time4me
Bronze Member
- Aug 30, 2005
- 1,296
- 44
- Detector(s) used
- E-Trac, Explorer II, Excalibur
Is this heaven? It's Iowa. I could have sworn it was heaven...
"Is there a heaven?"
"Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true."
"Maybe this is heaven."
A very moving exchange of words between Ray Kinsella and the ghost of his father John Kinsella in one of my all time favorite movies "Field of Dreams."
I thought it a fitting introduction to this post, as I believe that finally, in over 30 years of metal detecting, I have found my own field of dreams.
Most places I go to hunt produce trash, memorial cents and clad. Oh, every now and again there would be a random silver coin or piece of jewelry, but most of the time it was modern stuff. Obviously I was not going to the right places.
Last year, through much research, I discovered the "campgrounds" which I have been hitting about a day per week for the past nine or ten months. The campgrounds have produced over 40 silver coins during this past year, and over a dozen rings and hundreds of other interesting items. While it has been the best place I've ever metal detected, I still do not consider it a "honey hole", "glory hole", or "field of dreams". There is tons of trash there, and I've probably detected over 150 hours there to produce the finds I mention above.
But now I do believe I have found my true field of dreams. Countless hours of research have resulted in the identification of a piece of private property not too far from home, that I knew had tremendous potential. I met the owner about 6 months ago, and have kept in touch with him over this time as we share some common interests. About a week ago, the property owner invited me out to his property for the first time to look at a project he was working on. Once I was there, he asked if I had my metal detector in the car, and if so I should try detecting in one of the grassy areas near his home. It turned out I did have the detector in my car as I was planning on driving out to the campgrounds for a few hours of detecting after I met with him. Not one to pass up an opportunity, I grabbed my detector and started scanning the area in a random pattern to see if it did in fact have potential.
Signals were everywhere! The first signal I dug was a 1944 wheat cent. Then came another 40’s wheat cent. Then another, and another. Wheat cents were turning up everywhere, so I knew that there must be silver here.
After about 30 minutes of digging mostly wheat cents, several memorial cents and literally no trash, I got a faintly higher tone on the E-Trac, and out popped a silver Roosevelt dime. Shortly after that came another Rosie, and then a Merc. I was quickly running out of time, so I started skipping over the penny signals to try to cherry pick the silver (hoping that I would have an opportunity to come back again to pick up the rest of the detections). This strategy allowed me to pick up three more silver coins in very short order before having to pack up and get home in time to take my kids to the dentist.
For my 90 minutes or so of work, I found 33 wheat cents with the oldest being 1918 (most of the rest were in the 40’s and 50’s), only 8 memorial cents, one clad dime, one silver quarter, 2 Mercury head dimes, 3 silver Roosevelt dimes, and one aluminum play dime. A new silver record for me – 6 silver coins in one hunt (not to mention the 33 wheat cents)!!!
Here are the only non-coin items I found during this hunt:
And here is the silver:
Well, the property owner was comfortable with me doing the detecting on his property, and he said it would be ok to come back again. So, yesterday I went back out there to do some sampling in another grassy area near his house (still planning to revisit the first section to grid it much more carefully and not skip over the penny signals). This second hunt had very similar results to the first, except that I broke my very recently set silver record by pulling 8 silver coins out of the ground! Again, I ran out of time and spent the last 20 minutes or so skipping signals to cherry pick silver. Unbelievable! I have not covered either of these two grassy areas well at all, and there are many, many signals that I skipped over in the areas that I did randomly walk through. His property is immense, and these two grassy areas I sampled are a tiny part of the grounds.
Yes, I believe I have finally found my field of dreams. Little trash, incredible older to newer coin ratio, exclusive permission from the property owner, and little chance it has been detected in the past. Funny, I actually did dream about the property quite a bit last night, so I think my nickname for it will stick.
Yesterday’s finds include 10 wheat cents, 7 memorial cents, 3 clad dimes, 1 silver quarter, 4 Mercury heads, and 3 silver Roosevelt dimes. I also found a very cool half-dollar sized good luck token, and old wood handled pocket knife, and small gold-tone pendent with no markings:
So for two short hunts at this new site, I have had two silver records, totaling 14 silver coins!
I’ve already made arrangements with the property owner to return on Tuesday when I’ll be able to spend a good 3 to 4 hours there!
Thanks for reading and looking, and best of luck to all of you on your next outing!
Happy Hunting,
Jim
"Is there a heaven?"
"Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true."
"Maybe this is heaven."
A very moving exchange of words between Ray Kinsella and the ghost of his father John Kinsella in one of my all time favorite movies "Field of Dreams."
I thought it a fitting introduction to this post, as I believe that finally, in over 30 years of metal detecting, I have found my own field of dreams.
Most places I go to hunt produce trash, memorial cents and clad. Oh, every now and again there would be a random silver coin or piece of jewelry, but most of the time it was modern stuff. Obviously I was not going to the right places.
Last year, through much research, I discovered the "campgrounds" which I have been hitting about a day per week for the past nine or ten months. The campgrounds have produced over 40 silver coins during this past year, and over a dozen rings and hundreds of other interesting items. While it has been the best place I've ever metal detected, I still do not consider it a "honey hole", "glory hole", or "field of dreams". There is tons of trash there, and I've probably detected over 150 hours there to produce the finds I mention above.
But now I do believe I have found my true field of dreams. Countless hours of research have resulted in the identification of a piece of private property not too far from home, that I knew had tremendous potential. I met the owner about 6 months ago, and have kept in touch with him over this time as we share some common interests. About a week ago, the property owner invited me out to his property for the first time to look at a project he was working on. Once I was there, he asked if I had my metal detector in the car, and if so I should try detecting in one of the grassy areas near his home. It turned out I did have the detector in my car as I was planning on driving out to the campgrounds for a few hours of detecting after I met with him. Not one to pass up an opportunity, I grabbed my detector and started scanning the area in a random pattern to see if it did in fact have potential.
Signals were everywhere! The first signal I dug was a 1944 wheat cent. Then came another 40’s wheat cent. Then another, and another. Wheat cents were turning up everywhere, so I knew that there must be silver here.
After about 30 minutes of digging mostly wheat cents, several memorial cents and literally no trash, I got a faintly higher tone on the E-Trac, and out popped a silver Roosevelt dime. Shortly after that came another Rosie, and then a Merc. I was quickly running out of time, so I started skipping over the penny signals to try to cherry pick the silver (hoping that I would have an opportunity to come back again to pick up the rest of the detections). This strategy allowed me to pick up three more silver coins in very short order before having to pack up and get home in time to take my kids to the dentist.
For my 90 minutes or so of work, I found 33 wheat cents with the oldest being 1918 (most of the rest were in the 40’s and 50’s), only 8 memorial cents, one clad dime, one silver quarter, 2 Mercury head dimes, 3 silver Roosevelt dimes, and one aluminum play dime. A new silver record for me – 6 silver coins in one hunt (not to mention the 33 wheat cents)!!!
Here are the only non-coin items I found during this hunt:
And here is the silver:
Well, the property owner was comfortable with me doing the detecting on his property, and he said it would be ok to come back again. So, yesterday I went back out there to do some sampling in another grassy area near his house (still planning to revisit the first section to grid it much more carefully and not skip over the penny signals). This second hunt had very similar results to the first, except that I broke my very recently set silver record by pulling 8 silver coins out of the ground! Again, I ran out of time and spent the last 20 minutes or so skipping signals to cherry pick silver. Unbelievable! I have not covered either of these two grassy areas well at all, and there are many, many signals that I skipped over in the areas that I did randomly walk through. His property is immense, and these two grassy areas I sampled are a tiny part of the grounds.
Yes, I believe I have finally found my field of dreams. Little trash, incredible older to newer coin ratio, exclusive permission from the property owner, and little chance it has been detected in the past. Funny, I actually did dream about the property quite a bit last night, so I think my nickname for it will stick.
Yesterday’s finds include 10 wheat cents, 7 memorial cents, 3 clad dimes, 1 silver quarter, 4 Mercury heads, and 3 silver Roosevelt dimes. I also found a very cool half-dollar sized good luck token, and old wood handled pocket knife, and small gold-tone pendent with no markings:
So for two short hunts at this new site, I have had two silver records, totaling 14 silver coins!
I’ve already made arrangements with the property owner to return on Tuesday when I’ll be able to spend a good 3 to 4 hours there!
Thanks for reading and looking, and best of luck to all of you on your next outing!
Happy Hunting,
Jim
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