thrillathahunt
Silver Member
Well, another old Calvert, Texas building floor dig is now history! We will look back on this one as a success, although a modest one, starting off with a bang but ending with a bust.
Albert (TEXAN Connection) was already there when I rolled up to the site at 7:30 AM Friday June 4th. Ah, I love the smell of an old musty building early in the morning!
We immediately began setting up his sifting machine and firing up the propane-powered generater. Needless to say, excitement was in the air, along with high hopes. After all, the day before after ripping out the old wood floor Albert found a few shield and V-nickels when he metal detected the area.
We started near the outer wall by the back door. There were three sections of 8' X 40' to dig and sift. I hadn't even finished putting on my gloves yet when Albert started moving dirt around with his shovel and said, "What's this?" I picked it out of his hand and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. "It's an old 8 Reales!" Upon closer inspection however we saw that it was an 1897-O Morgan dollar, in extremely fine condition I might add.
The initial going was rough. The three inches of rain that fell earlier in the week had made the dirt floor damp and the shoveled dirt turned into little mud balls when we tried to sift it. The machine started to sink and tilt.
We would dig it out, shore it up and it would eventually start sinking again! So I just started shoveling the dirt and throwing it around as Albert detected it. After finding the Morgan dollar, some Indian head cents, a couple of old keys, shield nickels, V nickels, a tar encrusted 1887 seated dime, three nice seated quarters, and other goodies we noticed that it was 6:15 PM and figured we would call it a day. Boy, time sure does fly when you're having fun!
I had work related business to attend to on Saturday, so Albert went solo. However after a couple of hours the screen on the sifter broke so he had to stop and take it home for repairs.
Sunday our hard work did not pay off. We still had over a section and a half to sift, which was not a problem by then because the dirt was much drier on the other side. The problem was THERE WAS NOTHING GOOD THERE!!! Rusty nails and little pieces of iron junk. Oh, and two decomposed Memorial cents. We figured the first section must have been where the cash register was.
and the floor had a big gap in it there.
Anyway, John the building owner, is now a proud owner of an XF+ 1897-O Morgan dollar that he will display under the glass counter of his soon-to-be remodeled Bar-B-Que restaurant in downtown Calvert, Texas.
By the way, he said he would get us into some other sites in the area to detect that have never been detected before! I love this hobby!
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLc5i2R1oA&h=7cdfe
Albert (TEXAN Connection) was already there when I rolled up to the site at 7:30 AM Friday June 4th. Ah, I love the smell of an old musty building early in the morning!
We immediately began setting up his sifting machine and firing up the propane-powered generater. Needless to say, excitement was in the air, along with high hopes. After all, the day before after ripping out the old wood floor Albert found a few shield and V-nickels when he metal detected the area.We started near the outer wall by the back door. There were three sections of 8' X 40' to dig and sift. I hadn't even finished putting on my gloves yet when Albert started moving dirt around with his shovel and said, "What's this?" I picked it out of his hand and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. "It's an old 8 Reales!"
Upon closer inspection however we saw that it was an 1897-O Morgan dollar, in extremely fine condition I might add.The initial going was rough. The three inches of rain that fell earlier in the week had made the dirt floor damp and the shoveled dirt turned into little mud balls when we tried to sift it. The machine started to sink and tilt.
We would dig it out, shore it up and it would eventually start sinking again! So I just started shoveling the dirt and throwing it around as Albert detected it. After finding the Morgan dollar, some Indian head cents, a couple of old keys, shield nickels, V nickels, a tar encrusted 1887 seated dime, three nice seated quarters, and other goodies we noticed that it was 6:15 PM and figured we would call it a day. Boy, time sure does fly when you're having fun!I had work related business to attend to on Saturday, so Albert went solo. However after a couple of hours the screen on the sifter broke so he had to stop and take it home for repairs.
Sunday our hard work did not pay off. We still had over a section and a half to sift, which was not a problem by then because the dirt was much drier on the other side. The problem was THERE WAS NOTHING GOOD THERE!!! Rusty nails and little pieces of iron junk. Oh, and two decomposed Memorial cents. We figured the first section must have been where the cash register was.
and the floor had a big gap in it there.Anyway, John the building owner, is now a proud owner of an XF+ 1897-O Morgan dollar that he will display under the glass counter of his soon-to-be remodeled Bar-B-Que restaurant in downtown Calvert, Texas.
By the way, he said he would get us into some other sites in the area to detect that have never been detected before! I love this hobby!
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLc5i2R1oA&h=7cdfe
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