First Treasure Hunt!

[diabolical_crayon]

Been lurking for a few weeks, but I finally got around to trying this treasure hunting thing for myself. Decided to register.

I just got a Bounty Hunter 3300. Being a newbie, I tried to make an informed decision on what machine I should buy based on my budget and reviews/forum searching. Maybe I could have gotten something better, maybe not, but this is what I have. And I will master it.

I went to the local park today and I found a bunch of pennies, a dime, a nickle and about a zillion pull tabs. I consider this a success! Also great fun -- I've always been the tom-boy who likes to play in the dirt.

Now question time.

Right now I have to set the machine on the lowest sensitivity because it's beep-city otherwise and I can't sort any of it out right now. I hope that is normal. I'm itching to be able turn the sensitivity up so I can find some better/more interesting things, but it is my understanding that this will come in time as I get the feel for the machine. Is this correct?

Also, and I don't know if this should be directed at all MDers or just BHs, but I feel like I need to re-tune the ground balance a lot. My machine has a built-in pinpointing feature and it seems that when moving from one area of the park over to another area, the pinpointing gets screwed up until I re-adjust the ground balance. Is this normal? I live in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. I also came across a couple rocks that were setting off the metal detector in one area so perhaps the ground is extremely mineralized in this region or something along those lines?

Next question. When you get a signal that is there and then not there and back and forth like that, is this generally trash? My coin signals are beep-beep back and forth every time, but sometimes I can't even pin something down on where its at in the ground so finally I just give up on it. Hopefully I'm doing this right.

Thank you for your kind advice!

Jenna

 

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[mical66]

jenna,
i am far from being a expert , but this is what i have gathered in the year i have been doing this.
it seems you are 100% right that experience is the key here , without having the experience of multiple machines i can only use mine as a reference , on my Whites i have a scale , so if i get a solid beep every swing and the scale is 50% or higher every beep i dig it , if it skips beeps or the scale jumps up and down i move on to the next target.
Now that said , i have read of members here digging the faint signal that barely registers and find coins, so maybe in the future when i feel more comfortable with telling what is what just by the sound of the beeps / pings i will do the same, just seems if i dig up every noise no matter the scale i get tons of garbage and since i am doing this with my 12 yr old son , after about 30 min of trash digging he wants to go home , so i want to keep him interested .
As for pin pointing the item , again i can only go by my machine , i have a toggle trigger that when i get a hit i can use the trigger to sweep over the item and it helps zero in, its hard to explain. but this may help you , the man that sold me my MD has been a great help to me , he showed me when i get a hit to go over the area in a cross pattern to help find the center .

hope some of this helps .

 

[CoinHunterAZ]

Jenna,

As you continue to use your machine and make more finds you will become accustomed to what the machine is telling you. It just takes time to learn it. If you found coins on your first outing, YES! That was a success! You will be digging up some trash, but when you find the treasures it makes it all worthwhile. The rocks you describe sound like"hot rocks", commonly found in heavily mineralized areas. And sometimes iron trash can have a "halo" around it. It beeps, then when you disturb the soil it can disappear. Welcome to the forum, and please keep us posted on your progress!

 

[bigfoot1]

sounds like you are on the right track.I recently taught my buddy how to detect and this little trick helped.
I told him to dig every target untill he could id a given target 3 times in a row correctly.after that he could choose targets.he now really has become quite proffeciant,but it takes over 50 hrs on a machine to start nailing down its characturistics and quirks.hang in there

 

[diabolical_crayon]

I think I'm getting better. Or just lucky. I went out again yesterday to the same park. I'm pretty sure no one has ever hit it before. At least not the area I have been searching -- I'm thankful to have such an area to learn. I dug four coins in a row! I know eventually I will go back and dig those iffy signals, but I was trying to dig solid leads. I turned up the sensitivity a notch and yesterday I found quarters! Why the quarters are deeper I have no idea, but they were. I don't think there's anything very old in this park, the town's history is pre-revolution but not officially incorporated as a town until 1947. I do believe I am in a 'newer' area. But who knows, maybe there are some old coins hidden down there somewhere. But I can't wait to get better because at the very tippy-top of West Virginia my research has shown me there was an amusement park opened in the last 1800s and closed in the 1970s. Today, Route 30 runs through it; however, I saw (on google earth) that right on the edge on non-disturbed ground, there is a church with land that use to belong to this amusement park! Oh my goodness I hope they allow me to search that area in the future because with the 'highway' land being property of the state of West Virginia I'm pretty sure I'll get a great big NO on searching. But who knows. What do you think? I saw some people on here who found some real doozies from old amusement parks! I love history and I love coins -- where has this hobby been all my life!!

Thank you for the encouragement! You guys rock!

Jenna

 

[diabolical_crayon]

Oh, one more thing. It may be true that this soil is extremely mineralized, that explains my 'treasure rocks' as I like to call them. My quarters that I dug are orange... and I want to clean them. But any coin collector knows that cleaning them with abrasion is the last thing on the planet you want to do. My quarters are only from the 1970s but I still don't want my little treasures to be orange. I soaked them in hot soapy water. Didn't help. Now they are soaking in oil. That doesn't seem to be helping, either. Does anyone have experience with cleaning methods and then, say, went and got their lovely treasure graded to any success? I certainly do not want to ruin the first goodie I find, maybe actual silver won't turn like this, but searching the forums I see people say to use a soft brush and what not. Is it really okay to do that?

 

[CoinHunterAZ]

Jenna,

The silver I dig out of the ground here comes out as bright & shiny as the day it was dropped. I hunted some spots in Albuquerque where some silver came out tarnished. I wouldn't worry too much about cleaning your clad newer coins, you aren't going to ruin the value (usually just face value). Just be really careful with the old silver, it is softer and scratches easier. Good luck on getting permission on the Church property. I have been granted permission at every Church I ever asked, and at one I found an old gun buried at the base of a big spruce tree!

 

[diabolical_crayon]

Whew! Okay, glad to hear everything I dig out of the ground won't be utterly destroyed. Still having issues with that pin-pointer. I stood there like an idiot reading the manual and doing exactly what it told me to tune the dang thing. But it will register on clumps where I know there's no metal. Maybe I do not understand the science of it. Do my crappy clad coins break down in the soil somewhat like a rusted piece of iron does and so my pin-pointer acts stupid? I make really nice plugs and then I can't find the coin!!!

Here are the results of my first two hunts (about 4 hours total [the zillion pull-tabs not pictured]) Going out again on Thursday!

 

[mical66]

Jenna,
i have not found silver yet either , but i hear you will know if its silver for sure.
and i think silver quarters were early 70s and before ,, i think.

 

[G.A.P.metal]

Jenna,
i have not found silver yet either , but i hear you will know if its silver for sure.
and i think silver quarters were early 70s and before ,, i think.

1964 and before

 

[mical66]

ty GAP

 

[CoinHunterAZ]

When you start finding wheat pennies you are getting close to finding silver coins.

 

[lastleg]

Jenna, what would be most useful to you is a hand held pinpointer. After you dig use the pinpointer
in the hole to see if metal is there or in the dug soil. If not move on, a big time saver.