1st Silver half, couple of mercs and some CW relics

[silversweeper]

I recently got permission to detect a couple of houses I'd been eyeing. One of the homes was built in 1900 and the other is older (and a 3rd across the road is older still but I havn't contacted the owners there yet, saving that one for last). They are both on a hill which is within sight of known civil war encampment areas. I thought that just maybe there might be Civil War relics laying about here waiting for me to find them! Of course I was also hoping to add more silvers to this year's total. The first property I detected for a few hours on Monday. The yard is absolutely full of modern pennies! I dug a few but mostly fished around them for the dimes and quarters (I imagined kids doing cartwheels in the yard or something because there were a lot of little pocket spills). There are also a truck-load of nails and other trash spread over the property so I had to use the 6x8 SEF coil. After a few hours of frustration I had a bit over a dollar in change, a pouch full of rusty nails, and other assorted trash. Just when I was about to give up I got a steady 1-38, 1-40 signal (settings are deep and fast on, medium/high gain and manual sensitivity at 28/30). To be honest I wasn't excited at all and just figured it was more trash. Even when I dug the plug and saw the large silver-gray disc inside I was thinking aluminum token...until I saw the eagle and some letters from "Half Dollar". I know I said OMG a few times and then thanked Him profusely! My very first silver half and it's a 1941s Walker, not ancient but still big silver. I swung the etrac for another half hour and then headed home.
Tuesday I got permission to hunt the other house and went to check it out for a few hours. I had/have high hopes for this yard as it is fenced in and the last occupants lived there for many, many years. Not much to post about though but it may have been the drizzle and wet ground affecting my detecting. I ended up with a '44D merc and some more modern coinage. I'll try that yard again in the near future.
Back to the first yard again this afternoon and 1st signal was a large flattened coin that may have been a large cent, with a couple of holes punched thru it. Later, and largely by mistake, I dug a 44 cal. CW pistol bullet. So...I opened up my discrimination pattern a bit more to allow bullets in. Close by and 8 to 9 inches deep was an ancient and gnarled man's sterling silver ring with some remains of 14K Rolled gold plated decorations on the sides (not much left of those). It's marked Sterl. 14K R.G. inside. Not sure but doubt if it's as old as Civil War, could be. Within a few feet was another little pistol bullet, this one a .36 cal St. Louis Arsenal bullet if I'm not mistaken, and within about 7 inches of that was a nice big toe tap. Started feeling pretty darned good about this yard, a silver half the first day and now this! Started circling that area and found a 1919 merc and then a small buckle probably from a bridle and most likely Civil War era. Not long after that I get another 44 cal bullet. As my search area got wider I started getting back into the modern coinage again and hit a 12/46 signal, figured I may as well dig that quarter since it wasn't too deep. Out pops my first dug Sacagawea dollar coin. And that was about it for the day. Needless to say I am very excited about getting back there. I didn't dig a lot of lower conductive signals because I was trying to cherry pick but now that I know there was at least a small CW camp there I'll be looking for buttons and other relics next time.

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[Sparky the Wonderdog]

The two bullets kind of look like colts, but the one on the right is odd and familiar. I'll check.

[p2c]

Congratulations on the nice find and your first silver half.

The only silver half I got (a Barber) rang up 1-41 on my E-trac, like yours, which is interesting. Most compiled lists give Etrac as registering halfs at the FE 7-12/ CO 46-47 range. They also say that silver dollars ring up 1-40 to 1-42. Interesting and goes to show numbers aren't always reliable. I can also tell you weren't using the factory 'coins' pattern, because you would have never heard that with that pattern. Glad you decided to dig that 1-40...

[KyFreeBird]

Great finds !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like you found a virgin site !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[silversweeper]

The two bullets kind of look like colts, but the one on the right is odd and familiar. I'll check.

That bullet is a .36 cal St. Louis Arsenal bullet, my first. The 44 cal.s I have several of.

[silversweeper]

Congratulations on the nice find and your first silver half.

The only silver half I got (a Barber) rang up 1-41 on my E-trac, like yours, which is interesting. Most compiled lists give Etrac as registering halfs at the FE 7-12/ CO 46-47 range. They also say that silver dollars ring up 1-40 to 1-42. Interesting and goes to show numbers aren't always reliable. I can also tell you weren't using the factory 'coins' pattern, because you would have never heard that with that pattern. Glad you decided to dig that 1-40...

Not only were the numbers not reliable on this half, the tone was more "penny" than silver and that really had me convinced it was trash. The soil in the yard is playing some tricks on some of the signals, I think. There are a lot of numbers off in one direction or another. And...to be honest, I've not used any of the factory programs since soon after I got my etrac. I have a couple of patterns I downloaded from the exchange and a few that I've "tweaked" myself. I have one that I use for sites where I'm mainly looking for coins/high conductive targets, and a couple that I use to look for CW relics. One has very little discrimination, just a bit on the top and bottom lines to knock out nails & small ferrous stuff, the other has a bit more discrimination for the trashier sites such as this yard. Next time around I'll be using the more open pattern with Two tone ferrous and will dig some of the lower conductors.
HH

[jewelerguy]

great finds. I sure do love those walkers

[worldtalker]

OOOO, PRETTY LADIES God Bless Chris

[joeyfresh]

I'm starting to be a believer in Missouri! Great finds

[jimmatt_43]

Love those Wlakers and Mercs.

[Nooberz]

Sweet Finds!!

[relicminer]

Nice!