lrgoodger
Full Member
- May 2, 2023
- 110
- 799
- Detector(s) used
- Whites 6000-D, Garrett GTA-1000, Minelab Sovereign, XP Deus I, Equinox 800, XP Deus II
I didn't mean to lie to you guys. I had forgotten about this. This spill was smaller than the one I got last week (4 pieces vs. 6 pieces), but it was indeed older. I hit this in a one room schoolhouse yard out near the road. It was in the early 1980s and I was running a White's 6000-D, which I typically had tuned to cut out pull tabs, which meant I was sacrificing nickels and probably fatty IHPs. I would most likely not have hit this spill had it not been for the large cent. That rang out nicely and I was pleased when it came out of the hole. I had not found very many (probably less than 5) at this early stage in my hunting career. I had by now learned to recheck my holes and when I did, I got a faint but good signal. I went back in twice to get the two fatty IHPs. Fortunately, these coins were in clean soil with no masking signals near them. I packed up and went home pleased, having scored another largie and my first 1859 IHP. As the years ticked by, I never forgot about that place and always wondered if I had left one behind. When I got a Minelab Sovereign in the early '90s and figured out how much better than the 6000-D it really was, I went back to the site. Sure enough, I had missed one. It was a few inches away from where the others had come out of one hole, but even deeper than they had been and out of reach of the 6000. By now I new about the 1864-L date, and wondered all the way home if I could have been lucky enough to have gotten one. I could see it was in good shape, but I didn't realize how good until I got it under a magnifying glass. After carefully removing the dirt, I could clearly see the L on the ribbon with the glass. What an amazing thing, I thought, to have left that in the ground for 15 years and went back to get it. I took it to the detector club meeting in Otsego, MI and it won find of the month. I think it was worth about $100 at that time, and much, much more now. I've had it for over 40 years and never realized it had a repunched date and doubled lettering until I took the photo below last year. The camera can also see all the little dings it has in it that I never realized were there because they can't be seen by the naked eye. There is a light green patina on it, but I washed it out with the bright light I used to take a good macro photo.
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