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a BETTER picture ... of a good find

ebaybuyer2ebaybuyer2 Posts: 72 ✭✭
edited August 22, 2024 6:23PM in Metal Detecting

youre a long way from home barbie !!!

Comments

  • Bayard1908Bayard1908 Posts: 4,054 ✭✭✭✭

    Any Barber quarter is a great find, especially a key date.

  • CharlotteDudeCharlotteDude Posts: 3,036 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Great coin! What’s the background on “the find”? Were you detecting an old property, school yard, park, rail stop?? Tell us more.

    Got Crust....y gold?
  • johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 28,421 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's way cool 😎

  • this wooded area was used in the 1920s as a picnic area . i first hunted this area in the early 2000s with my old trusty garrett. the first coin i found was a 1905 barber dime. then a 1907 canadian dime followed a handful of early canadian cents and wheat cents. after that it seemed there was nothing left. the garrett was a good machine but it had its limits. things seemed to get in the way and i just no longer had time for the hobby. then in 2021 a family member (whom i used to take digging once in a while) told me he had taken up the hobby and asked if id help him out. that was all the nudge i needed to get back into the hobby. after doing some research, i decided to buy a new detector and get back into it. i chose an equinox 800. i watched all the youtube videos, tweaked the settings for the best results, and i was disappointed. i was finding nothing. went back to the picnic area and found a dozen or so 40s wheat cents. looks like im not the only one that knows about this spot. to be continued ....

  • after getting permission to hunt a (previously hunted) school site, i spent nearly 100 hours getting to know my new machine. after the first few hours of finding nothing over there, i decided to do a factory reset of the machine, with only bumping the thresh hold up - what a difference. now i was finding what i expected to find at the school, old wheats, V nickels indians and some surprises. but i was learning it. so 100 hours later, id found a half dozen indians a roll of wheats, a few V nickels and buffs, five silver quarters, four silver dimes and a few war nickels but NO barbers. and the finds were getting increasingly fewer. so i decided to hit that picnic area again. a week before thanksgiving day 2023 the weather was pleasant so i crawled back into the thicket. soon i found a clad dime then a mercury dime, a dozen early wheats and and an 1899 indian penny none being deeper than maybe 3" this is in ground id already been on and found nothing. thanksgiving day was warm so i decided to put in a few hours again. more early wheats, then a nice "30" on the screen, by this time id dug enough 30's to know what to expect. digging down about 3" i was greeted with a coin id never dug prior to now. a barber quarter, a nice 1904. combing that area hard i hit another 30 then another, all barber quarters, then i hit a "33" which is equinox 800 speak for half dollar. as i dug a barber half, i was elated. i had to cut it short on thanksgiving and i wish i would have just stayed at it, because that thanksgiving day every hole had a keeper. again id never found a barber quarter and i just dug five ! ive dug a few dimes and another half but no quarters til then. getting the coins back to the house, washing them off and looking at the dates. im not a barber collector so i had no idea which quarters were the key dates. as i compared the coins to the values i did a double take on the 1896 -S i figured id read it incorrectly. nope its #3 of the set. all told my finds for thanksgiving day were :

    quarters
    1892
    1896-S
    1904
    1906
    1906-D

    1893-O half

    1898 V nickel

    1923 and 1934 mercury dimes

    and another dozen pre 1920 wheats

  • my old phone took clear close up pictures, this one will NOT focus. so please excuse the bad pics, as i will post better pics when i can figure out whats wrong with the focus

  • Bayard1908Bayard1908 Posts: 4,054 ✭✭✭✭

    You found these coins at 3 inches deep in a site you had already searched with an old Garrett detector. This sounds like all the coins were masked by iron. The Equinox was fast enough to separate the coins from the iron, but the Garrett was not. This is exactly why I own an Equinox. Did you find nails or wire in the hole with the coins? What recovery speed were you using? I would change my recovery speed and hit that site again.

  • CharlotteDudeCharlotteDude Posts: 3,036 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That was an amazing day! Well done! That place is definitely a honey spot. I rarely go into wooded areas due to all the obstacles in places like that, which I end up repeatedly smacking the coil into… but this is making me reconsider.
    What part of the country are you in? It would be interesting to know approx how far that 96-S traveled.

    I have following detectors and the E800 is my favorite one and “the go to” of the bunch:
    Equinox 600, 800, 900 and a Garrett AT Pro.

    Got Crust....y gold?
  • "You found these coins at 3 inches deep in a site you had already searched with an old Garrett detector. This sounds like all the coins were masked by iron. The Equinox was fast enough to separate the coins from the iron, but the Garrett was not. This is exactly why I own an Equinox. Did you find nails or wire in the hole with the coins? What recovery speed were you using? I would change my recovery speed and hit that site again"

    could be the terrain ..... moisture content of the soil etc. all of the quarters and the half were found scattered under one oak tree. the early pennys were everywhere. found a few more before christmas. near where the quarters were.



  • that 1896-s traveled all the way to a city about 20 miles outside of detroit

  • a few others i found out there



  • i found these about 6-7" i dont mind digging 18s

  • Bayard1908Bayard1908 Posts: 4,054 ✭✭✭✭

    @ebaybuyer2 said:
    "could be the terrain ..... moisture content of the soil etc."

    I don't know how anyone can miss 3 inch deep silver quarters or a silver half unless the coins are masked. When I found my first Barber half in 2018, it was at a site I had thoroughly searched previously, it was relatively shallow, and it was surrounded by iron. I found the Barber half with an Equinox 600, which I deliberately brought to this site because it was such a difficult site to hunt.

  • ebaybuyer2ebaybuyer2 Posts: 72 ✭✭
    edited January 6, 2024 8:52PM

    if you look at the pictures of the actual site.... and take into consideration that its about two acres in size... and consider tree roots, etc ... then ask yourself ... how could anyone miss a quarter size target 3" in the ground.... this isnt a plowed field, or a grassy park..

  • next site is along the river ... a post card shows this scene, a park in 1908
    ... another post card for the same location shows a dozen people on the banks with hutchinson bottles having a picnic

  • CharlotteDudeCharlotteDude Posts: 3,036 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That loc is better than a honey spot… it’s more like a window into the past. Keep posting those finds!

    Got Crust....y gold?
  • last two times out i found nothing. even digging the bad signals, gonna try it again early spring

  • pocketpiececommemspocketpiececommems Posts: 5,896 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very good finds from one site. I’d say that you must been the first one there

  • originalisbestoriginalisbest Posts: 5,925 ✭✭✭✭

    Well done on all the Barbers, especially a '96-S! That's one for the memory books.

  • ebaybuyer2ebaybuyer2 Posts: 72 ✭✭

    i figured out that the camera on my phone was set to like 3mp ... i bumped that to full HD 13mp - what a DIFFERENCE !!

  • ebaybuyer2ebaybuyer2 Posts: 72 ✭✭
    edited August 22, 2024 12:29PM

    ive been hoping to find one of these since i first began digging. i accomplished that goal this year, different spot than the others, couldnt even ID it when i dug
    it. soaked it in tarnex for an hour once i got home.



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