Have new promising area to detect, need advice

[Cranman]

I have discovered an old train depot building in a nearby town, I don't know exactly how old but it was on the map dated 1908 for this town. I looked/poked around this old building which looks mostly abandoned and feel pretty sure I can get under it and look for bottles, and also should be able to detect under the boardwalk. My past (very limited) experience detecting has been school yards, gravel church parking lots, etc. I have to figure this area under the boardwalk would have alot of trash. How would you detect it? My guess is there would be nails and all sorts of metal debris in the soil from 100+ years of stuff falling from above, reconstruction, etc.

Just looking for input I guess!

[Born2Dtect]

Simply put, dig all. That way you will know if there are any good finds there. Then you can try discrimination, a smaller coil, and other brands of detectors.

Ed D.

[TORRERO]

I feel pretty sure I can get under it and look for bottles, and also should be able to detect under the boardwalk.

Boy that sounds like fun, be sure to dig everything as you crawl around on your belly trying to find those signals in front of you while your arms and legs are splayed like a snow angel beneath the building and bourdwalk...
just kidding...

The old buildings I have seen and looked under (not all the way) never looked inviting enough to crawl
under and try to find anything... even though I did imagine a big snake or two under there...

[goldentruth]

Get yourself a good flashlight to check for snakes, Bring a rake and see if you can move debris out to clear.
I would get a pole with a magnet for nails, beer caps, sheet metal, wire and other iron trash.
If you find where a saloon bar was, remember many minners paid for drinks with gold.
I read years ago where a guy went to a abandoned ghost town and he found the saloon, he pulled up the floor boards and found a lot of gold dust. He pulled out the earth and panned it all out!
Good luck to you.

[Cranman]

The crawl space under this building and boardwalk are pretty high, I think it may have been that way to get on level with the train for unloading passengers. I like the idea of having a magnet to clear iron from an area. I'll report back on this post what I find!

[diggummup]

The crawl space under this building and boardwalk are pretty high, I think it may have been that way to get on level with the train for unloading passengers. I like the idea of having a magnet to clear iron from an area. I'll report back on this post what I find!

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to your post.

[goldentruth]

Have fun and keep safe # 1. (watch out for those pesky nails and black widdows bro.) Sounds like an adventure and better it its not "gone thru"... It might be a kodak moment. Get back with the details.

[Ism]

I don't have metered detector so I would search the area in higher disc setting first (brass/bronze to silver).
Two reasons I have for this;
1. I don't know if my window of opportunity will close so I want to make the best of the time I have.
2. Most good targets will be high conductor targets and this will improve your good vs bad target ratio.

Then after going over the area pretty good, I'd back down the disc to an acceptable level and dig like a dachshund.
Good luck

[Cranman]

So I got time to get by this spot today, and initially I planned to just get under the building and scope it out and maybe look for old bottles. I did find some really cool old bottles but they were all broken in some way, I'm sure someone else has been under there before and got the good ones. Pretty quick I realize it won't be hard to detect under there, plenty of light, room to get around fine, it's dry and really no bugs or webs to speak of. Back to the car and get geared up then back under. There is so much metal debris, nails, nuts/bolts, RR spikes, pipes etc that I decide to start off disc'ing out everything except dimes and quarters. I move all the surface crap off a area and start scanning, right off I get a dime signal. Sure enough, there's late 60's dime. Unfortunatly that was the last coin I found. The disc was working well and I did dig a few washers and other metal scrap, but pretty quick I see that I will need a new game plan. First, like was mentioned by someone earlier, I need to use a magnet and clear the obvious iron so maybe I can dial back the disc. Also there seems to be about 6 inches of loose pea gravel and sand right where I am checking, I am considering taking a rake next time to maybe dig a area down a little before I detect.

Lastly, althought I am certain this building is from around 1905, now I believe it may be something like the freight depot. There is another similiar building a ways down that looks to be the passenger terminal, and I won't have access to that area. The only significance to that is probably alot less coinage in the freight area, but I guess the dime I found right off at least means other coins can/should be in there somewhere. Looking forward to going back and giving it another try!

**one more update, I checked the old maps again, and did verify that this was the freight depot. Oh well, like I said it's 100+ years old, and I did find the clad dime under there right off, so logic says there should be at least one more coin under there just waiting for me!

[diggummup]

Thanks for the update Cranman. Looking forward to more. If it's as loose as you say you may want to shovel it out completely, maybe sift through the stuff you remove, just to be sure. As long as it's not too big an area that is.

[Cool Hand Fluke]

Detecting under a boardwalk could be a metal detecting dream! Hopefully there were enough cracks between the boards where coins could have falling through...

Back in the 1980's the original wooden boardwalks/sidewalks from the 1870's in Virginia City Nevada were ripped out and relplaced. The numerious seated silver and gold coins that came off were utterly amazing! You got to try it!

[Cranman]

Yeah there are cracks big enough for coins to fall through, and I am certain it has not been detected in a long time if ever. I just have to get a system down for removing some of the big iron and also digging down. Also I should have switched to my 4" coil, which I will do next time. I am sure there is at least one coin down there, I just have to go get it!

[watercolor]

After reading about this site. . . which definitely sounds promising. . . another thought
comes to mind. If there's anyway you could find an old Sanborn fire insurance map
of this town (check local libraries & historical societies for hard copies or on-line availability)
it would show all the structures of the depot. . . which would be very helpful in narrowing
down some of the prime areas to hunt. (See sample map below)

To digress, a close friend once hunted a similar site as yours and was able to locate an
area near the tracks where all the trash that was swept from the floors inside the passenger
cars was dumped. Some nice silver coinage was found.

Good luck!

[Cranman]

Actually it is Sanborn fire insurance maps I was looking at when I realized what the old building was! I still have more investigating to do in that area, the maps show quite alot of detail on the downtown area from 1905 and alot of the buildings still exist. I get as excited about the history as I do the opportunity to detect a area from the early 1900's

[iCandy]

Yo "bro"......umm.... first off... if you're man enough....you won't need a flashlight....secondly.....black widows are nothing compared to fiddlebacks/brown recluse......believe me...I have battle sars. AND....you just listen to me.....cuz I have more cahoonas then all these boys put together!!!!