Abe Lincoln was president when my best find (so far) was lost.

[Foot hill]

Hey guys,
Been detecting most of my life of and on starting with my first Whites 6000di pro
Then a few Tesoro’s
Now using a Deus and my new minelab equinox.
The small profile of the Deus allows me to get to more remote areas than the other machines..enter last weekend
I packed up my gear in backpack, hopped on my road bike (bicycle) and headed out to a local cellar hole that I’ve found a few Indian heads and random relics few years ago.
As I was riding I spotted a rock lined dried out creek.

I drive that road all the time and have never spotted it before.
Got off the roadway and into the woods, assembled my gear and took off with that positive attitude that most of us start a new location with.

The area was silent... using “hot”open program (hardly any discrimination)
Just silence... a few times I waved coil over my shoes just to make sure the detector was on.
I found a few deeper handgun bullets and the odd brass bit.
Dug up a huge ore cart axle


Came across a small running spring and found several Indian acorn grinding holes near water.

Then up to the rock lined water flume that had caught my eye from the road.
Snack in the middle of deer trail paralleling flume I bought that sweet High tone that caused me to back track and zero in on.
Beeep -beeep -beeep
Unmistakable roundness!
It’s deep too!
Wait... could be deep iron, I raise coil up and signal disappears-good sign!
I cross check from my 12kh to 4kh and the Id number goes down @ 10 points- Great sign!
I new it was going to be good
Carefully pinpointed and armed with only my heavy ww2 pic ax I began to dig

Carefully I dug down to point where my pinpointer could barely pick it up.
I started to dig a square mote around the pinpointed target to lessen chance of damaging the target.
Then carefully popped the square island of dried clay out.
Scanning the hole the signal was gone.
It’s out!
Picked up the clod and began breaking it open.
That fine patina silver gets with age is so nice!


I was as careful as I could be not to rub to harshly so took time getting the date.
Dipped it in the spring water and boom!
1863 seated library dime!

I’m in Central California and we do not have super old history like Europe or even east cost history so this was a super find for me.
Amazing to think Civil war was full on and Abraham Lincoln was the president.
I really do love this hobby.
Thanks for reading my story.

 

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[vpnavy]

Super finds Foot Hill. Heck, the cart axle ain't bad either! Thanks for sharing...

 

[xcopperstax]

Great find and great story! My first seated dime was in hard dry dirt in a city park. I was sure it would be a penny or a clad dime so in my haste to get it I put a nice little autograph on it with my lesche. It was in similar condition as yours but it was an 1891. The next one I found was gray from saltwater and when I rubbed the sand off it I put tiny scratches on it. My goal is to recover one without hitting it etc. It's funny how many clad coins I have recovered without any mistakes.

 

[BLK HOLE]

Awesome find and an excellent story! Thanks for sharing

 

[A2coins]

Great post pics and story my 1st seated was an inch or 2 down on an old path Thanks for the cool post

 

[GB1]

nice finds

 

[1637]

great story and coin,iam voting banner on this.and in calif
brad

 

[devldog]

Foot hill, great find and story of the 1863 Seated Liberty dime. A War period silver dome. Well Done sir. Thanks for sharing this with us.

 

[Foot hill]

Great find and great story! My first seated dime was in hard dry dirt in a city park. I was sure it would be a penny or a clad dime so in my haste to get it I put a nice little autograph on it with my lesche. It was in similar condition as yours but it was an 1891. The next one I found was gray from saltwater and when I rubbed the sand off it I put tiny scratches on it. My goal is to recover one without hitting it etc. It's funny how many clad coins I have recovered without any mistakes.

Seriously!
I’ve got well over $250 in clad and have probably only nicked maybe 10 coins of that bunch.
Biggest issue for me is where the old stuff is it’s super hard rock embedded clay.
Watching metal detecting videos where a tee handled shovel is all that’s required is amazing to me.
I could use a large portable air compressor with construction jack hammer to bust through this hard ca clay.
My friend watches me as I dig a signal and freaks out because it looks like I’m just going crazy.
But I do try to get really good pinpoint on target and concentrate my digging “around the target then use pinpointer to keep guiding me.
I think I might of put slight scratches in it. Under magnification although I was really careful not to rub it.
I’ll be even more careful next time.
So glad I didn’t “sign” my dime lol

 

[Switchblade]

Nice dime!

 

[eyemustdigtreasure]

You (surgically?) removed that dime, for sure! It's in such great shape!
Be proud, my man, for the recovery effort - you earned it...!

 

[Reanm8er]

WTF? Who loses a coin newly minted and uncirculated? Perhaps, A drunk or dead man!

Best wishes! And good luck!

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

You were very lucky to have spotted that old site and even luckier that it wasn’t private property! Super hard these days to find places on public land that have not already been hammered.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Congratualtions on the finds and the wonderful adventure!

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Great story and awesome coin. Congrats!

 

[PullTabPete]

Wow that's a beauty.

I like the bike and detecting idea, I bike a lot and wish I had my detector on some rides, but the e-trac is kinda of big. I might I have to look into getting a deus for a riding detector.

 

[Foot hill]

Wow that's a beauty.

I like the bike and detecting idea, I bike a lot and wish I had my detector on some rides, but the e-trac is kinda of big. I might I have to look into getting a deus for a riding detector.

Yes. The Deus is compact, light and quick to employ
The Tesoro compadre at $160 is a really capable machine for this purpose.
I’ve even left one at sight and returned days later to continue the hunt. I’d never do that with the Deus lol.
It’s amazing how much more you see/notice cycling vs. driving car.

 

[RustyGold]

Very cool story and even cooler find. Thanks for posting with pics.

 

[Squirrel322]

Thats a beautiful seated dime.

Only seated dime I have found is so smooth its barely recognizable.

It’s deep too!
Wait... could be deep iron, I raise coil up and signal disappears-good sign!
I cross check from my 12kh to 4kh and the Id number goes down @ 10 points- Great sign!
View attachment 1647640 View attachment 1647641

Could you explain this cross checking technique a little bit. I am not quite understanding why the ID number would be lower.....

 

[Foot hill]

Thats a beautiful seated dime.

Only seated dime I have found is so smooth its barely recognizable.



Could you explain this cross checking technique a little bit. I am not quite understanding why the ID number would be lower.....

Sure!
With the Deus you have ability to change frequencies.

Depending on the coil you have I have the original 9 “ that goes from 4kHz, 8, 12 and 17 kHz
Each of those frequencies will display slightly different ID numbers on a given target.

Higher the frequency the more compressed the numbers are in the upper conductivity range and I believe they are more compressed on the lower conductivity range with lower frequency.

Some people didn’t like this because as you switched frequencies your number scale would change making learning Id numbers more complex
so XP came out with a “ID normalizing” feature that you can turn on or off.
But..
The fact that the different frequencies give different numbers is really helpful with Identifying certain targets

Example
12 kHz in my soil silver coins come in at 89-95 range (depending on size/depth and soil conditions)
So do deep rusty iron objects
But in 4k silver comes in around the low 80’s
And iron stays around the 90-95 range.
So if I get a good target that IDs silver numbers and I want to verify that it’s not a rusty bent square nail i’ll quickly change frequencies and look for the number drop

if it drops
I’ll dig that target up extra carefully !
because at least I know it’s not going to be iron/ more than likely.
A lot of people choose to run the Deus with ID normalized on which makes the numbers the same all across the board
I’ve just found that it tells me so much about what’s in the ground crosschecking frequencies with “Id normal off”
Basically I use the lowest frequency (4k) to make sure a good sounding target (in 12k) is not iron.