Home Metal Detecting

I'm feeling the pain of detectorlessness, now, but still finding stuff...

lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
Last night at work (I'm a hotel night auditor) I was strolling the lobby in the wee hours, and kept finding little pieces of crumpled paper in odd places, on or under the furniture. Once it was a shredded paper napkin. The other little wads of paper were just typical trash. When I got my last check-in, I walked part of the way to the room with the lady to help her find her way. As we crossed the patio outside, there was yet another wad of crumpled paper on the tiles, so I bent to pick that up. It was slightly damp. I was about to throw it away like the others, but happened to notice it had the number "20" printed in one corner, in green ink. And there was a portrait of Andrew Jackson on it. Cha-ching! That made my night. (I can't recall ever finding a twenty dollar bill before. Maybe a five, once, and a single once or twice. I'm pretty dead broke for the next eight to ten days, 'cause I just paid the mortgage and a fair chunk of my credit card balance, so that couldn't have been better timed.)

In Old Town Brunswick, the Victorian neighborhood where I've done a lot of my better detecting, they've taken up a section of 100-year-old sidewalk. That and the nice spring weather really have me itchy to get out and put the coil to the soil, but alas, I own two detectors and neither one is working! Aargh! I still haven't gotten around to getting my Garrett 2500 fixed since it died on me in England in November of 2013, and my Minelab Explorer started acting up before the England trip, so I spent all of 2014 without a detector. That's the first year in two decades or so I haven't had any detector outings at all. I need to do something about that.

Hope y'all are gettin' into the swing of spring, and finding some goodies!

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Comments

  • pocketpiececommemspocketpiececommems Posts: 5,723 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It's always great to find this "paper" with pictures of presidents on itimage
  • I wonder if Minelab is still servicing the Explorer now that they have discontinued it. Once they run out of parts, they simply stop servicing.

    Have you looked a Tesoro? They make sturdy detectors with a good service record.
    I can't be out of money. I still have checks!
  • WhiteTornadoWhiteTornado Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭
    Great find on the twenty! Wow, has it been that long since you went on the England trip? image Doesn't seem like it.

    That's a huge bummer both your machines were down all of last year. Hope you get back in action this year. I have enjoyed your videos in the past.
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Great find.... picking up a $20 in the wild is great.... I have done that too..... it blew against my leg in a parking lot..... very fortuitous. Cheers, RickO
  • pcgs69pcgs69 Posts: 4,258 ✭✭✭✭
    nice find! I can recall finding a $5 and some $1 bills, but never as high as a $20. I put my hands in my jacket pocket today and found $2, so it was a nice little treat!

    Bummer on missing the sidewalk tear out. Had some decent finds around sidewalks.
  • JohnnyCacheJohnnyCache Posts: 1,663 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The best I've ever come up with myself was a 10 spot.

    Though, when my kids were very young and we were out at a local park, my then four year old picks up a C-note from the grass. I stared at her and the bill for what seemed like a long minute as my brain was processing what eyes couldn't believe. There weren't any other people around, nor was there anyplace in the vicinity to even spend money, so it still puzzles me a little how it made its way there but since she found it I had her put it in her piggy bank when we got home. It actually ended up costing me a hundred because I always made certain to keep both kids even in terms of money their banks.


    PS

    I got out today for a couple of hours and did manage to find a 1941 silver quarter, along with all the usual junk.
    It was nice because I don't really find quarters all that often, in fact, over the course of my time detecting I think I may have actually found more silver half dollars than I have found silver quarters.
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I got out today for a couple of hours and did manage to find a 1941 silver quarter >>

    Bravo! Been a while since I got a silver quarter. (Been a while since I've done much detecting at all, of course, but even if you only count detecting hours, it's been a while since I got any silver bigger than a dime.)



    << <i>over the course of my time detecting I think I may have actually found more silver half dollars than I have found silver quarters >>

    That's an anomaly, and very unusual.

    I've only dug five silver halves ever. (One Barber, two Walkers, a Franklin, and an Oregon Trail commem). Can't recall the number of quarters offhand, but there have been more than a dozen Washingtons, three or four Standing Libs, three Barbers, and one Seated.

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  • JohnnyCacheJohnnyCache Posts: 1,663 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>That's an anomaly, and very unusual. >>




    I agree, and for a long while it frustrated the heck out of me not to be finding any quarters.
    I found a slew, and I mean a slew, of silver dimes with most being mercs over rosies probably 10 to 1.

    To give you a sense of how it's been for me at times, the best day for silver was about 4 years ago I went to a park in downtown Boston.
    The park was in a bit of a tough neighborhood, just on the verge of gentrification, but still rough. Myself and a buddy went in at literally the crack of dawn in the hopes of detecting and getting out before we attracted too many onlookers. I think because it was downtown and in a rough spot nobody had detected it before.
    I had to use a small coil, as you could hardly move the detector without it banging and bopping off a target. I left that park that day with seven (7) silver half dollars, a few silver dimes, two rings and zero silver quarters. One of the half dollars was an 1826 capped bust half love token!!
    Needless to say we did well. We went back two more times but it was sketchy and we finally decided we'd look elsewhere.

    It could be the types of places I hunt too. I prefer the off the beaten path spots with a bit of history.
    Though it's getting tougher to find with all the construction over that last 10 years.
    I'm having to go further and further out from the city.

    Basically I have to go into the woods to find any type of relic or oddity.
    Local parks have been hit quite hard and will produce modern coins and the occasional silver ring but not many older coins.

    Here's to hoping 2015 is a good year for detecting!


    image


    JC




  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Going to 'out of the way' spots - be it fields or woods - can be quite productive. I grew up in this area, but left for about 45 years. Now, I see areas that used to get a lot of traffic (sledding hill, sand lot ball fields etc) that are totally grown over with trees. I know there are a lot of coins there and will be checking them out soon... I usually cache hunt, but one fine day this summer, I may just do some coin shooting... Cheers, RickO
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
    OMG! That Bust half love token is awesome! image

    I weep for the accidental damage to it, but ... wow, what a great find!

    I haven't seen very many Bust half love tokens at all. In fact, only a few love tokens on Bust dimes.

    Obviously, that's later Victorian work done some 50 years after the coin was struck, but what a superb find.

    Thus far, I've only found one Bust coin- a holed 1829 half dime.

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