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Danish ground yields a silver
Zot
Posts: 825 ✭✭✭
Greetings from Denmark, where
Spring is slowly but surely coming
I made it out today, hoping to find something nice. Here goes:
The first two hours were lousy to say the least, I didn’t find a single coin.
My left pocket (where I put trash) was bulging, my right pocket (no zipper, where I put semi-good stuff like modern coins that I’m taking with me, but losing them wouldn’t be a big deal) was empty, and my “good stuff pocket”, containing a plastic bag with olive oil (thanks for the tip Phut!) was empty as well
I decided to change location..
After some walking, I spotted a promising-looking area with plenty of old trees.
Here’s part of it.
In the exact spot where I put my coil down, I got a nice coin signal about 4 inches deep.
It turned out to be trash, but this was promising… surely every detectorist running his coil over that signal would have dug it.. Maybe this area hadn’t been hunted so much before….
Around one of the trees I got two shallow signals (less than an inch) that yielded an old key and a nice 1920’s bronze 5 öre. Promising.
Next up was what had once been a really massive tree:
It looked like the biggest tree in the area, so I thought I’d hunt the area around it carefully.
I was quite surprised and a bit disapponted when I didn’t get a single signal in the area immediately around the tree, even with no discrimination.
A few paces away from it, however, I got a big bang in my headphones. +50 VDI on the display, depth: 0 inches (hmmph..), and that's with some snow and a layer of leaves to boot. I didn’t even bother bending down to dig this one – I just swept away some snow and leaves with my foot. I was surprised to see a small coin, the size of a dime, smack right in the middle of the area I had exposed.
I expected a 1960’s-1980’s 10 öre coin, but that soon changed when I saw an outline of a bust on the obverse…. Alright!!!
Here you can see the find spot (dark pile of leaves near the left edge of the picture) in relation to the old tree. All the footsteps are mine, apparently a result of my victory dance
So what did I find?
This is how it came out of the ground. More than enough to identify it, and also to see that it probably was in nice shape:
And here is a cleaner version:
Danish 4 Rigsmontskilling 1854. Silver. Condition is not too shabby either!
(Edit: After looking for some more info on this coin, I was surprised to find that it indeed contains silver, but the fineness is only 0.250. I'll still count it as a silver though )
After finding this one on an “obvious trash” signal, I dug everything that beeped, squaked, blipped or burped around that tree, but everything else was trash. Shoot, if I’d started off by digging some of the other shallow signals around, just to find trash, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered to check this one out…
As has happened to me before (e.g. in the case of the 1593 Swedish coin in my sig line), a nice find came by digging a signal that should have been trash, really…
I think I’m increasingly going to dig everything on sites like this, at least until I know that an area is so loaded with trash that digging everything becomes hopeless..
Thanks for looking
Happy hunting!!
-Z
Edit (spelling)
Spring is slowly but surely coming
I made it out today, hoping to find something nice. Here goes:
The first two hours were lousy to say the least, I didn’t find a single coin.
My left pocket (where I put trash) was bulging, my right pocket (no zipper, where I put semi-good stuff like modern coins that I’m taking with me, but losing them wouldn’t be a big deal) was empty, and my “good stuff pocket”, containing a plastic bag with olive oil (thanks for the tip Phut!) was empty as well
I decided to change location..
After some walking, I spotted a promising-looking area with plenty of old trees.
Here’s part of it.
In the exact spot where I put my coil down, I got a nice coin signal about 4 inches deep.
It turned out to be trash, but this was promising… surely every detectorist running his coil over that signal would have dug it.. Maybe this area hadn’t been hunted so much before….
Around one of the trees I got two shallow signals (less than an inch) that yielded an old key and a nice 1920’s bronze 5 öre. Promising.
Next up was what had once been a really massive tree:
It looked like the biggest tree in the area, so I thought I’d hunt the area around it carefully.
I was quite surprised and a bit disapponted when I didn’t get a single signal in the area immediately around the tree, even with no discrimination.
A few paces away from it, however, I got a big bang in my headphones. +50 VDI on the display, depth: 0 inches (hmmph..), and that's with some snow and a layer of leaves to boot. I didn’t even bother bending down to dig this one – I just swept away some snow and leaves with my foot. I was surprised to see a small coin, the size of a dime, smack right in the middle of the area I had exposed.
I expected a 1960’s-1980’s 10 öre coin, but that soon changed when I saw an outline of a bust on the obverse…. Alright!!!
Here you can see the find spot (dark pile of leaves near the left edge of the picture) in relation to the old tree. All the footsteps are mine, apparently a result of my victory dance
So what did I find?
This is how it came out of the ground. More than enough to identify it, and also to see that it probably was in nice shape:
And here is a cleaner version:
Danish 4 Rigsmontskilling 1854. Silver. Condition is not too shabby either!
(Edit: After looking for some more info on this coin, I was surprised to find that it indeed contains silver, but the fineness is only 0.250. I'll still count it as a silver though
)After finding this one on an “obvious trash” signal, I dug everything that beeped, squaked, blipped or burped around that tree, but everything else was trash. Shoot, if I’d started off by digging some of the other shallow signals around, just to find trash, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered to check this one out…
As has happened to me before (e.g. in the case of the 1593 Swedish coin in my sig line), a nice find came by digging a signal that should have been trash, really…
I think I’m increasingly going to dig everything on sites like this, at least until I know that an area is so loaded with trash that digging everything becomes hopeless..
Thanks for looking
Happy hunting!!
-Z
Edit (spelling)
Minelab: GPX 5000, Excalibur II, Explorer SE. White's: MXT, PI Pro
0
Comments
Dig everything!
Cool find Erik... that's a sharp looking silver and a nice one for the collection.
Congrats!
Nice story, pics and find!
<< <i>Is there still a thin layer of frozen dirt in spots? >>
Yep. Up to 2 inches in some places, requiring a knife and lots of grunt. At least the plug holds together very well.
In other places the ground is a bit hard on top, but a digging tool can be pushed through just fine.
I wonder what electrolysis would do for that piece?
What... no critter pic?
<< <i>I wonder what electrolysis would do for that piece?
Actually, it already had some electrolysis to get it into its cleaner state...
A very quick one though, just to loosen things up a bit, and then rinsed off with water.
It could be cleaned more, no doubt, but I think it doesn't look too bad the way it is now. I'm always nervous that some shiny spots may show up somehow, ruining the overall look... I'll probably leave it the way it is.
And yes... you are hardcore!!!