DIGS O' THE DAY™ (2008-04-06 & 2008-04-20): TWO PREVIOUSLY-UNPUBLISHED OUTINGS
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,662 ✭✭✭✭✭
Note to fellow Darksiders: usually I just post these coinshooting stories on the US Coin Forum to stay on-topic (edit: not anymore, since somebody whined to the mods and I'm banned from dig posts there now), but since a modest Darkside (well, Greyside) coin turned up in the second of these two outings, I thought I would copy it here as well. Unfortunately it has been several years since I dug a noteworthy Darkside coin like a Spanish Colonial silver piece... (edit: apparently this was OK by the mods to post here- the rules are different on the Darkside forum- but in the future I will keep all MD posts on the MD forum, I guess.)
DIGS O' THE DAY™ (2008-04-06 & 2008-04-20): TWO PREVIOUSLY-UNPUBLISHED OUTINGS
(Florida Spring Vacation & Old Town Brunswick, GA)
Here are two outings from April that never got written up. They were my last "digspeditions" until my first August attempt at detecting. I mostly laid low all summer, to avoid the heat, humidity, and insect activity. It actually has not been a bad summer by our standards, but bad enough, and besides, I had things to do.
Because the pictures were retrieved on August 25th after my long hiatus from treasure hunting, and I am relying on memory to fill in the stories, I'll mostly just add a few comments and let the pictures speak for themselves as much as possible. But you probably know by now that I have difficulty keeping it brief, due to my longwinded style. Both were fun outings but not terribly productive. (Well, the April 20th outing was not too bad, really- it just didn't produce quite what I had been hoping for.
APRIL 6, 2008
April found us in Palmetto, Florida, on the Gulf coast, visiting my mother. We went out to Pass-a-Grille Beach in St. Petersburg, and I brought my detector along (of course). It was lovely to see clear, blue-green water for a change, as our beaches in the Golden Isles of Georgia are nice for a stroll, but our water is usually pretty murky because of all the river sediment that enters the ocean off our coast.
It was a Sunday, and the beach was lively with joggers and strollers and sunbathers.
Looking down the beach, there was a lovely old pink Art Deco hotel in the distance. The lady in the black bathing suit carring a small bag is Happy Dobbs, my mother.
A pelican lazily floated on the gentle swells. (Whoops- I got the horizon a little crooked in that shot).
Our daughter, Victoria, then six years old, had a big grin on her face.
Naturally I couldn't resist dashing out into the surf and splashing in the water for a while. It was very nice, but a bit alarming when I stepped on a fish; probably a flounder! That's the only trouble with going into the water at the seashore- you have to share it with the sea critters, and sometimes they'll give you a little harmless scare. Here's me after I got in the water and just prior to the flounder encounter. My "stepping on a flounder" pose was probably similar to the one shown in the picture, but with a decidedly more alarmed and amusing facial expression, no doubt. My wife seems to have been no better at getting the horizon straight in the photos than I was. Maybe the angle of the beach had something to do with that.
A pair of gulls strolled down the sand, mostly unconcerned by human activity, as gulls everywhere usually are. These two picked up the pace and walked a tiny bit faster with me following them, but not much. They didn't seem to care that I was there as long as I didn't rush at them.
OK, now it was time to get the detector going. Victoria followed in my wake, casually interested in what Daddy was up to, but just as intent on picking up a few seashells.
The finds proved to be typical beach finds. I had a hard time hearing because I hadn't brought headphones and the seabreeze was pretty strong. I was just happy to be finding anything at all- one can often walk hundreds of yards on our St. Simons Island beaches without getting a single signal. I was surprised that the one nickel found turned out to be a 1940, as I have never found anything that old on a beach before. I suspect it was a fairly recent drop, though. Given a few more hours and less distraction (perhaps if I had been out there at night when the tide was out), I might have been able to bag a nice ring or some trinkets. I was happy with the few finds, though, because a walk on the beach is always a pleasant thing, regardless.
On the way back, Mom and my stepfather, Rason Dobbs (who we call "Baba") took us driving around, and we stopped at one place that was pretty fascinating. It was the Madira Bickel Mound, a state archaeological site. There was no museum on the site but there were some signs, including one that showed pictures of native life and artifacts from the distant past. The archaeologists have discovered three occupations of the site by Native Americans, the earliest being some 2,000 years ago. The big ceremonial mound has a flat top and is composed of sand, shell, and village debris. It measures 100 by 170 feet at the base and is 20 feet in height, making it pretty high above the surrounding terrain, which is barely above sea level.
Lest you think I was tempted to poke around in the dirt there, let me show you the warning sign that VERY clearly stated how forbidden that was. This was to be a sightseeing stop only! No digging allowed!
The big mound is covered in lush tropical vegetation, making it nearly impossible to judge the scale of it in relation to its surroundings. However, as Baba began to climb the steps to the top, you could see it was a sizeable feature for low, flat Florida!
I climbed up too, but there wasn't much to see except greenery. There was a sign that said some of the plants on top of the mound were far south of their usual range, I believe- apparently the slight difference in elevation caused by the ancient manmade feature is enough to create a mini-ecosystem of its own. I snaped a picture from the top, looking back down the steps.
There was no question that Mother Nature was happily thriving all around the ancient Indian site. Were it not for the steps and handrails, I would have felt like I was in some adventure film, climbing up a forgotten Aztec or Mayan ruin in Central America. I guess this is not entirely dissimilar to that, as it is in a rather tropical setting and is a very ancient native ruin, albeit one made of earth rather than stone. Unseen birds called out from the foliage and lizards scuttled around the railings and branches. This fine fat fellow with funny feet looked back at me.
We returned to the park where my parents were staying in their RV. Here's a still life with pelicans and old dock pilings, in the bayou.
Now it was time to get back into the water, but this time with no concerns about stepping on any fish! I walked up to the second story balcony to capture this shot of my wife and daughter, who had preceded me into the pool.
There were a bunch of happy, Hawaiian-shirted, middle-aged park residents singing karaoke in the tiki hut, probably with the aid of much liquid refreshment. The master of ceremonies and lead singer was doing a nice parody of "Hotel California", sung in the style of Elmer Fudd. Pretty funny, I thought, but then I realized it wasn't a put-on and the guy really DID sound like Elmer Fudd!
Wewcome to the Hotewww Cawwifornia...
Such a wovewy pwace...
Such a wovewy face...
They warmly beckoned us to join in the Bad Karaoke Festival, but we just smiled and waved back, and I cannonballed into the pool to join my ladies.
APRIL 20TH, 2008
Next we return to an old Victorian yard I had visited back on March 30th with my friend Ty. I came back alone on April 20th, with fond hopes of old silver coins.
The day started with some junk and a brass hose nozzle, which I was surprised to find was still connected to a hose that the lawn had swallowed up whole. Back under an azalea bush I dug a Wheat cent, followed by another, and another, and another, and so on. In all, I think I pulled five or six Wheaties from this hole, all from the 1930s and 1940s. Apparently it was an old pocket spill or kiddie cache.
The landscaping had run wild and was encroaching on the side of the old house, but it was kind of pretty and evocative.
I found myself humming an appropriate song as I looked into the backyard.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight
a weem a weh a weem a weh a weem a weh...
It was too lushly overgrown for my ground-level explorations, so back into the front yard I went. There were a lot of iron nails and rusty debris in the ground- apparent indicators of a late-19th century demolition. Perhaps there was an older house torn down before this one was built? That was an interesting thought. Scattered amongst the nails I found a few more Wheat pennies, including a 1914.
One coin turned out to not be a Wheat cent at all, but its far Northern contemporary: a 1947 Canadian cent. Even this far south, we do periodically find Canadian coins, but I usually don't put them in my "keeper" album unless they're from earlier monarchs. This George VI coin barely qualified as an older keeper, and was a welcome find. In 1947, Canada did something a little different and struck two different varieties of small cents. Each had the same design, but one had a tiny maple leaf to the right of the date, almost like a punctuation mark. Both varieties are fairly common, but this coin happened to be of the "plain" variety without the tiny extra maple leaf after the date.
Various other pieces of junk and old glass turned up. This yard proved challenging, and I wished I had brought my small "sniper" coil for the detector, to shoot between the trash targets. The total haul, while it included a respectable number of old cents, was not terribly impressive. Nevertheless, the ratio of old coins to newer ones was good, even if the ratio of coins to trash was not optimal. I only found one modern coins- a clad dime - while I found nine older ones (eight Wheat cents and the Canadian George VI cent).
I didn't find the elusive silver I knew was nearby, but nine obsolete cents is still a pretty good take for a single outing, by my standards.
Unfortunately I will not likely ever have the opportunity to unearth the silver pieces hiding between the rusty-crusties in that old yard, as the owner decided she wasn't that comfortable with us detecting there after all, because she was planning to institute some added security measures and didn't want us getting in trouble or giving bypassers the wrong idea. She was polite about it, though, and while the withdrawal of permission to hunt a site is usually a little disappointing, one must abide by the property owner's wishes and be grateful for the time that was allowed. It takes a gracious host to allow near-strangers to do something on their property which might seem quite odd to the average person.
-RWS
INDEX OF PAST ADVENTURES AND FINDS
DIGS O' THE DAY™ (2008-04-06 & 2008-04-20): TWO PREVIOUSLY-UNPUBLISHED OUTINGS
(Florida Spring Vacation & Old Town Brunswick, GA)
Here are two outings from April that never got written up. They were my last "digspeditions" until my first August attempt at detecting. I mostly laid low all summer, to avoid the heat, humidity, and insect activity. It actually has not been a bad summer by our standards, but bad enough, and besides, I had things to do.
Because the pictures were retrieved on August 25th after my long hiatus from treasure hunting, and I am relying on memory to fill in the stories, I'll mostly just add a few comments and let the pictures speak for themselves as much as possible. But you probably know by now that I have difficulty keeping it brief, due to my longwinded style. Both were fun outings but not terribly productive. (Well, the April 20th outing was not too bad, really- it just didn't produce quite what I had been hoping for.
APRIL 6, 2008
April found us in Palmetto, Florida, on the Gulf coast, visiting my mother. We went out to Pass-a-Grille Beach in St. Petersburg, and I brought my detector along (of course). It was lovely to see clear, blue-green water for a change, as our beaches in the Golden Isles of Georgia are nice for a stroll, but our water is usually pretty murky because of all the river sediment that enters the ocean off our coast.
It was a Sunday, and the beach was lively with joggers and strollers and sunbathers.
Looking down the beach, there was a lovely old pink Art Deco hotel in the distance. The lady in the black bathing suit carring a small bag is Happy Dobbs, my mother.
A pelican lazily floated on the gentle swells. (Whoops- I got the horizon a little crooked in that shot).
Our daughter, Victoria, then six years old, had a big grin on her face.
Naturally I couldn't resist dashing out into the surf and splashing in the water for a while. It was very nice, but a bit alarming when I stepped on a fish; probably a flounder! That's the only trouble with going into the water at the seashore- you have to share it with the sea critters, and sometimes they'll give you a little harmless scare. Here's me after I got in the water and just prior to the flounder encounter. My "stepping on a flounder" pose was probably similar to the one shown in the picture, but with a decidedly more alarmed and amusing facial expression, no doubt. My wife seems to have been no better at getting the horizon straight in the photos than I was. Maybe the angle of the beach had something to do with that.
A pair of gulls strolled down the sand, mostly unconcerned by human activity, as gulls everywhere usually are. These two picked up the pace and walked a tiny bit faster with me following them, but not much. They didn't seem to care that I was there as long as I didn't rush at them.
OK, now it was time to get the detector going. Victoria followed in my wake, casually interested in what Daddy was up to, but just as intent on picking up a few seashells.
The finds proved to be typical beach finds. I had a hard time hearing because I hadn't brought headphones and the seabreeze was pretty strong. I was just happy to be finding anything at all- one can often walk hundreds of yards on our St. Simons Island beaches without getting a single signal. I was surprised that the one nickel found turned out to be a 1940, as I have never found anything that old on a beach before. I suspect it was a fairly recent drop, though. Given a few more hours and less distraction (perhaps if I had been out there at night when the tide was out), I might have been able to bag a nice ring or some trinkets. I was happy with the few finds, though, because a walk on the beach is always a pleasant thing, regardless.
On the way back, Mom and my stepfather, Rason Dobbs (who we call "Baba") took us driving around, and we stopped at one place that was pretty fascinating. It was the Madira Bickel Mound, a state archaeological site. There was no museum on the site but there were some signs, including one that showed pictures of native life and artifacts from the distant past. The archaeologists have discovered three occupations of the site by Native Americans, the earliest being some 2,000 years ago. The big ceremonial mound has a flat top and is composed of sand, shell, and village debris. It measures 100 by 170 feet at the base and is 20 feet in height, making it pretty high above the surrounding terrain, which is barely above sea level.
Lest you think I was tempted to poke around in the dirt there, let me show you the warning sign that VERY clearly stated how forbidden that was. This was to be a sightseeing stop only! No digging allowed!
The big mound is covered in lush tropical vegetation, making it nearly impossible to judge the scale of it in relation to its surroundings. However, as Baba began to climb the steps to the top, you could see it was a sizeable feature for low, flat Florida!
I climbed up too, but there wasn't much to see except greenery. There was a sign that said some of the plants on top of the mound were far south of their usual range, I believe- apparently the slight difference in elevation caused by the ancient manmade feature is enough to create a mini-ecosystem of its own. I snaped a picture from the top, looking back down the steps.
There was no question that Mother Nature was happily thriving all around the ancient Indian site. Were it not for the steps and handrails, I would have felt like I was in some adventure film, climbing up a forgotten Aztec or Mayan ruin in Central America. I guess this is not entirely dissimilar to that, as it is in a rather tropical setting and is a very ancient native ruin, albeit one made of earth rather than stone. Unseen birds called out from the foliage and lizards scuttled around the railings and branches. This fine fat fellow with funny feet looked back at me.
We returned to the park where my parents were staying in their RV. Here's a still life with pelicans and old dock pilings, in the bayou.
Now it was time to get back into the water, but this time with no concerns about stepping on any fish! I walked up to the second story balcony to capture this shot of my wife and daughter, who had preceded me into the pool.
There were a bunch of happy, Hawaiian-shirted, middle-aged park residents singing karaoke in the tiki hut, probably with the aid of much liquid refreshment. The master of ceremonies and lead singer was doing a nice parody of "Hotel California", sung in the style of Elmer Fudd. Pretty funny, I thought, but then I realized it wasn't a put-on and the guy really DID sound like Elmer Fudd!
Wewcome to the Hotewww Cawwifornia...
Such a wovewy pwace...
Such a wovewy face...
They warmly beckoned us to join in the Bad Karaoke Festival, but we just smiled and waved back, and I cannonballed into the pool to join my ladies.
APRIL 20TH, 2008
Next we return to an old Victorian yard I had visited back on March 30th with my friend Ty. I came back alone on April 20th, with fond hopes of old silver coins.
The day started with some junk and a brass hose nozzle, which I was surprised to find was still connected to a hose that the lawn had swallowed up whole. Back under an azalea bush I dug a Wheat cent, followed by another, and another, and another, and so on. In all, I think I pulled five or six Wheaties from this hole, all from the 1930s and 1940s. Apparently it was an old pocket spill or kiddie cache.
The landscaping had run wild and was encroaching on the side of the old house, but it was kind of pretty and evocative.
I found myself humming an appropriate song as I looked into the backyard.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight
a weem a weh a weem a weh a weem a weh...
It was too lushly overgrown for my ground-level explorations, so back into the front yard I went. There were a lot of iron nails and rusty debris in the ground- apparent indicators of a late-19th century demolition. Perhaps there was an older house torn down before this one was built? That was an interesting thought. Scattered amongst the nails I found a few more Wheat pennies, including a 1914.
One coin turned out to not be a Wheat cent at all, but its far Northern contemporary: a 1947 Canadian cent. Even this far south, we do periodically find Canadian coins, but I usually don't put them in my "keeper" album unless they're from earlier monarchs. This George VI coin barely qualified as an older keeper, and was a welcome find. In 1947, Canada did something a little different and struck two different varieties of small cents. Each had the same design, but one had a tiny maple leaf to the right of the date, almost like a punctuation mark. Both varieties are fairly common, but this coin happened to be of the "plain" variety without the tiny extra maple leaf after the date.
Various other pieces of junk and old glass turned up. This yard proved challenging, and I wished I had brought my small "sniper" coil for the detector, to shoot between the trash targets. The total haul, while it included a respectable number of old cents, was not terribly impressive. Nevertheless, the ratio of old coins to newer ones was good, even if the ratio of coins to trash was not optimal. I only found one modern coins- a clad dime - while I found nine older ones (eight Wheat cents and the Canadian George VI cent).
I didn't find the elusive silver I knew was nearby, but nine obsolete cents is still a pretty good take for a single outing, by my standards.
Unfortunately I will not likely ever have the opportunity to unearth the silver pieces hiding between the rusty-crusties in that old yard, as the owner decided she wasn't that comfortable with us detecting there after all, because she was planning to institute some added security measures and didn't want us getting in trouble or giving bypassers the wrong idea. She was polite about it, though, and while the withdrawal of permission to hunt a site is usually a little disappointing, one must abide by the property owner's wishes and be grateful for the time that was allowed. It takes a gracious host to allow near-strangers to do something on their property which might seem quite odd to the average person.
-RWS
INDEX OF PAST ADVENTURES AND FINDS
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Comments
Zar's Ebay
and luckily it wasnt a sting ray that you stepped on!!