating would decline.  That’s why its interesting).

Economists tend to be a cynical lot, so perhaps I am being too cynical at 20-30%.  I do know of one asshole on one of the forums who found a wedding ring, knew who its owner was, and then held it for ransom.  So, at least the anecdotal evidence suggests a percentage greater than 1%.

Well, there’s much more to write on this subject, including the evolution of irrational altruism itself in a dog eat dog world, and the fact that the first time I did this, the ring I found was worth $18,000 (and I knew this beforehand), but I also honorably returned it to the owner in that case, but I want to watch CSI now instead of writing more.  Don’t you?

Got out today to a very stingy site, and was surprised that it gave up 4 silvers and 7 wheaties. The first one was turned out to be an almost smooth 1 reale Spanish Silver, at 7-8 inches, coming in at 12-41 on the E-Trac.  I’ve found a couple of coppers at this site, so the potential for old silver has always been there, but this is my first reale from this site, and 6th Spanish silver of my career.  Sadly, it is also one of the most abused.

Two of the other silvers were hard as well, one was ferrous affected, and one was on its side.  It look quite a bit of work to get the latter, as is rang out as an obvious silver, but pinpointed about 6 inches off.  The final silver was a slam dunk; they are fun.

I really do believe the 13 inch coil was paying dividends today, especially on the reale, as those are thin, and it was deep.

This past week, I caught a nasty virus, and did not metal detect all week, nor did I feel up to research.

But, a friend of mine sent an invite to hunt some private properties on Sunday.  I felt not great, but OK enough to do it, so I jumped at the opportunity.

And I got 9 wheaties, 1 silver quarter, a 1919 buffalo nickel, and a 19 gram fragment of a silver spoon (that’s alot, as these things go).  It was an awesome hunt, and the best part was the owner of one of the properties (a 1730’s farmhouse, giving us a tour of the house).  My friend got 4 silvers and 13 wheats.  There’s more color that could be added to the writeup of the hunt (its all good), but I’m still a bit sick, and just want to hit the publish button and watch a movie.

Two colonial coppers today.  That is a personal record.  Colonial coppers are quite hard, at least for me, and at least in Chester County.  Out of the nearly 20,000 coins I’ve dug, I think I’ve dug less than 10 of ’em, and one of them was dug in New England, where they are much more common.  Sadly, like all CC coppers, they are abused beyond belief, but old coins are still fun to find, and part of the fun is figuring out what they are.  Also dug a musket ball (and a rather nice one, as these things go), and an old button.

The first one is a 1786 draped bust Connecticut copper.  If you use your imagination, you can see “CONNEC:” on the right, and its placement, with the colon, is consistent with this variety.

The second copper took a bit of work to identify.  Originally I thought it would have to be scored a smootie, tho I thought I could make out a bust that is consistent with a liberty cap or draped bust large cent.

But, it turned out to be consistent with a Machin’s Mill variety, a knockoff of a King George III, made circa 1786/1787.  You can make out the “IV” in “GEORGIVS”, the “II” in “III”, and the “REX” (well, you can’t really, unless you know what to expect on these things).  This, in the size of this coin, is also consistent with a Virginia halfpenny (1773), and a Vermont copper variety (1788), but drawing a straight line from the V across the bust (yeah, there is a bust there), lines up with a line in the King’s robe, and transects below the “REX”, which is only consistent with a couple of Machin’s MIlls varieties, so that’s how we score it.

These are my 67th and 68th career coppers, and what is interesting, is that 20 of them have been found at this one site.  Not only that, 19 of those 20 have been found in a rather small area (along with several other domestic artefacts).  That is astounding, as these things go.  Of those 19, many are unidentifiable, but of those that are, the newest is 1787 (and common sense would suggest that the smoothies are even older)

So, what was here?  Who knows, but no question in my mind that something was.  I’ve never seen anything on a map, except for one 1700s map that shows a road, but no dwellings.  That road does not appear on early 1800s maps.  However, 19 coppers (and perhaps more), is inconsistent with a 1700’s dwelling that may have been along the road.  That’s a ton of money to have been lost in those days, for a single dwelling.  It is a mystery likely to never be solved (at least by me), and believe me, I’ve spent a good bit of time at historical societies poking at it over the last 3 years.

Roadtrip to New England to work on a letterboxing project I agreed to do (which I ended up not being real motivated to do, in the end), but the ulterior was to test my big coil at a park I’ve been to a couple of times before, where the targets are really scarce, and really deep, but its also a place where I’ve gotten 2 reale Spanish silver.

But when I got there, this huge section had just been freshly mowed (this park is massively huge, BTW).  I don’t live in this area, of course, but I have been here a couple times previous, and hunted it with a couple locals, and I was fairly certain that this section certainly hadn’t been mowed this year before, and perhaps not for several years (and is rarely mowed), based on its look the last time I was there and conversations with the locals.

So, I focused there instead of the mowed area where I planned to test my coil, and in the somewhat little time I had, I got 9 wheaties, 1 silver, and about 10 bottlecaps.  The oldest wheaties are 1918 and ’19. Terrible ratios (I’m at about 2.38 wheaties per silver), but way more deep targets than the mowed section would have given up (in the same amount of time you might get 2 old coins, and not a chance at a deep bottlecap).

(As an aside to newbies — deep bottlecaps are the most valuable thing you can dig in a hunted out park outside of the silver itself — they are a tell that the section was not hunted hard in the 80s, when machines could not tell bottlecaps from coins (modern machines still have trouble with this as well, and at old sites, you have to dig ’em, cause they can be the more exotic silvers or coppers, and sometimes even a normal silver.  So, lots of deep bottlecaps are also a tell that it hasn’t been hunted well in modern times either, at least that has been my experience)).

As for the big coil in the hunted out section, I did not get a ton of time to test it, but I only found one deep conductive target, some sort of large copper washer, so its not like the deep coins were flying out of the ground with the big unit, and this was sort of the perfect test site — hunted out, and minimal mineralization as far as I can tell.  But, it was not a long enough test.

Got out for a bit on Monday and today,  Got a couple of buffs (both with dates) and 5 wheaties, but no silver on Monday.  Got a couple of rosies, and no wheaties today. Also got a copper today, but it is a smoothie, and we don’t do pics of smoothies around here.  It counts tho, and it is my 21st large copper of the year.  Not bad, as these things go, I guess.

Not sure if I’ll blog on the “dilemma”, or not.  Cool problem, tho.  Did get some feedback — don’t give us economic thought experiments — teach us how you find silver.  Well, not sure how to do that, the dilemma is much more interesting, but I will say one of today’s silvers had a CO of 37 and was only 4 inches deep.  It was totally affected by ferrous, and no doubt its situation bamboozled the competition, as the site I’m on has been hunted hard.  Not really sure how to teach: “buy an E-Trac and put in the time and effort to learn how to use it”, but here is an attempt — when you get something like this, and you are in “deep on/fast off”, switch to “deep off/fast on”, to see if you can get better separation.  Didn’t work in this case cause I think the ferrous was big and right under it, but sometimes it does.

As I alluded to in yesterday’s post, I have an interesting post to push that one off the top of the blog, but first a bit of housekeeping.  As I suggested yesterday, its RIP for the “stories”.  Its been fun, and they have totally served their purpose over the past 6 months (more than you could know, “you” of course, requiring a semiosis with the reader (OK, they are really dead now :))), but its “Adieu, Adieu” (and those who really get my blog get it).

Secondly, if you want to actually read a good metal detecting blog, read Pocketspill. I do. He’s a smart guy.  You’ll learn alot more there then here, unless, of course, your area of interest is semiotics or economics (not to disparage Pocketspill’s expertise in those disciplines, of course).  But, I think we all want to learn more about metal detecting, which is easier than the former, and harder than the latter.

So, onto the Dilemma.  This stuff is good .  Economists love thinking about this stuff (otherwise they would be idiots for becoming economists, wouldn’t they?).  Some write Ph D theses on stuff like this.  The following is a real story from the metal detecting world (and you may have seen it on the forums; if not, maybe you will find this interesting).

This is a thought experiment.  The exercise here, after reading the story, is to describe how you would have acted were you in the principal actor’s shoes, and, most importantly, why? It is not an exercise in judgment of the principal actor. (Economists observe and predict the actions of actors; they do not judge them).

First, a bit of background for my non-metal detecting readers (of which, surprisingly, there are several).  Metal detecting people can skip this.  Silver quarters were minted in and before 1964.  They look very similar to non-silver quarters (1965+) to many, but are worth about 20x as much.  That is, while 4 modern quarters are worth $1, four similarly looking silver quarters are worth about $20.  Here is the difference in appearance —

You also need to know that “coinstar machines”, those machines in the supermarket that turn jars of change into dollar bills, and change a 9.8% “convenience fee” for doing so, clearly state that they do not accept silver coins (and, for non Mid-Atlantic readers of the following story, “mac” means “ATM machine”).

So, here is the story, in the words of the principal actor —

So I went to the supermarket this evening to get some ground beef for chili. I came home and realized i bought the wrong beef. What I bought was a mixture for meatloaf. All ticked off I went back to the supermarket. Went and got what I needed and proceeded to check out. There was a girl about 25 years old at the coin star. I “heard” all of her change getting rejected. She got in line behind me and I looked at her zip lock bag full of coins. I said to her since the coinstart takes about 10% from the total, I will tap mac and give her total face value. Well we sat there counting them out. My hands were shaking as I was doing that. I promptly gave her $70 even for 280 quarters…SILVER QUARTERS THAT IS!!! She needed the cash to do food shopping. Wow I am so glad I picked up the wrong beef!!! I truly believe that saying now that things happen for a reason.

I know some are going to say I ripped her off. Well I look at it as if the coin star took the silver quarters then she would have gotten about $62 back. I gave her the full amount for them. If she knew what they were she didnt care…

They are all Washingtons. No real key dates. One 1950 D that might be a D over S. Either way that is $1453 in melt value . I am still so stoked. What an awesome evening!!!

So, to reiterate the thought experiment, the question is, what would you have done, and why?  E-mail me.  (Comments still don’t work; not that I’m not interested in hearing them, its just that if I turn them on, I get 300 spams a day, and this is my work e-mail, and I can’t suffer that.  Moreover, I’ve passed my days of fighting bad software, been there, done that for 20+ years.  Maybe someday comments will be fixed; that day won’t be today).

BTW, you can google the PA’s story and find the 1000 post thread on another forum if you want to.  You may even find my inane responses. That would be cheating.  If you do that, don’t respond; I’m interested in unaffected responses.  I’ll write how I would have acted next week (and may even include some economics, both mainstream and alternative theory, but this is a metal detecting blog, after all, so don’t bet on it), if I remember to.

Lots goin’ on here, so lets roll it.  We don’t do “stories” here anymore, but if we did, that is what this would be.  First problem — this post scrolls off that beautiful “11 Silvers Today” link under “Recent Posts”.  Oh well, all things must pass.

So, today, back to “Chester County’s hardest silver site”, and why not, if it gives up the shiny once in awhile? And the first target of the day was a slam dunk 1958 rosie.  Are you kidding me?  This is either a win for my skill of reading the site to find the location of the slam dunk silver, or inserting my 13 inch unit into the right place,  I’m betting on the latter.  The Detech Ultimate 13 coil is a winner — now pulling 3 silvers out of this hunted out park. (2 others were circumstantial; 2 others were my skill — that makes 7, which, in my logging system, makes it a auto-loggable site, meaning I have to edit the database (yuck).  Who would have thunk it (are you kidding me? — the spelling checker took that — chalk one up for modern linguistics!)  that “Chester County’s hardest silver site” would become loggable.  One of my best sites now (23rd on the list; admittedly a far cry from the top 2, at 140 and 127, respectively)).  So, that paragraph is why we don’t do stories anymore.

So, we titled the entry “1958 rosie”, and above it is, and its cool cause I’ve been looking to fill this hole in my dug rosie album for quite some time.  Previously, I’ve dug all the rosies without a mintmark (and most with a mintmark), but could never dig a 1958.  Now we got one.  Woohoo! (And only 8 in the entire series (all with mintmarks), remain to complete this goal).

But, there’s more.  It wouldn’t be a story (of course, it isn’t a story, just a post that is like what used to be a story, since stories are defunct), if there wasn’t a “more”, and that “more” is this:  When I was detecting “Chester County’s hardest silver site” today, (a public park, BTW, to the newbies to “randy’s Metal Detecting Blog”), some dude comes up to me and sayz — he’s with some local historical society and is looking for a metal detectorist to detect the site of an amusement park that was closed down 100 years ago.  How cool is that?  Are you kidding me?  I sayz yeah –I’ll do it (wouldn’t you?).  The bad news is that my own research (surprised that someone who could write asinine stories could do intelligent research?) located the site, and suggests that it is a very hard site, due to massive undergrowth.  Oh well.

But of course I’ll do it.  It will be fun, and it never hurts to get in good with the municipal and historical society elders, and do the right thing and help them (forget the fact that an economist just wrote this post :-)).  Good karma from our hobby is a good thing.  Don’t you agree?

But, amazingly, there’s more.  And that “more” is what this post was gonna be, before I unexpectedly was able to get out for a couple hours today; it was to be an entry in the “Friday Afternoon Album” category for a change.  And, it was to be titled “The Holy Trinity”.

Those who used to read my FB posts regarding the FAA know the Holy Trinity to be Sandy Denny, Annie, Haslam, and Maddy Prior.  But, what if there we’re a fourth member?  I’d always thought such a fourth member would be Pat Benetar (and no one can belt it as high and loud as she can, even the Trinity), but the songwriting (and her insistence on following such lame songwriting, rather than doing something majesticly great with those pipes, always disqualified her in my mind), but there is now, not a 4th member, but a 4th nominee, and that is Florence Welsh (better known as “Florence and the Machine”).  Are you kidding me?  Have you heard this stuff?  Yeah, the songwriting still mostly sucks (but it has its moments), but at least it is early in her career.  There is time, and her vox is magic.  Imagine Flo Welsh fronting a band with Richard Thompson on axe and Ashley Hutchings on song selections and arrangements.  Are you kidding me?  I don’t believe in heaven, but if I did, and such heaven excluded the Holy Trinity, that would be my vision of it.

So, why does this matter?  Cause I need a 4 for some letterbox clues.  The obvious 4 is the elements, but its too cliche and too overdone.  So, I was thinking of doing the Holy Trinity (assuming I could find someone to carve it).  One problem, “trinity” doesn’t exactly equal 4, (but close enough for the target audience).  Its a question of who to make the 4th?

Pat Benetar doesn’t make the cut.  Florence Welch has the voice of a goddess, and is Trinity worthy, but doesn’t have enough history, so, I’ve decided to make the 4th member Serj Tankian.  Bet ya didn’t see that coming.  Who sayz they all have to be girls?  Serj is likely the best male rock vocalist of all time (yeah Ronnie James Dio is in there too), and again, despite some catastrophically bad songwriting (but enough good songwriting to make up for it), he has earned the spot.  So, that is the 4 for my letterboxing clues.  We’ll see if anyone carves them.

Nailed it baby!  We’ll maybe not, but exactly what I wanted to do.  Now, a break from detecting.  And, the best part is, that if someone googles “Sandy Denny, Annie Haslam, Maddy Prior, Florence Welch (or Serj Tankian (what are the odds?))”, this page will likely end up on top.  How cool is that?  If you are that person, e-mail me.  (Yeah, nailed it, but what sucks is that this entry will be fronting the blog for a week.  I have something cool to post in the next couple of days to prevent that :))

I didn’t expect to get out much this week (and likely won’t), but did have a few hours at a park I have previously called the “the toughest silver park in Chester County”.

I did get some silver tho, a small peace sign charm, and a silver Q.  This is the first silver Q I have ever gotten from this place, and the funny thing is that I was just thinking that could never get a silver Q from such a hunted out site.  I barely heard it, and it was relatively shallow as these things go (7 inches). It just proves the effects trash and mineralization have.  I wonder if the 13 inch unit helped on this one or not.  (I also dug a very deep piece of high tone junk, and this is significant, cause you never dig deep high tone junk at hunted out parks).

The silver charm is also a win, cause tho it was 4 inches deep, it is small and was in trash.  Its nice to know the Ultimate 13 coil can fish half-dime sized silver target out of trash, as big coils can be iffy on small targets in trash.  Now I just have to find an actual half dime — been a long time (tho I did get that 1890 “fish scale” Canadian 5 cent silver piece with the big coil recently, that was not in trash, and is not quite the same).

The silver Q is my 6th silver coin from this site.  I did at least 4 or 5 good hunts at this site before finding my first.  I knew a guy in New England who claimed to find silver at hunted out parks, and I always said to myself, I bet you won’t find any here.  Now, I’ve found a few.  Just goes to show that there is more skill to this game than outsiders realise, and that you can improve.