Any luck with amusement parks?

[bergie]

I put a call in to an amusement park that dates to early 1900s and had a call back today. I really didn't expect them to let me detect because of liability and other issues, but my strategy was to tell them if I made lots of interesting finds, we could approach the local or regional paper about a story on the history of the park and tie it in and they would get good PR. The guy was nice enough and surprised me by saying they had people come through in the past with detectors, but because of legal stuff, they discontinued it. Has anyone had permission to search and active amusement park either in season or out of season? I gather you'd have to know the owners or get lucky with someone very nice. (By the way, he told me they didn't find much with detectors in the past and I was thinking, yes, as far as you know...)

 

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[Silverseeker]

I hit modern fairgrounds about a month ago hoping to find some gold jewelry lost on the rides. The guy in charge told me yes before I was done asking.

The only problem was all those thousands of flashing lights you see on everything in amusement parks. I found out that they were everywhere in the ground and had the same VDI as gold. I gave up on the gold, and dug coins for a few hours. I haven't been back since.

 

[jeff of pa]

I only know of one Amusement park, in my area which definately allowes detecting, but only in the off season "KNOBELS GROVE" however I'v never searched it. <> Your Mistake, may have been mentioning Publicity, as he may have been afraid, the publicity would bring others to the site for the same purpose. and he may just consider such a prospect a "HEADACHE" <> when bringing up publicity, it's best to access the situation first, to decide if Publicity of this type, would be a benifit or Pain in the A$$ to the owners. <> This Last Summer a Friend & I approched a land owner who had his property up for sale. the site contained a mid 18th. Century Moravian Church & Cemetery & a French & Indian war Blockhouse. He gave Me his Phone number, said he needed to think it over, & to give him a call, the day before we are ready to do it. When I called him back, the first thing he said was : " I thought it over and, what if you were to find something historically valuable ? and someone from the historical society, decided to declare this a historical site" ? I had to assure him, anything we found would stay between He & us, in order to get the permission. <> I don't know, maby the mention of publicity on your part was a last resort, which, at that point was worth the try, but, like I said, it's best to access the situation first. <> it may have been better if you had told him, you would have givin him anything, connected to the history of the park, in case he wanted to put a display somewhere. <> when I first started getting publicity for my finds at the LAKE I told you about, Radio Shack & Wallmart sold out of detectors, luckly for me, 90% of them searched like KRAMER on Seinfeld, and the LAKE COMMITTEE wanted the Publicity, you just never know. ,>? Just a thought HH ; Jeff

 

[bergie]

Good points. Thanks. Actually, I looked up Knobels recently, but it's a little far away from me. Interesting to know they allow detectorists. I probably wouldn't want to go if it's been well hunted. Do you know if much has been found there and how come you havn't tried it?

 

[jeff of pa]

altho it's only about 20 mile away, I just havn't gotten there yet. SO MANY SITES, pulling me SO MANY DIRECTIONS. plus the fact it is used, means clad, Lots of Clad. just not into it. probably a mistake on my part, but, that's just how I am lately :lol <> A few years ago, one of the Treasure Clubs, used to use it for there Annual club hunts. I never made it up to watch. if I knew the exact field they used, I'd like to search that, because they probably left a few goodies over the years, however ; read my first 2 sentences again :lol .

 

[bergie]

I hear you on clad. I'm spoiled by finding silver. The only kind of clad I like are wheaties, because it's a sign I'm likely to find silver.

 

[jeff of pa]

the Clad I hate the most are the new pennies. Even when I know before I dig, that its another %$#@&*^ Rotted, Zinc Cent, I still have to dig. just to get it out the way. at least when I get a can-tab signal, there is a chance it may be something worthwhile

 

[bakergeol]

Well here is my 2 cents worth
When virgin these sites were the most productive coin sites in existence(Also the most trashy). At one virgin site (close to 40 years ago) I recovered thousands of silver coins from a carnival site(penny arcade)no larger than a house foundation. So these sites have been hit hard for many decades. The folks who run these sites today probably have no idea about the incredible amount of digging conducted on these sites 40 years ago. Permission to dig was simply not a problem back then.

Perhaps it is time to think outside the box. The most productive areas were where money exchanged hands-eg. concession stands- penny arcade sites. Concentrate on these. The trashy the better. Normal folks quickly tire of digging modern trash and believe me the amount of aluminium you find will be incredible. If I could ever be granted permission to use a shovel and inclined screen over these small areas I would(Just wishful thinking).Now do something? dozens(or hundreds) of other detectorists have not done. Remove all the trash and see what has been masked by all that trash for countless decades. Look for deep stuff as those early BFOs were depth limited.

There was a famous test done a few years ago on trash masking. A small high useage area was completely detected out using various detectors with discrimination. Then a PI(no discrimination) was employed and all targets were dug. An incredible amount of rings and coins were found and they were simply hidden by iron masking.

Perhaps it is too much work to remove all the trash at selected locations considering the incredible amount of trash present? I would personally consider iron trash removal? only on earlier 19th century sites. However, remember you have picked a high profile coin site where probably a? hundred other detectorists have considered or actually have detected in and drastic steps are required.

Actually I would do research and detect where no one has swung a coil such as at an old picnic site as the amount of work awaiting you? at well known sites would be considerable.


Good Luck
George

 

[coinshtr]

Hey Bakergeol,
I found your responce very intriguing to the amusement park subject. What a thrill it must have been to recover that much silver. I have been using the whites xlt for 1-1/2 yrs. That is also when I started detecting. In that time I have managed 4 silver coins and 4 IH cents. That is it. As you can see I get frustrated a bit. The remainder of stuff is considerable for amounts of coinage but alas it is alot of clad. The silver I have found has come from a 150 yr old church lawn. 1907 Barber Dime at 3", 1904 IH at 2". The other IH's and silver were near surface under a mulch bed so someone obviously surfaced those for me when doing the flower bed.
What I am getting at is this. The yard is very small because of a lot of blacktop. About 30' X 20'. What this means to me is that with a few good days of digging I could dig every sound that comes from this yard. Naturally i have passed every target that i didnt feel was a good one. what do you guys think about this theory?

 

[Silverseeker]

Coinshtr, I'd spend some time digging "iffy" signals. After my first year detecting, I had about 20 wheats and 1 silver coin to show for it. I tried, and tried, and tried to get that silver. But it just wasn't comming. I was digging only good signals, leaving the pull tabs and junk behind. Most of the targets I dug was coins, and I thought I was getting good.

Then I dug a bunch of "iffy" signals to see what I was missing. At first, I dug a lot of trash and reinforced my belief that I was getting good at cherry picking. But then, my silver count started rising. I started digging deeper and older coins and rings, and began to see just what I had been missing. I also learned a great deal about my detector by digging those signals. Some sights don't have enough potential to dig every signal, but I'd reccommend digging anything that's remotely decent. You will be surprised.

 

[bakergeol]

Coinshtr
I agree with silverseeker- go back and dig those "iffy" signals. We all know that the deeper you go the more a VLF reads ground iron mineralization . Good items at depth will therefore start to read bad or "iffy" or toward iron.

Considering how small an area it is I would consider removing all surface iron. This is standard operating procedure in old prime coin areas that my friends employ. In areas that have been heavily hunted? they are finding seated coinage after removing surface iron and they are having fun. Again removing the iron mask. They are not finding quantity but quality.

Old church sites were my favorite and you may have a virgin site as these coin depths were well in the range of the old BFOs.? You need to dig deep (8") signals at this site. In addition check out other areas near this site which at one time could have been used- picnic areas?- parking areas? trees?

Just my 2 cents worth
George

 

[RON (PA)]

I was at Knoebel's once to ride the rides. Was thinking of hunting it over this past Thanksgiving, but it was too cold. I got verbal permisson to hunt the campground only. The only stipulation was not to dig with a back hoe or any other equipment of that size. I told the lady who gave me permission that I would fill in all of my holes & that try I to return (to the best of my ability) any personal property. She said that was fine. I'll try again after the season next year. Should be good hunting.

RON(PA)

 

[coinshtr]

I certainly do appreciate your advice. Lord knows I will use all the help I can get. You both are correct in saying the i usually only dig the good signals that come across your ears like a beautiful horn as I do employ Tone ID on th xlt. Recently I learned that I may not be getting the depth at which you guys speak of. A few weeks ago was the first time that I actually hunted with somone. This fella was getting IH's routiinely at 7-8". He would call me over to sweep his target and I would be lucky if it would even let out the smallest of chirps. Normally I pass those right up. Since then I have been fooling with the settings to aquire more depth. I think now I am getting pretty good depth in discriminate mode. Herein lies the problem though. Until I do actually start digging those iffies, whatever an iffy sounds like, I will never know what the machine is telling me. I would love to speak to anyone who knows the XLT real well. If there is some way to actually speak to someone perhaps on the phone that would be real cool. I would pay fo the call.
Thanks again.
My email is : stevebob@fuse.net