First Real Hunt and Scored My First Silver!
shudson
Posts: 108
Hi folks,
The weather FINALLY cooperated and I managed to get out for a full day hunt yesterday. Besides an hour here and there in the backyard, this was my real hunt!
I didn't really have a particular area in mind, the amount of potential hunting grounds around here is staggering, so I started the morning by checking out a newly demolished building site right on the waterfront of my city. Unfortunately, with the amount of building debris and the hard-packed gravel and dirt left by the bulldozers, I decided to leave the site without doing any digging.
My next stop was a local pond where a local regatta has been held every year for at least the past 200 years. I started detecting near the bandstand and found my first coin! A 1972 Lincoln, oddly enough... lol. I was detecting in all-metal mode and trying to work on my pinpointing... needless to say, I did an awful lot of digging and dug quite a bit of junk. I did however, recover two large shards of thick glass. There's no way to date them, but there are quite a few impurities in the glass (bubbles and the like) which leads me to believe that they might of been hand-blown.
Just before I broke for lunch, I dug my second coin of the day... it was silver and the size of a dime, but too dirty to identify. I packed it up and went home for lunch. Upon closer inspection, the "dime" turned out to be a 5 cent piece! Silver for sure! I'm not sure if it's a Canadian or Newfoundland 5 cent piece, or what the exact date is yet, until I get it cleaned up a bit (it's soaking in olive oil at the moment).
After lunch I decided to try some beach hunting (yeah I know, I was all over the place this day...lol). I went to a popular spot just outside of town and starting hunting. I tried doing some surf hunting, but I couldn't relax... all I could picture in my mind was a good strong wave knocking me off my feet and my detector getting fried in the salt water. It's a waterproof detector for sure, next time! I moved further on up the beach and found lots of junk and one odd coin. It appears to be some kind of penny, however it was very pink and almost worn smooth. Hopefully I can get enough of the detail back so I can identify it at least!
So after an hour or two of the beach without much luck and my rubber boots full of water and sand, I decided to return to the pond and hunt for more silver. I'm very glad I did... the place is virgin and once I got more comfortable with my detector and my digging techniques, I started finding more and more non-junk targets! I stay there for another 4 hours or so I dug about $1.35 in modern coinage, but my second last coin of the day turned out to be another beauty... and old Newfoundland large cent! (Can't read the date on that one either until it's cleaned up.)
I guess it's also worth mentioning that all my pond finds were within a 20 x 3 foot area right next to the bandstand... lots of good targets for such a small area. Next time I think I'll use a descrimination setting and try to explore a little more, because the pond area is quite large.
Sorry for the long post, I'll post some pics once I get the 5 cent and large cent cleaned up!
Cheers,
Scott
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Comments
<< <i>Are you in Canada? That's a lot of Canuk coinage. Congrats! >>
Yes, I live in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada the oldest city in North America (regardless of what Quebec City says... lol).
We were a British colony until we joined Canada in 1947, and we had our own currency for a number of years. The Newfoundland 2 dollar gold coin is extremely scarce... hopefully I'll find one someday!