The face of coinshooting has changed over the last 35 years

[ScottC]

Since 1975, coinshooting was easier than it is now a days. I can remember going out coinshooting in my local area Northern CA, and simply driving around until I saw a good place to detect, empty lot, old park, old school yard etc... always finding silver indian heads and wheaties, among other interesting things, old tokens, locks, and occasional jewelery.

Today I decided to dust off the old White's 6000 Di Pro and and head out for a couple of hours, its been over 10 years since I've been out coinshooting, and after driving around for an hour, I discovered, there were a lot less places left to detect than I remember. Empty lots were fenced, new contruction sites were all fenced, in parks the original dirt has been dug and filled, those landscapers must have figured out there's treasure in that ground.

I finally decided on a wide old grass strip in from of a fenced empty lot, and man o man, so much trash, spent 2 hours there and came up with and old key lock from the 1930s and few clad coins, the silver is under all that trash.

Used to always come back from an outing with at least one silver coin, I think I've lost my touch, or is it really much more difficult to find good places to coinshoot

ScottC Sac CA
http:www.goldfinds.com

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Tom_in_CA]

Scott, I started about that time too, and I'm also in CA. But you certainly weren't using a 6000 Di pro in "1975", since it wasn't introduced till the later 1980s. Even the original 6000d wasn't introduced till 1978 (and not catching on or seen a lot till 1979 and '80, unless you were a real pioneer )

Yes the sites were more virgin, and the age of legal fears (fenced old-town demolition sites) wasn't as pronounced as it is now. But then again, a lot of us in those days (maybe you were an exception) didn't have a mindset to hit urban demolitions, sidewalk rip-outs, and exotic stage stop sites and such. There wasn't a lot of junk tolerance back then. And if you think of it, the introduction of TR disc (mid 1970s) actually contributed to this mindset. When we could FINALLY start passing foil and tabs in the mid 1970s, WE DID JUST THAT! Which is fine for junky urban parks (the lesser of two evils), but unfortunately, the same mindset (at least for me and the guys I hunted with) carried over into other md'ing sites. Ie.: if we dug more than 5 or 10 pieces of trash, without a coin, we'd "leave for greener grounds".

I kick myself now for seeing the sites I passed, after short-terms checks. Ie.: find a few harmonica reeds, henry shells, pistol balls, etc... at the supposed site of a stage stop, and think the site is no good. Years later, I see that it is exactly those type targets which indicate you can find seateds and such at those sites (albeit at oodles to one ratio perhaps). But back then, the tendency was to crank the disc. and go to easy school yards. It's what we saw others doing, so why would we rock the boat? As time progressed (going into the 1980s) we began to wise up to the urban demolition sites, beach storms, stage stops, adobe sites, etc....

So in a way, I do better now, as far as old coins go, than I did in those early virgin years. The machines in 1975 were clumsy, hard to keep balanced, and not deep seeking at all. Disc. depth was a joke (till the motion disc. came out), but we used it anyhow, as the alternative was too punishing Today's machines (like the Explorer for turf) has so much more depth and TID, that I find I'm still getting old coins from these worked out parks, but they tend to be older (as the '40s/50s stuff was more easily worked out in the old days).

Yes if we could go back in time, even with those old machines, knowing what we know now, we'd probably kick b*tt

Did you ever get into Capitol Park back in the old days there in Sacramento? I've gotten silver out of all the old Sac. parks, but that was my favorite one.

 

[Jeep]

Unfortunately Scott, that IS true.

Our society is so hung up on a quick "payday" and someone to blame because they were stupid and got hurt that out of fear of being sued we have nerfed, safety strapped warning signed and fenced the world.

We have devolved into a society of whiners and neuters where car seats are a measure of parental love and playgrounds are made of foam.
There is an increasing number of retired persons with disposable income for high end detectors and NOTHING else to do but detect 8 hours a day 7 days a week. There is a finite number of good finds OUT there.
Compound that with detector manufacturers over sensationalizing finds to sell more detectors, and 40.00 detectors being sold at Wal Mart with no guidance leading to every "I'm gonna find teh treezur in five minutes with this HUGE shovel" mouthbreathers to tear up people's property looking for "riches"and nobody WANTS people to detect in their park.


It's sad, and those of us who ARE responsible, looking for the SEARCH or care more about the history have to live with their legacy

I resemble that remark

 

[RPG]

Sidewalks.

Look for small towns that go back to the early 1800's.

A lot of these were overlooked.

 

[ScottC]

Tom, in the 70s used my fathers Whites CoinMaster, then I bought my first Whites detector, think it was a 6000D Series 2, still have it in the attic, man I sure found a lot of good old silver with that thing. I've since upgraded twice over the years, have 6000Di Pro, and a 6000Di Pro SL, for some reason I'm stuck on that meter target ID. And I have a secret technique that not too many people know about on the 6000 models that can get good depths on silver dimes.

I've only lived in Sac since 1996, and have only detected a couple times in 97 and 98, today was my first outing in over 10 years. I still have coin fever. Most of my detecting in the early years was in Redding and Red Bluff CA. I'm not familiar with Sac detecting areas, however I do know there are areas to avoid, because of the early floods brought in silt that buried the old coinage to deep to detect.

I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I get my old silver grove back again, in fact today I scoped out a few places that should produce nicely once I ask permission. And I'm sure even thats changed too, people these days I think are more likely to say no.

Cheers
ScottC
http://www.goldfinds.com

 

[Russ in Ohio]

I know how you feel, having started in the mid-70s with an all metal bfo machine. One could even find silver with it simply because it was there to be found. Now the older coins are scarce in the common sites simply because someone already found them. There is an old park in the next town from me that literally has a "dead zone" between 4 and 6 inches where I find little in the way of coins. Above that is clad and below is the few goodies others missed. I find maybe 1 silver coin for each 3 trips, and oddly have only found 2 or 3 wheat cents. I guess where I'm going with this is these days the obvious places have been hammered in the past by both you and I and everyone else and the pickings are slimmer. To have the sort of days we used to back then one must go to less obvious parts of public areas or get permission on private property. The older machines would and did find things and we were just as dedicated to them as we are to the machines we have now. Now we have to think outside the box and accept alot of older targets have been recovered and are not being replenished. Goodies are still out there, just less of them and harder to find.

 

[bazinga]

And I have a secret technique that not too many people know about on the 6000 models that can get depths of up to 16 inches on silver dimes. No joke.

Preserved.

Best post of 2010 to date.

 

[bazinga]

And I have a secret technique that not too many people know about on the 6000 models that can get depths of up to 16 inches on silver dimes. No joke.

Preserved.

Best post of 2010 to date.

Um... yeah..

The best part about this post is that he complains about fill dirt, then claims that he can detect a dime at 16 inches. For somebody that can detect so deep, fill dirt would be the best thing on earth for him. They bring in 4" of fill dirt putting the dimes down in the 8"-14" range. No other detector is going to find them at 14", so he can just cherry pick dimes all day long. He probably gets quarters at 20" and halves at 24".

 

[ScottC]

Oh it is possible, with a 10 inch coil on a Whites 6000di Pro running in all metals GEB Max mode in damp loam, I guarantee it's possible. Not only have I dug silver dimes at 16 inches, but the target ID works quite well in GEB Max mode on the Whites 6000di Pro.

Try it and you will see for yourself.

 

[bazinga]

Oh it is possible, with a 10 inch coil on a Whites 6000di Pro running in all metals GEB Max mode in damp loam, I guarantee it's possible. Not only have I dug silver dimes at 16 inches, but the target ID works quite well in GEB Max mode on the Whites 6000di Pro.

Try it and you will see for yourself.

Let's see your air test getting 16" on a dime.

 

[ScottC]

Have you ever heard of the halo effect? When a coin has been sitting in the ground for many years with seasonal moisture, it can form a halo of oxidation that will enhance your detectors ability to detect it.

What does that mean, it means not all ground conditions are the same, and I cannot detect a silver dime at deeper depths in all locations, but many parks etc... do have ideal soil conditions to obtain these superior depths, given you have the detector that will make it possible.

 

[bazinga]

Have you ever heard of the halo effect? When a coin has been sitting in the ground for many years with seasonal moisture, it can form a halo of oxidation that will enhance your detectors ability to detect it.

What does that mean, it means not all ground conditions are the same, and I cannot detect a silver dime at deeper depths in all locations, but many parks etc... do have ideal soil conditions to obtain these superior depths, given you have the detector that will make it possible.

Halo effect? Please elaborate further. I've never heard of such a thing.

 

[ScottC]

bscofield6, google it, there's lots of info on the halo effect. Also, have you ever operated a Whites 6000Di Pro with the 10" Blue Max coil, in GEB Max all metals mode? I can tell you it's great for loamy damp ground conditions, with low trash to coin ratio. And it target ids in GEB max mode.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Scott, there are many machines over the years that have incoorporated their TID to work when in all-metal mode, just as you say on your 6000 Di pro. However, you have fallen prey to a common misconception, that the following flowchart of logic must follow:

1) All-metal mode goes deeper than discrimination (a true statement) and can detect a dime up to 16" (a true statement for a lot of machine's all metal modes)

2) The TID feature is set to still work (ie.: needle bounce to indicate conductivity of target, in true TID fashion) even though you've switched to all-metal mode.

3) THEREFORE the user can get accurate TID, down to all-metal depths.

The above 3 points do not logically follow. The failure is in step 3. It works like this: Let's say, for example, that the point at which you can stop getting the needle to indicate "dime"-ish on the TID, when in disc, is about 8 or 9". Then the same would be true for the all-metal mode. You may HEAR a target at deeper depths than that, but the depth at which you have stopped getting the TID to hit there, is the same depth as your cutoff point when you were in disc. Ie.: still at 8 or 9".

This misconception is an easy one to arrive at, but unfortunately is not true. If it were true, then basically, all-metal would .... in reality ..... not really be a disc. mode. See? If the day ever came that any machine could disc. down to the deeper depths of its all-metal mode, then it's really not all-metal mode then to begin with.

 

[ScottC]

Tom I understand what you are saying, but I have gotten the needle to pop to the TID for deeper coin targets in all metals mode.

 

[bazinga]

bscofield6, google it, there's lots of info on the halo effect. Also, have you ever operated a Whites 6000Di Pro with the 10" Blue Max coil, in GEB Max all metals mode? I can tell you it's great for loamy damp ground conditions, with low trash to coin ratio. And it target ids in GEB max mode.

What is this google that you speak of? Which button is it on my machine? I'm not seeing it. I really want to explore this halo effect.

 

[ScottC]

Sorry, I assumed you are Internet savy. Goto www.google.com and in the search field, type in coin halo effect, or something simular to that. I was able to find many references.