Frozen Barbers and toes

doninbrewster · Jan 13, 2015

It warmed up to 26 degrees on Sunday so I thought I would head out while the weather was warm. A friend had just come back from France and like myself, wanted to take advantage of any opportunity to detect. Decided to try a new spot on the opposite side of a small lake where there was a hotel listed on the 1867 map. The site of the hotel is now private property and the hotel was probably torn down a century ago. It was quite cold and my toes started to freeze quickly along with my fingers. That's just part of detecting in the northeast. After about 20 minutes and several shotgun shells and an old lock I got a signal worth digging. Turns out to be a 1909 Barber dime. Found a wheatie not far away and concentrated on the area. Hunted for a while and got one signal that was not great, but worth digging. As the frost penetrated to different depths depending on the leaf and snow cover, this hole was frozen deeper. Narrowed the signal down to a small frozen clump of dirt and stuck it in my pouch. It was too frozen to get apart. After I got home I set it on my workbench to thaw out and forgot about it. Next morning I remembered the clump of dirt. I went out to the garage and broke it apart. Low and behold, a coin. Not just a coin, but another Barber dime, 1904. In the first 11 days of the year in 4 hunts I came up with 8 pieces of silver including a beautiful sterling match safe. Not a bad start for 2015