I need some input please.

Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
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Hello, I am new to metal detecting. I've been searching around in my yard and finding a few things and learning and now I have a few questions for the experts. My house was built in 1937 and there has been activity at my property since the 1830s as far as I can trace back through research. Which leads to my first question. The back yard is FULL of hits. Alot of iron and weak better hits. I have probably dug about 100 nails in the past 4 days. Is this common? Would this be a sign of the original homestead? I've also been finding peices of broken ceramic dishes in the holes as well. These hits have all been showing 6 inches on my machine, but in ending up finding them at 10-12 inches. I have also been finding 1930's and 40's zinc jar tops left and right at over a foot deep. Did people just chuck their jars in the yard back then? I get iron hits deeper, but I've gone 3 plus feet on holes and not found anything. As far as coins I have found some clad and one 1950 wheat penny all at 3 inches.. My question for that one is. If I am looking for older coins, should I be digging all these random deep trashy hits looking for coins 10 inches deep? It's just very confusing that I am only finding clad at shallow depth and iron and mystery jar lids super deep. Not much in between. Thanks for any info on my new hobby and my seemingly odd situation. I'm loving it!
 

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Indian Steve

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Oct 23, 2011
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The big nail patches could be where earlier homes or outbuilding had burned or rotted into the ground. I hunt one 1911 house that was built on the foundation and using the same chimneys of a 1860s house that burned in 1900. So many nails that it will make you crazy, but there have been some good finds. Almost every old country house that I hunt has canning jar lids. Some were probably lost, but most places had a burn spot or pit or gully that junk went into. I would advise you to turn up your discrimination and pick the great signals first and then go back and dig it all. There will be lots of trash but I'm sure you will find some goodies. Practice digging nice holes while in your yard, so later you will feel good in that Nice Victorian Mansions yard when you get it.
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
The big nail patches could be where earlier homes or outbuilding had burned or rotted into the ground. I hunt one 1911 house that was built on the foundation and using the same chimneys of a 1860s house that burned in 1900. So many nails that it will make you crazy, but there have been some good finds. Almost every old country house that I hunt has canning jar lids. Some were probably lost, but most places had a burn spot or pit or gully that junk went into. I would advise you to turn up your discrimination and pick the great signals first and then go back and dig it all. There will be lots of trash but I'm sure you will find some goodies. Practice digging nice holes while in your yard, so later you will feel good in that Nice Victorian Mansions yard when you get it.

Thanks for the tip! I switched from all metal to the coin notch on my machine and turned the sensitivity down to 2 in order to cherry pick the shallow stuff for awhile. Once I cover the acre I'll start working on the trash/deeper stuff. If I do all metal my machine goes crazy on every inch of my yard haha. Found about 87 cents in clad in a small section of the front yard today. If I keep that up maybe I'll have enough for a better detector by the time I get to the deep stuff. As far as treasures, I did find an old wood splitting wedge yesterday and i found the houses original septic tank. I'll just keep picking away at it! I am coming to regret every time I ran over a pop can on the lawnmower. You had mentioned burned structures... that makes sense as I have been finding small peices of charred wood in the nail bed too.
 

Rookster

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Nov 24, 2013
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Welcome to Tnet from Mississippi. I would turn up the disc and dig high tones first them lower the disc and dig med. Tones. It should give you a little more confidence in yourself and the machine. And most of all go low and slow. Good luck.
 

releventchair

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May 9, 2012
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If a previous dwelling was razed/bulldozed ect. you will have a debris field.

Some old homesteads had multiple buildings. For livestock and other activities ,but also for assurance of shelter should the homestead burn. And fires were not uncommon.

Deliberate trash and debris were often concealed from foot traffic.
Imagine the value of a horse ,then have it step on a glass shard...

More research might lead to better ideas of what structures existed at your place ,and what happened there.
The depth of your targets suggest deliberate spreading of fill.
I hunt one old park that is debris laden from a village fire in the eighteen hundreds.
The "basement" of layers is around a foot deep.
There is the burnt brick,nails ect from what was spread there.
Below that is out of reach for me but contains drops before that fill/debris was added.
The edges of debris fields there and at other sites is where I scrounge occasional recoveries from the more original ground in the thinner debris/fill layers.
Or beyond the added material sites edges.

Noticed a large old tree stump was being removed today in that old park.
Did the process bring soil up from below??
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Thanks rook! I'm pretty sure my property hasn't been detected before.. it's kind of overwhelming the amount of tones I get. I'm half tempted to try to find somewhere with less stuff in the ground so I can figure out what I'm doing a little better. But I've been pulling clad every day, so I am either getting better, or there is that much cash in the ground. Haha
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
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That's good info. Makes sense that they would do that. And I live in a rural area, I'm thinking it was the original house (with all the broken dishware and porcelain. There was a home on the property in the 1879 survey map I found and I'm thinking it burned down and the current house was built closer to the road.
 

pa-dirt_nc-sand

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Sounds like you are having fun! Typically I find concentrations of mason jar lids in areas around old home sites (early 1900’s) toward the back of the dwelling, garbage dump area. Lots of nails (especially if they are hand forged square nails) let you know you found an old building. These are all good signs except the depth. I find old silver and copper coins from 3-6” around old sites. Your deeper targets sound like fill. Good idea to move to coin mode to limit the nails. Spread out your search. Try different areas. Your bound to start popping some old silver coins soon! Good luck!
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
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Sounds like you are having fun! Typically I find concentrations of mason jar lids in areas around old home sites (early 1900’s) toward the back of the dwelling, garbage dump area. Lots of nails (especially if they are hand forged square nails) let you know you found an old building. These are all good signs except the depth. I find old silver and copper coins from 3-6” around old sites. Your deeper targets sound like fill. Good idea to move to coin mode to limit the nails. Spread out your search. Try different areas. Your bound to start popping some old silver coins soon! Good luck!


Thanks! I can tell there is potential. Having fill would explain why it seems pretty clean until about 6-8 inches in the back. Every time I go out in the front yard I've hit clad at 2-3 inches. I can go out for 2 minutes out front and come back in with a coin lol. I'll have to go and try the back yard some more with all the info you guys have shared and now that I've figured out how to make my cheapo machine work a bit better.
 

BLK HOLE

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Welcome to TNet from Northern Virginia :skullflag:
 

pat-tekker-cat

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Before any more advice can be dispensed,
we may need pics of that yard :laughing7:

and your dog, or cat, any fish you caught,
an old barn (if you have one), and some birds. :laughing7:

J/K, lol. Welcome to T-net & keep having fun!
The folks here are full of great wonderful advice,
(me, not so much, no advice, I'm like an ole farm cat,
roams around, and yowls every now & then). :laughing7: :cat:
 

jackc

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Jun 24, 2013
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hey wingrad sounds like a lot of fun and ground to cover! just out of curiosity what detector are you using?
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
hey wingrad sounds like a lot of fun and ground to cover! just out of curiosity what detector are you using?

I'm using a ground efx mx200. Not a fantastic machine. But I got it for almost free and it does find stuff pretty accurately so far.. (usually the quarter at 6 inches is turning out to he a bent nail or zinc lid at 14 or 15 inches) I was messing around picking up shredded aluminum from me foolishly hitting a few with the lawnmower before I found my new hobby, and I found a 1977 copper penny. Its neat how finding something worth 1.6 cents can make you feel like you found the holy grail after pulling aluminum and zinc lids out of the ground for a few hours. Also found some clad pennies as well. Still waiting for that silver to show up!
 

oldkoot

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Jan 18, 2017
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Thanks for the tip! I switched from all metal to the coin notch on my machine and turned the sensitivity down to 2 in order to cherry pick the shallow stuff for awhile. Once I cover the acre I'll start working on the trash/deeper stuff. If I do all metal my machine goes crazy on every inch of my yard haha. Found about 87 cents in clad in a small section of the front yard today. If I keep that up maybe I'll have enough for a better detector by the time I get to the deep stuff. As far as treasures, I did find an old wood splitting wedge yesterday and i found the houses original septic tank. I'll just keep picking away at it! I am coming to regret every time I ran over a pop can on the lawnmower. You had mentioned burned structures... that makes sense as I have been finding small peices of charred wood in the nail bed too.

What makes you think you need a better detector if you are finding stuff with the detector you currently use I would not presume to think you need a better machine in one of your earlier post on this thread you stated you are getting hits in the six inch range but when you would dig the targets up they would be 10 to 12 inches so obviously the detector you have is seeing the targets but not giving you accurate depth readings

I lived in a house in Ohio back in 2009 the house was built in 1889 it had a back yard that was 3/4 of an acre it is what actually got me into this great hobby my wife and I purchased two detectors we were getting so many hits in the back yard that it was mind boggling we ended up grid ding the yard off with stakes and surveyors tape and concentrating on all the shallow target's first then once we were confident that we had pretty much cleared the yard of all the shallower target's 0-6 inches we started over and concentrated on the deeper target's we spent 4 years doing this and was still digging stuff up
 

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Wingrad

Greenie
Sep 10, 2018
17
25
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
What makes you think you need a better detector if you are finding stuff with the detector you currently use I would not presume to think you need a better machine in one of your earlier post on this thread you stated you are getting hits in the six inch range but when you would dig the targets up they would be 10 to 12 inches so obviously the detector you have is seeing the targets but not giving you accurate depth readings

I lived in a house in Ohio back in 2009 the house was built in 1889 it had a back yard that was 3/4 of an acre it is what actually got me into this great hobby my wife and I purchased two detectors we were getting so many hits in the back yard that it was mind boggling we ended up grid ding the yard off with stakes and surveyors tape and concentrating on all the shallow target's first then once we were confident that we had pretty much cleared the yard of all the shallower target's 0-6 inches we started over and concentrated on the deeper target's we spent 4 years doing this and was still digging stuff up

That's awesome! Did you guys find anything interesting? My wife and I have been going out after our daughter goes to bed at night and hunting. I'm sure the the neighbors think we are nuts! As far as my upgrade statement, it does work well. It does lack a few features I would like, it has a 10.5 coil, so getting the right general area is kind of tricky (pin pointer will fix that) and it is pretty heavy for my wife. (Website says over 5 lbs). I'm pleased with the performance, but I do see us getting another one in the future and would like a few different options. Its keeping us digging for now though!
 

oldkoot

Hero Member
Jan 18, 2017
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1,340
in the Tucson AZ area now
Detector(s) used
Garrett Axiom
Garrett GM 24K
2-Nokta/Macro Legend Pro Pack
Simplex Plus
Xterra 705
x2 quest X Pointer Max - my favorite
Fisher F Pulse
Nokta Pulse Dive 2in1 kit
Garrett AT Pro (not Used)
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
That's awesome! Did you guys find anything interesting? My wife and I have been going out after our daughter goes to bed at night and hunting. I'm sure the the neighbors think we are nuts! As far as my upgrade statement, it does work well. It does lack a few features I would like, it has a 10.5 coil, so getting the right general area is kind of tricky (pin pointer will fix that) and it is pretty heavy for my wife. (Website says over 5 lbs). I'm pleased with the performance, but I do see us getting another one in the future and would like a few different options. Its keeping us digging for now though!

Found multiple silvers but my best find was not in the yard but under the house which had a basement with a concrete floor and an attached crawl space with a dirt floor that once you were inside the crawl space you could stand up and swing a detector with no issues it was an area with a 9-10 foot ceiling and approximately 25 feet long by 10-12 feet wide found a buried wooden box full of all kinds of coins the best of which were 12- 2.5 dollar 1800s gold pieces it was not deep and the TID numbers were jumping all over the place almost giving off an over load I lifted the coil off the ground by about a foot and thought it was going to be some kind of scrap even though the coil was raised a foot above the ground the detector was still giving erratic TID numbers and still sounding off loud and clear, but was shocked when I dug it up and it was a wooden box I was shaking like a leaf in a whirl wind guess you could say its a once in a life time find and for me I do not know what it would ever take to top that particular find unless it would be what I search for now which is gold but it would have to be a two pound chunk and for me I do not know if that would ever even do it as you always remember that first great find and that first one has had me hooked ever since for this great hobby.

I really do not share with to many people what I do find as I look at it this way it is no ones business but mine.

Even though my wife and I spent 4 years detecting the same property when we sold that property back in 2012 I still had a feeling we had not got everything that was there
 

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tokameel

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May 20, 2012
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Wingrad, Welcome to T-Net!

In my previous life, back in the 1970s, I got the family a White detector, that I turned to be the only user. Go figure. It used about 14 AA batteries and had no discriminator.
But I had lots of fun with it. Nothing of great value, but lots of wheaties and silver. Good Luck!
 

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