Researched, drove, hunted, slightly disappointed

[steveouke]

This weekend a fellow hunter and I took a trip 200 miles from home. The hunt ended up not being as good as expected. I wrote about it on my blog and I would love to get more opinions on the hunt. I want to learn something from the trip but It still boggles my mind. I would love to hear from the experienced hunters. www.stevessunkentreasures.wordpress.com

Thanks

 

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[Jason in Enid]

Why not just post the story here?

 

[steveouke]

Mostly due to the time it takes to type it. Copy and paste would work. Here ya go!

Noreaster summary
As I wrote in Noreaster day 1 the silver coins eluded us. This whole trip really boggled my mind. I still consider myself a rookie metal detectorist; however I feel that I have learned my Ace 250 well and I know it is capable of finding pretty deep silver. I was extremely pumped about this trip. I spent hours pouring over plat maps of Jackson county Kansas. These maps were from the 1880′s and as recent as the 1930′s. While on the trip we hunted 3 towns that were founded between the 1850′s and 1870′s. These towns boomed because of agriculture and the railroads that ran through them at one time. I thought we would for sure see some barbers with seated coins not being out of the question. Here is a list of the locations we hit.

1- City park that was built in 1867. Produced one Indian head, two wheats, and two silver rings.
2- Public school from 1916. This school produced tons of clad, one Indian head, and one wheat penny.
3- Farmstead from early 1900′s. At this farm we were looking for more than coins and found several relics and not one coin.
4- Rural school from the 1870′s. This site was where I thought we would really find the goods. First hand people said it was used weekly for community meetings and 4-H meetings up until the 1940′s. There was a plethora of bottle caps but we did manage some clad and one silver ring.
5- City park from the 1880′s- absolutely nothing notable from this site.
6- City park from the 1860′s- This was one of the most beautiful parks I have seen. The city has done a great job of mixing history and present day. We dug some clad and a non silver ring.
7- Park from the 1880′s- this park was on our way home and has been hit by many detectorists from the Wichita area. We found an old token, a wheatie, and some clad.

Now this is where I get lost. If I look at these locations on paper it looks great. After 32-34 combined hours of hunting them without the success I hoped for I have to wonder. I have some thoughts on why we didn’t get the results we wanted.

1- Were the locations hunted out? I don’t think so. These towns are very small and off the beaten path. I can’t imagine MD’ers hunting them on a regular basis (especially gridding them).
2- Was the good stuff ever there? With most locations being in towns of less than 500 people maybe coins were not dropped.
3- Did average people carry silver? I’m wondering if the average park goer carry dimes, quarters, and halve dollars? Considering the only old coins we found were cents it makes me wonder.
4- Did we hunt them the right way? My hunting method was scramble until I found something that resembled a coin and then start gridding the area.
5- Would a different detector help? I don’t see this as being a big factor. We swung 3different detectors. A Garrett Ace 250, Fisher F2, and a Garrett AT Pro.

I would love to discuss this hunt with someone who has researched old spots and had success hunting them. What are your thoughts on the hunt. My hindsight says we should have forgotten public property and focused more attention on private residences. All three towns had many homes from the same time in history.

Happy hunting and thanks for reading! I apologize for the length of this post but like I said my mindis boggled.

10/22/2012Leave a reply

 

[releventchair]

Looks like you did good to me. You are following about 40 years of detectorists.
Folks tried not to lose that silver,consider the buying power of a dime before turn of the century.
Some silver out there somewhere,often masked by other items. Again much has been picked all ready.
I like your hitting multiple areas,a change in moisture from location to location can change a hunt.
How deep you recovered clad a factor in if your detector will locate deeper silver,that said on occasion silver will be in range
Alot of the parks hauled in fill and put silver deeper,puts me looking for low spots and edges without fill. Keep at it to score.
H.H.

 

[nsdq]

well said,,, sounds like a good hunt to me

Looks like you did good to me. You are following about 40 years of detectorists.
Folks tried not to lose that silver,consider the buying power of a dime before turn of the century.
Some silver out there somewhere,often masked by other items. Again much has been picked all ready.
I like your hitting multiple areas,a change in moisture from location to location can change a hunt.
How deep you recovered clad a factor in if your detector will locate deeper silver,that said on occasion silver will be in range
Alot of the parks hauled in fill and put silver deeper,puts me looking for low spots and edges without fill. Keep at it to score.
H.H.

 

[Sandman]

Steve I read with intrest the results of your adventure or hunt. As was memtioned to you these places were new and exciting but the fact is silver is very conductive and other hunters would have no trouble finding it with the older machines. Remember the ground goes back to before the area was settled so there is no telling what is there. You have a decent entry level detector but it has no ground balance which could make a difference in some locations. The high end units only have funnier displays and aren't any better at id'ing trash from coins and rings. The saying that you get what you pay for is true up to a point, an after that you are throwing your money away. I think you'd have more fun and goodies if you used a none display Tesoro or the Sov GT.

 

[Jason in Enid]

I've done the same thing as you. The problem is that your research is probably available to everyone. Those parks would be well known for their age and have probably been hammered by detectors since the 1950's. Old farm houses - most farmers had almost no spare cash to lose. What they had was kept safe in the house until it was time to go to town and buy something. Same with the schools. Kids didn't carry money around to lose.

 

[jmoller99]

I know that the Colorado Springs metal detecting club makes organized trips into Kansas to hunt. Its usually a group of 4 or more experienced detectorists that have researched the area they are headed to, and have well thought out hunting plans. I have been on a trip with this club (back in the late 1990's) - They tend to look at the less obvious places (looking for rotted fence posts - a possible cache hiding place, remains of chicken coops - also a possible cache hiding place, and trash dumps on the properties). They have been doing this for 30+ years and have a lot of experience. I am sure that other detecting clubs do the same sort of outings. Finding a place that has not been detected is not that easy anymore.

I think you did really well, but I doubt that you looked in as many places as you could have.

If you are not a member of a metal detecting club, you should consider at least locating one and attending a few meetings - It's always good to know what people are finding and what made them look in a particular area.

In Colorado, the land takes a long time to heal after anyone has dug into it. There are wagon wheel marks in the soil that were made over 100 years ago - but they look reasonably fresh - up in the Colorado high mountain ghost towns. Plotting traffic areas are easier with this kind of environement, but it only tells you where the traffic was. The buildings are long rotted away (the thousands of square nails in areas tell you that there used to be a building where those nails were).