49r Relics
Hero Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2008
- Messages
- 789
- Reaction score
- 686
- Golden Thread
- 2
- Location
- Gold Country (California)
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 2
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab CTX 3030, Garrett AT Pro, Makro Racer 2, Garrett Pro-Pointer, Detector Pro Grey Ghost headphones, Lesche diggers, Apex picks.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
- #1
Thread Owner
I feel just as weird posting this as I did when I found it. Me and my buddy Ron do all of our relic hunts as a team. Every once in a while, when they can, Andrew and Scott might come along but mostly it's me and Ron. He gets, genuinely happy and excited on all my finds as I do his. There is no competition between us as if there was, it would just change every week as we each have our equally epic moments. We're swing the same machines with the same settings at the same sites with 1000's and 1000's of hours on the CTX3030. When I found the 3 double eagles I was absolutely in shock, as any of us would be. I also felt some remorse as only Me and Andrew found coins that day and not Ron. Was awkward and we all wish he could have scored too. It's 99% Luck and 99% Skill so you never know what's going to happen at any site. So this find a week later at a completely different site was even more tough for me to feel happy about. Granted it was another find of a lifetime but it felt bitter sweet as I saw the look on both Andrew and Ron's faces when this coin was dug. It's hard to explain but this hobby for me is mostly about the camaraderie and the adventures.
So, getting back to that map I found that led us to the site where Andrew found the 1864 Half, followed by a $5 gold piece and 8 more pre-1897 halves, then me finding the 3 $20 Gold Pieces . . . when I first started to chart out the sites, I started to number them as we got permission and checked with the county for titles, etc. The first site I had marked "Site001" was where we found that epic coin spill. The next site ("Site002") we got to go quickly check a week later. It was loaded with iron and we could tell right away that no modern detector had ever been there and probably no detector had ever been there at all as it is not a site that is easy to find. We were all 3 there detecting for about 30 minutes when Andrew was complaining that his XP Deus was hitting on all big iron, he was a bit frustrated so we helped him try some different settings by comparing signals. He called me over to check a signal and while walking back to my original area, I heard a high conductor. It was shallow, loud and right next to the road, maybe only 10' from the pavement near a fence so I was definitely thinking aluminum can but it was a pretty tight signal so I dug it anyways. When I first saw the coin I wasn't sure what it was, it looked like a large token and I thought it was aluminum because for some reason it felt light to me. So to play a trick on Ron, I called him over and flashed it quickly to make him think it was a gold coin, to our astonishment, it was!!! I could't believe it, my eyes and senses were playing tricks on me, in my hand was another $20 Gold Piece!! We turned the video camera on and Ron read the date off as 1859 and I was completely floored, yet as I said above, I felt awkward and weird that I just found another one. I didn't let either him or Andrew make a big deal out of it, just tried to downplay it out of a bit of embarrassment. So I dug it, we looked at it, I put it away in my finds pouch and we went on like it never happened. We all checked the area very carefully for more! All I found after was a few relics. Ron found a nice, early seated dime (holed) and Andrew worked on settings. On the way home it sunk in to all of us what had just happened. I don't have the words to say anything other than I am very grateful and I still say, if you want to find the good coins and relics, do your research and find a site with lots of potential that nobody has ever hunted!
At the end of this video you will see a picture I sent Ron and posted to my Facebook page back in September when I opened my fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant and thought, that's a weird fortune to see in a fortune cookie, turns out it came true!!
Happy Hunting, Mark Dayton
So, getting back to that map I found that led us to the site where Andrew found the 1864 Half, followed by a $5 gold piece and 8 more pre-1897 halves, then me finding the 3 $20 Gold Pieces . . . when I first started to chart out the sites, I started to number them as we got permission and checked with the county for titles, etc. The first site I had marked "Site001" was where we found that epic coin spill. The next site ("Site002") we got to go quickly check a week later. It was loaded with iron and we could tell right away that no modern detector had ever been there and probably no detector had ever been there at all as it is not a site that is easy to find. We were all 3 there detecting for about 30 minutes when Andrew was complaining that his XP Deus was hitting on all big iron, he was a bit frustrated so we helped him try some different settings by comparing signals. He called me over to check a signal and while walking back to my original area, I heard a high conductor. It was shallow, loud and right next to the road, maybe only 10' from the pavement near a fence so I was definitely thinking aluminum can but it was a pretty tight signal so I dug it anyways. When I first saw the coin I wasn't sure what it was, it looked like a large token and I thought it was aluminum because for some reason it felt light to me. So to play a trick on Ron, I called him over and flashed it quickly to make him think it was a gold coin, to our astonishment, it was!!! I could't believe it, my eyes and senses were playing tricks on me, in my hand was another $20 Gold Piece!! We turned the video camera on and Ron read the date off as 1859 and I was completely floored, yet as I said above, I felt awkward and weird that I just found another one. I didn't let either him or Andrew make a big deal out of it, just tried to downplay it out of a bit of embarrassment. So I dug it, we looked at it, I put it away in my finds pouch and we went on like it never happened. We all checked the area very carefully for more! All I found after was a few relics. Ron found a nice, early seated dime (holed) and Andrew worked on settings. On the way home it sunk in to all of us what had just happened. I don't have the words to say anything other than I am very grateful and I still say, if you want to find the good coins and relics, do your research and find a site with lots of potential that nobody has ever hunted!
At the end of this video you will see a picture I sent Ron and posted to my Facebook page back in September when I opened my fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant and thought, that's a weird fortune to see in a fortune cookie, turns out it came true!!
Happy Hunting, Mark Dayton
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Green with envy! Dug
But I do know I was excited and amazed that another $20 popped out at one of our sites and truly happy for you!! But I will not lie, it would not have hurt my feelings if it showed up under my coil!! LOL
So I am dumbfounded by this but that's how it came out. I did lots of research on conservation of gold coins before we even thought about cleaning any of our gold coins from the big coin spill. 
