DIGS O' THE DAY (2006-01-25): THE TEACHER GETS OUTDONE BY HIS STUDENT
lordmarcovan
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DIGS O' THE DAY (2006-01-25): THE TEACHER GETS OUTDONE BY HIS STUDENT
Today’s detector outings were to be a slightly different experience for me, as I was not operating solo but rather playing teacher to a novice detectorist, Chris McCarthy. Chris is a pastry chef at the resort I work in, and had expressed an avid desire to go detecting with me. Fortunately, I have two detectors, so I invited him along.
We’d gone out on a night hunt on January 7th, hitting the beaches and the playground at Neptune Park on St. Simons Island, not so much with the expectation of finding anything special, but because these sites were accessible for night hunting and I knew we’d have the opportunity for finding plenty of modern change. The January 7th outing was to be Chris’ “training wheels” outing, so he could practice pinpointing and using a detector for the first time. He did well, finding a number of modern coins and a small jewelry charm, so he was ready for today’s outing.
I have two detectors, but only one set of digging implements and one pinpointer probe, so when I am with a novice detectorist I am frequently called upon to help interpret signals, or to lend a hand with digging and/or probing for the targets. This cramps my style a little and my own finds are usually not very noteworthy when I’m playing teacher, but I don’t mind- it’s a lot of fun and I enjoy seeing somebody trying the hobby out for the first time- it reminds me of the excitement of my first hunts.
Today’s Diary entry, as it happens, is more about what Chris found that what I did. In this case, the student outpaced the teacher by a wide margin!
First we took up the invitation to hunt in the yard where another coworker of ours lives. She lives in an area near an old plantation site and her yard looked quite promising.
Supposedly the slave cabins of the old plantation had once stood near where their house is now located. When we hunted it, we found surprisingly little- I got a 1995 clad quarter, Chris found an old bullet, and both of us found a number of shotgun shells and cartridge casings. I did find one rusty piece of 19th century door hardware that indicated there may have been something to the slave cabin story, but in my experience with hunting old plantation sites, I would have expected a lot more rusty nails, bits of lead, and old farming implements like broad hoes to turn up around slave cabins. Perhaps they were not located exactly on that property, but somewhere nearby. We decided to move on to the parks of Old Town Brunswick, where I’d been doing most of my recent detecting.
We first tried Windsor Park, where I’d lived as a teenager. Windsor Park is not as old as the Squares in Old Town, but it does appear on city maps of the 1890s. I had found some neat old tokens there in the past, and had once picked a up a Buffalo nickel off the surface in a sandy area under the oak trees. I had a quick bite to eat and sat in the van for a few minutes while Chris charged out into the park with my Troy Shadow. Soon he was finding coins, mostly modern zinc cents. As I finished eating and was walking out to join him, a truck pulled up to the curb and a man got out and began striding purposefully toward us. “Uh-oh”, I thought. I thought he was coming to yell at us for digging in the park, and figured I’d have to show him my park permit to mollify him. It turns out he was a relic hunter himself, though, and he introduced himself as Mike Hovat, and gave me his card. From my brief conversation with Mr. Hovat, I was impressed and could see he was a veteran relic hunter who really knew his stuff. He’s literally a card-carrying member of the FMDAC (Federation of Metal Detectors and Archaeological Clubs). Perhaps we’ll get together one day, and if we do, I might be the student instead of the teacher.
I returned to Chris, and saw he’d found himself a little hotspot and was popping zinc cents out from beneath the leaves, one after another. I got a few myself, then a clad dime. On our way back to the van, Chris found two chrome-plated .38 Special cartridges, side by side. They were live rounds, with the bullets still in them.
The next stop was King’s Square. Since my most prolific detecting site in King’s Square has been the southeastern quadrant of the park, I decided Chris and I would try out the northeastern quadrant, since it had produced Wheat cents in the past and probably conceals some silver. Since it is near a low-income housing project, this part of the park has a lot more modern trash, but I had hunted it a lot less in the past, so I figured there was a fair chance Chris could find his first Wheatie there and I might get some silver. Speaking of modern metallic trash, there was the burned-out hulk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass sitting out in the park! It’s certainly not the best neighborhood in town.
Soon we were finding coins, mostly modern zinc cents. Chris found a small hoard of coins buried in the same hole- obviously modern and recently dropped, but they kept coming out, and it was exciting for him.
Then Chris asked me to double-check one of his signals. Sweeping it with my Garrett, it displayed as a solid “penny” signal on the meter, and was supposedly four and a half inches deep. The audio sounded right. Since I was there, I helped Chris dig the hole, and soon the target was in the fistful of dirt in my hand. When a signal is fainter in the ground but suddenly hot and loud in my hand, I know it is going to be a coin before I even see it. Since I knew this would be a coin and it had come from nearly five inches down in an old park, I knew it was going to be a good coin, perhaps Chris’s first Wheat cent or a silver dime, even! I held my fist closed and told him, “OK, Chris, this is your target, and it’s probably gonna be a goodie!”
Dropping the fistful of dirt onto the grass, we plucked out the target, which proved to be a 1954-D Wheat cent, Chris’ first! It’s an important milestone for a novice- the next milestone being the first silver coin. Barely five minutes later, and only a few feet away, he found his second Wheatie, without my help. It was a 1952, so he’d just set his oldest date back two years.
Chris McCarthy poses with his first Wheat cent.
I found the top of an old salt shaker and a bunch of trash, plus a modern cent or two. So far the student was doing better than the teacher. We decided to move up a few blocks to hunt one of the traffic islands (median strips) in the middle of Newcastle Street.
Again, Chris charged off ahead of me, and I’d barely gotten my detector from the van when I heard him whooping that he’d found a third Wheat cent! This time it was a 1945, so he’d again set his oldest coin date back a few years!
Well, the guy was doing great. Maybe it was time for ME to find something good!
Soon I did get “Wheated” myself, when I dug a 1935. Chris was a little envious, since it was ten years older than his oldest. Only a foot or two away from the 1935 Wheatie, I got a nice looking 1945 that had obviously been nearly Uncirculated when it was dropped. As I was filling that hole back in, I heard Chris behind me, a bit breathlessly asking me what he’d just found. He said it was big, and it said “one penny” on it!
Hm. That’s interesting. Could Chris have dug a British large penny? Those were pretty big, and they said “PENNY” on the reverse, instead of “CENT”, as all coins struck at the United States mints should say.
I turned around and saw with a momentary surge of adrenaline that Chris had indeed found a large bronze coin or token of some sort! But it wasn’t a British large penny. It turned out to be an old Masonic lodge penny! I was green with envy- not only had I never found one, but this was a local one- it was from a Brunswick chapter, and carried the date: 1892! Chris had just made a quantum leap in setting his oldest date back! While it’s true that the Masonic penny’s date merely indicated the date that particular chapter was organized, and not necessarily the date the token was struck, it’s still safe to assume that this was an item from the late nineteenth century- so Chris had gotten back into the 1800s, on his second detector outing! Unfortunately, he’d nicked the reverse of it when he dug it, but this sometimes happens to all detectorists, no matter how experienced. There’s also a little rim damage to the piece, but this appears to have happened before it was lost rather than when it was found.
Chris digs up a fascinating find, using my old hori-hori knife.
The obverse of the lodge penny is typical, with the keystone symbol and mason’s tools: a mallet and chisel. The letters “H.T.W.S.S.T.K.S” are arranged in a circle on the keystone, and I’m told they stand for “Hiram The Widow’s Son Sent To King Solomon”, though what the significance of this particular phrase is to the Freemasons, I have no idea. In the center of the keystone are incuse letters reading “SMW”, with triangles that look like compass points. These look to be hand-engraved rather than struck with the token- perhaps they are the initials of the mason who owned it?
The reverse reads, “BRUNSWICK CHAPTER NO. 66 R.A.M., BRUNSWICK, GA.”, with the inscription “CHARTERED APRIL 27TH, 1892” within that, and “ONE PENNY” in the center. The “R.A.M.” stands for Royal Arch Masons. A truly fascinating find! Since we’re outsiders to this secret society, it’s a bit mysterious, too. Some further research on Brunswick Chapter 66 is in order- perhaps we’ll be able to find out more about them, such as where they gathered for meetings, and whether or not this chapter still exists. I’m also still unsure what the Masons used these lodge tokens for- whether they actually had monetary trade value or were just ceremonial pocket pieces of some sort.
I ended the day with two Wheat cents and less than fifty cents in modern change, while Chris took in four Wheaties, the lodge penny, and quite a bit of change himself. While the teacher was outclassed by the student, a good time was had by all.
On the way back home, out in the country, I came across a couple in a broken down truck. Though I am helpless when it comes to auto mechanics, I offered to help. The man said it was a bad alternator. He had a spare battery but discovered it didn’t have enough charge to start the truck. I brought him back to my house and we put his battery on a charger for a little while, then went back to the truck, which started right up, and off they went. So on this particular day, I had an opportunity to play Good Samaritan as well as teacher. This was probably just as fulfilling as digging up some silver would have been, maybe even more so.
~RWS
INDEX OF DIG STORIES
Today’s detector outings were to be a slightly different experience for me, as I was not operating solo but rather playing teacher to a novice detectorist, Chris McCarthy. Chris is a pastry chef at the resort I work in, and had expressed an avid desire to go detecting with me. Fortunately, I have two detectors, so I invited him along.
We’d gone out on a night hunt on January 7th, hitting the beaches and the playground at Neptune Park on St. Simons Island, not so much with the expectation of finding anything special, but because these sites were accessible for night hunting and I knew we’d have the opportunity for finding plenty of modern change. The January 7th outing was to be Chris’ “training wheels” outing, so he could practice pinpointing and using a detector for the first time. He did well, finding a number of modern coins and a small jewelry charm, so he was ready for today’s outing.
I have two detectors, but only one set of digging implements and one pinpointer probe, so when I am with a novice detectorist I am frequently called upon to help interpret signals, or to lend a hand with digging and/or probing for the targets. This cramps my style a little and my own finds are usually not very noteworthy when I’m playing teacher, but I don’t mind- it’s a lot of fun and I enjoy seeing somebody trying the hobby out for the first time- it reminds me of the excitement of my first hunts.
Today’s Diary entry, as it happens, is more about what Chris found that what I did. In this case, the student outpaced the teacher by a wide margin!
First we took up the invitation to hunt in the yard where another coworker of ours lives. She lives in an area near an old plantation site and her yard looked quite promising.
Supposedly the slave cabins of the old plantation had once stood near where their house is now located. When we hunted it, we found surprisingly little- I got a 1995 clad quarter, Chris found an old bullet, and both of us found a number of shotgun shells and cartridge casings. I did find one rusty piece of 19th century door hardware that indicated there may have been something to the slave cabin story, but in my experience with hunting old plantation sites, I would have expected a lot more rusty nails, bits of lead, and old farming implements like broad hoes to turn up around slave cabins. Perhaps they were not located exactly on that property, but somewhere nearby. We decided to move on to the parks of Old Town Brunswick, where I’d been doing most of my recent detecting.
We first tried Windsor Park, where I’d lived as a teenager. Windsor Park is not as old as the Squares in Old Town, but it does appear on city maps of the 1890s. I had found some neat old tokens there in the past, and had once picked a up a Buffalo nickel off the surface in a sandy area under the oak trees. I had a quick bite to eat and sat in the van for a few minutes while Chris charged out into the park with my Troy Shadow. Soon he was finding coins, mostly modern zinc cents. As I finished eating and was walking out to join him, a truck pulled up to the curb and a man got out and began striding purposefully toward us. “Uh-oh”, I thought. I thought he was coming to yell at us for digging in the park, and figured I’d have to show him my park permit to mollify him. It turns out he was a relic hunter himself, though, and he introduced himself as Mike Hovat, and gave me his card. From my brief conversation with Mr. Hovat, I was impressed and could see he was a veteran relic hunter who really knew his stuff. He’s literally a card-carrying member of the FMDAC (Federation of Metal Detectors and Archaeological Clubs). Perhaps we’ll get together one day, and if we do, I might be the student instead of the teacher.
I returned to Chris, and saw he’d found himself a little hotspot and was popping zinc cents out from beneath the leaves, one after another. I got a few myself, then a clad dime. On our way back to the van, Chris found two chrome-plated .38 Special cartridges, side by side. They were live rounds, with the bullets still in them.
The next stop was King’s Square. Since my most prolific detecting site in King’s Square has been the southeastern quadrant of the park, I decided Chris and I would try out the northeastern quadrant, since it had produced Wheat cents in the past and probably conceals some silver. Since it is near a low-income housing project, this part of the park has a lot more modern trash, but I had hunted it a lot less in the past, so I figured there was a fair chance Chris could find his first Wheatie there and I might get some silver. Speaking of modern metallic trash, there was the burned-out hulk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass sitting out in the park! It’s certainly not the best neighborhood in town.
Soon we were finding coins, mostly modern zinc cents. Chris found a small hoard of coins buried in the same hole- obviously modern and recently dropped, but they kept coming out, and it was exciting for him.
Then Chris asked me to double-check one of his signals. Sweeping it with my Garrett, it displayed as a solid “penny” signal on the meter, and was supposedly four and a half inches deep. The audio sounded right. Since I was there, I helped Chris dig the hole, and soon the target was in the fistful of dirt in my hand. When a signal is fainter in the ground but suddenly hot and loud in my hand, I know it is going to be a coin before I even see it. Since I knew this would be a coin and it had come from nearly five inches down in an old park, I knew it was going to be a good coin, perhaps Chris’s first Wheat cent or a silver dime, even! I held my fist closed and told him, “OK, Chris, this is your target, and it’s probably gonna be a goodie!”
Dropping the fistful of dirt onto the grass, we plucked out the target, which proved to be a 1954-D Wheat cent, Chris’ first! It’s an important milestone for a novice- the next milestone being the first silver coin. Barely five minutes later, and only a few feet away, he found his second Wheatie, without my help. It was a 1952, so he’d just set his oldest date back two years.
Chris McCarthy poses with his first Wheat cent.
I found the top of an old salt shaker and a bunch of trash, plus a modern cent or two. So far the student was doing better than the teacher. We decided to move up a few blocks to hunt one of the traffic islands (median strips) in the middle of Newcastle Street.
Again, Chris charged off ahead of me, and I’d barely gotten my detector from the van when I heard him whooping that he’d found a third Wheat cent! This time it was a 1945, so he’d again set his oldest coin date back a few years!
Well, the guy was doing great. Maybe it was time for ME to find something good!
Soon I did get “Wheated” myself, when I dug a 1935. Chris was a little envious, since it was ten years older than his oldest. Only a foot or two away from the 1935 Wheatie, I got a nice looking 1945 that had obviously been nearly Uncirculated when it was dropped. As I was filling that hole back in, I heard Chris behind me, a bit breathlessly asking me what he’d just found. He said it was big, and it said “one penny” on it!
Hm. That’s interesting. Could Chris have dug a British large penny? Those were pretty big, and they said “PENNY” on the reverse, instead of “CENT”, as all coins struck at the United States mints should say.
I turned around and saw with a momentary surge of adrenaline that Chris had indeed found a large bronze coin or token of some sort! But it wasn’t a British large penny. It turned out to be an old Masonic lodge penny! I was green with envy- not only had I never found one, but this was a local one- it was from a Brunswick chapter, and carried the date: 1892! Chris had just made a quantum leap in setting his oldest date back! While it’s true that the Masonic penny’s date merely indicated the date that particular chapter was organized, and not necessarily the date the token was struck, it’s still safe to assume that this was an item from the late nineteenth century- so Chris had gotten back into the 1800s, on his second detector outing! Unfortunately, he’d nicked the reverse of it when he dug it, but this sometimes happens to all detectorists, no matter how experienced. There’s also a little rim damage to the piece, but this appears to have happened before it was lost rather than when it was found.
Chris digs up a fascinating find, using my old hori-hori knife.
The obverse of the lodge penny is typical, with the keystone symbol and mason’s tools: a mallet and chisel. The letters “H.T.W.S.S.T.K.S” are arranged in a circle on the keystone, and I’m told they stand for “Hiram The Widow’s Son Sent To King Solomon”, though what the significance of this particular phrase is to the Freemasons, I have no idea. In the center of the keystone are incuse letters reading “SMW”, with triangles that look like compass points. These look to be hand-engraved rather than struck with the token- perhaps they are the initials of the mason who owned it?
The reverse reads, “BRUNSWICK CHAPTER NO. 66 R.A.M., BRUNSWICK, GA.”, with the inscription “CHARTERED APRIL 27TH, 1892” within that, and “ONE PENNY” in the center. The “R.A.M.” stands for Royal Arch Masons. A truly fascinating find! Since we’re outsiders to this secret society, it’s a bit mysterious, too. Some further research on Brunswick Chapter 66 is in order- perhaps we’ll be able to find out more about them, such as where they gathered for meetings, and whether or not this chapter still exists. I’m also still unsure what the Masons used these lodge tokens for- whether they actually had monetary trade value or were just ceremonial pocket pieces of some sort.
I ended the day with two Wheat cents and less than fifty cents in modern change, while Chris took in four Wheaties, the lodge penny, and quite a bit of change himself. While the teacher was outclassed by the student, a good time was had by all.
On the way back home, out in the country, I came across a couple in a broken down truck. Though I am helpless when it comes to auto mechanics, I offered to help. The man said it was a bad alternator. He had a spare battery but discovered it didn’t have enough charge to start the truck. I brought him back to my house and we put his battery on a charger for a little while, then went back to the truck, which started right up, and off they went. So on this particular day, I had an opportunity to play Good Samaritan as well as teacher. This was probably just as fulfilling as digging up some silver would have been, maybe even more so.
~RWS
INDEX OF DIG STORIES
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That token is in fantastic condition!
Application of a tiny amount of sulphur+vaseline paste to the scratch e.g. with a toothpick could help darken it to make it less visible?
-Z
Haha, I've been at it for a while now and have yet to dig up a wheatie or silver... so your friend had a great day indeed!!!
<< <i>Application of a tiny amount of sulphur+vaseline paste to the scratch e.g. with a toothpick could help darken it to make it less visible? >>
Zot- indeed, though I've misplaced my jar of that particular concoction. I need to find it and get the token back from Chris for a little first aid. Aside from the scratch and the contemporary rim nicks, it's in pretty nice shape for a dug bronze token.
It was a beautiful day here and I should have been out with the coil to the soil, but I had some work to do today. (sigh)