digger27
Bronze Member
- May 18, 2011
- 1,506
- 3,225
Temps are lower now, after a bit of rain drought conditions are gone now and digging is better everywhere so my season part 2 has begun.
Another good thing is the flora is dying back in the woods plus the bugs are gone so the last two hunts I have been hunting around a small mountain in some woods, part of and right next to one of the oldest parks in the city circa 1881.
The park has had a lot of dirt moved around in the last few years due to renovations and improvements but we are still finding some older coins here and there.
The woods have been left alone because they sit on a pretty steep little mountain so you never know what you might find in there.
We talked to a guy that has been hunting in there for years and has found several Barber dimes there so that is my goal although there is a lot more than that if you are lucky enough to get your coil over them in this decently large area.
On Thursday I went in there for a short hunt and hit a small spill with two nice dated buffs and a younger merc.
The 37 is sharp and nice and with a d mint mark...but it has all four legs, darn it!
I was using mostly all metal with blasted up settings for that one and they were only a few inches deep.
Yesterday I was using all metal a lot but also tried some strange settings that worked on a very worn 1917 merc.
Disc up to 65
Gain at 95
Thresh at +5
Notched in iron, nickel, tabs and zinc
4H tones and sometimes monotone here and there.
For some reason turning up the disc mitigates noise and chatter on my F70...if you only notch in one or two areas it seems deadly quiet, with these others notched in too a bit more noisy but not bad at all.
A lot more quiet than using normal settings with lower disc and thresh for some reason.
It really isn't necessary to use higher settings here, most targets aren't all that deep and even those Barbers weren't supposed to be much deeper than 6-8" but you never know, plus like most places there are rumors that the original land owner buried a cache of gold around here back in the mid 1800's civil war years so I would hate to miss that if I rolled over it.
Not that I would know what that kind of signal that would be if I did...could be buried in a chest or come in as iron for all I know and I don't dig much iron when I am hunting this site and there are still a lot of iron signals up there for some reason.
Walking around moving the Nel Sharpshooter coil fairly fast trying to cover as much area as possible I was in multi tones and heard a nice, sharp high tone so I stopped to dig it.
Could have been modern clad or a copper cent because that stuff is all around here too but from about 3-4" deep I pulled up some dirt and I saw a dirt covered dime with shiny edges all around and I knew it was silver.
I cleaned it off and saw it was one of the most worn mercs I have ever dug.
1917 but it had to be dropped decades later after being in circulation for a long time.
I am actually happy it was not a 1916...the entire edge of the back is also worn and any mint mark is long gone so if it was a 1916 that would have killed me not ever knowing if I had found a 1916d...or not.
Pure luck I got my small coil over it in such with large space but I have depended on luck as long as I have been in this hobby and on these two hunts it showed up.
There are probably, hopefully, more Barbers up there, dimes, V nickels and who knows what else so as long as my luck holds I will make like a mountain goat and keep searching.
Another good thing is the flora is dying back in the woods plus the bugs are gone so the last two hunts I have been hunting around a small mountain in some woods, part of and right next to one of the oldest parks in the city circa 1881.
The park has had a lot of dirt moved around in the last few years due to renovations and improvements but we are still finding some older coins here and there.
The woods have been left alone because they sit on a pretty steep little mountain so you never know what you might find in there.
We talked to a guy that has been hunting in there for years and has found several Barber dimes there so that is my goal although there is a lot more than that if you are lucky enough to get your coil over them in this decently large area.
On Thursday I went in there for a short hunt and hit a small spill with two nice dated buffs and a younger merc.
The 37 is sharp and nice and with a d mint mark...but it has all four legs, darn it!
I was using mostly all metal with blasted up settings for that one and they were only a few inches deep.
Yesterday I was using all metal a lot but also tried some strange settings that worked on a very worn 1917 merc.
Disc up to 65
Gain at 95
Thresh at +5
Notched in iron, nickel, tabs and zinc
4H tones and sometimes monotone here and there.
For some reason turning up the disc mitigates noise and chatter on my F70...if you only notch in one or two areas it seems deadly quiet, with these others notched in too a bit more noisy but not bad at all.
A lot more quiet than using normal settings with lower disc and thresh for some reason.
It really isn't necessary to use higher settings here, most targets aren't all that deep and even those Barbers weren't supposed to be much deeper than 6-8" but you never know, plus like most places there are rumors that the original land owner buried a cache of gold around here back in the mid 1800's civil war years so I would hate to miss that if I rolled over it.
Not that I would know what that kind of signal that would be if I did...could be buried in a chest or come in as iron for all I know and I don't dig much iron when I am hunting this site and there are still a lot of iron signals up there for some reason.
Walking around moving the Nel Sharpshooter coil fairly fast trying to cover as much area as possible I was in multi tones and heard a nice, sharp high tone so I stopped to dig it.
Could have been modern clad or a copper cent because that stuff is all around here too but from about 3-4" deep I pulled up some dirt and I saw a dirt covered dime with shiny edges all around and I knew it was silver.
I cleaned it off and saw it was one of the most worn mercs I have ever dug.
1917 but it had to be dropped decades later after being in circulation for a long time.
I am actually happy it was not a 1916...the entire edge of the back is also worn and any mint mark is long gone so if it was a 1916 that would have killed me not ever knowing if I had found a 1916d...or not.
Pure luck I got my small coil over it in such with large space but I have depended on luck as long as I have been in this hobby and on these two hunts it showed up.
There are probably, hopefully, more Barbers up there, dimes, V nickels and who knows what else so as long as my luck holds I will make like a mountain goat and keep searching.
Quiet and peaceful and generally no one to bother you.
