scaupus
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There's no old ground within maybe 20 miles of my house, and by old, I mean pre-1965. I was getting sick of hunting up clads all the time. I had hit the beach a few times while away from home, and a couple of older parks, but again, found only clads. I had also hunted my dad's yard and swale 2 or 3 times when I visited him back in town; he has a 1920's house about 35 miles away. I had anticipated finding a silver coin or two there, but again, found only clads and copper pennies, not even a wheatie. I was wondering if MD'ing was worth the trouble in this part of the country. I decided to try my dad's one last time. I had a new tactic. I set the ACE 250 I'd recently scored at a yard sale for $20 to discriminate against every signal except dimes and quarters. I thought the welter of constant signals I'd encountered previously may have been getting in the way of finding silver coins. To my amazement and delight, I hit a beautiful 1944 Mercury dime in AU condition (IMHO) after only a few minutes. I then found my first half dollar (clad). I turned the corner and worked the adjoining swale and knocked myself out by finding another Mercury. Then I found a silver Roosevelt and a wheatie. I worked the entire area over again, even furtively hitting the neighbors' swales (got one stern look), but no more luck. I knocked off, pretty tired. Now, I remembered that the house I'd grown up in, which was about 3 miles south of my dad's, had a bus stop next to it on a grassy swale. That bus stop had always been there as long as I could remember, and that memory goes back to the 60's, and more fuzzily, to the late 50's. I had taken that bus many times myself as a kid. I determined to hunt it. The "new owners" who had bought the place from my folks in the early 80's, were still there, and had erected a 6' masonry wall along that side of the property, so I knew they would not notice me there, and I am so careful about putting the dirt and sod back in place that they 'd never notice anything amiss later. I should mention, that here, as probably elsewhere, the swale does not belong to the adjoining property owner, though they are required to maintain it. Anyway, after just a few minutes of searching, I dug up a 1963 Roosevelt.The coin shows moderate wear, so it probably was in circulation a couple of years at least; it must have been dropped just as silver coinage was disappearing from circulation, in the mid to late 60's, and just about the time I would have been old enough to be taking the bus, mowing the grass, and of course, just generally passing by that spot around my house.
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