tford62
Jr. Member
Hi, everyone. I haven't posted in a while, but then again, I haven't found any silver in about 10 days. I don't know where to start this post and I apologize in advance for its length and how sappy I will probably get in telling my story. The reason I have probably always wanted to get a metal detector is because my Grandfather had one when I was a kid in the late 70's or maybe a tad earlier. He passed in '93 and just 18 months or so ago my Grandmother did also. My Mom is now living at the old farm house. I remember when I was a kid Grampa found a few old coins on the farm with the old detector, I remember a couple of wheats and I think one Indian head penny. Today, my wife and daughter and I piled into the Mustang (red, '65 convertible) to go to the farm for lunch with Mom and I decided to take my detector with us in case I had a chance to detect up there again. I have only had my M6 since May and have detected the yard at the farm 3 or 4 times since, but have not found a single coin. I have found lots of junk from my Great Uncle Bob's blacksmith's shed that was on the grounds and just junk everywhere in the yard. It seems every sound is either iron or even if it rings up as a penny or dime it is either a hunk of copper or a very large piece of iron which seems to confuse the M6 into thinking it is a coin. Some of this stuff is literally a foot down, but I am fool enough to have dug it all. I know the farm house dates from either 1829 or 30, so there must be some very old coins in the ground there somewhere, or so I think, but haven't been able to prove it. Well, just before lunch my Mom asked me to move something out from the way so we can get to more of Grampa's old stuff that he kept, bottles he dug, rocks he "hounded" and stuff he kept. There in the middle of that mess was the old detector, the detector I had asked my Mom about having before I went and bought my own this spring. It is just as well I couldn't find it, you wouldn't believe how chintzy it is, it did work when we put new batteries in it, but how you could hear a good sound with it, I will never know, but then again it might not have been in the same working order it was back in the day. I didn't remember it being such a cheesey piece of crap, just I think it says treasure prospector on the side of it and looks like it was something from Ronco. LOL I went out of the farm house and was actually going to do something else, but ended up grabbing the detector out of the car. I dug 5 good sounds and came up with slag from the smith or iron at every hole. I was digging my sixth hole and trying to get under a root to the big old willow tree when they yelled to me that lunch was ready. I called that I would be in just a sec and kept digging and reaching in under the root, I was down over 6 inches at this point. I nearly gave up and filled the hole in and went to lunch as I knew they were waiting on me, but I dug down some more and reached in to remove the new loose dirt and waved it in front of the coil, no sound, reached in for the last of the loose dirt and passed my fist in front of the coil...I got the sound in my earphones that told me I had the target in my hand. I let some of the dirt go onto the drop cloth and looked, no target, passed my fist in front of the coil again and it was still there in my hand, I let some more of the dirt go onto a new spot on the cloth, and then I could see it, a coin, caroded (sp?) green and the size of a penny. I picked it up and this 45 yr old man went running for the house like a 9 yr old boy yelling, "I did it, I did it, I finally found a coin here on the farm!" I washed it up well enough as I washed up myself for lunch, to tell it was a 191? Lincoln cent. One of my earliest yet, no matter if it ended in 0 or 9. My Grandfather had been born in 1915 and though he could have lost the coin, anything that old might very well have been lost by his father, Carol. After lunch I went back out and dug a couple of more iron bits and all the foil/ring hits I got out by Gram's blueberry bushes, even though I knew they would just be bits of the tinfoil that she used to hang in the bushes to scare off the birds from eating all her high bush blueberrys. I dug them all with tears in my eyes, like my Grandmother was speaking to me from above, telling me she didn't raise any quiters, that you never know, a ton of friends and neighbors had been allowed to pick a pail of berries there over the years, it could be a ring. Then finally near the house I got a good and deep quarter signal. I dug and dug and was down nearly 7 inches with my Mom standing over me wondering if I was ever going to come out of there with something or if I was just going to dig to China. And then I saw it, a big silver rim, or bigger than I have ever seen in a plug I had dug. Maybe I should say it was a medium rim, since it was a quarter and not a half or a dollar, but a big silver rim to me for sure. I had visions of a SLQ or a seated Liberty, but it was not to be. It was "merely" a 1953 silver Washington quarter in pretty decent shape. A coin my Grandfather had and lost I am pretty sure. I found it near the house, as I said, and I think I can even guess when he lost it as every fall he would put felt and tar paper up around the foundation for insulation. I am thinking it was lost when he was either scootched down nailing it on or pulling it off in the spring. I got to thinking about it and even though there must be older, more valuable coins there on the farm and someday I hope to find a few of them in amongst all the iron, tinfoil, and horsehoes, no coin I find will ever mean more to me than the Washington quarter that came from Grampa's pocket. If you have read this whole thing I want to thank you, it was sappy I know, but digging today and thinking of my Grandparents and finding their pocket change made this fool's day. Good luck out there and I hope you found more than just money on your hunts today too.
T.
T.
Amazon Forum Fav 👍
Upvote
0
Good luck on your return~
T.
