time4me
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2005
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- Detector(s) used
- E-Trac, Explorer II, Excalibur
Back from Michigan - more finds from the in-law's homestead (lots of pics)
I just got back yesterday from a family vacation at my wife's parents' house in Pinckney, Michigan. I had a new Whites DFX 300 shipped back to Michigan so it would be there for me to use during this 12 day vacation. My father-in-law has an XLT (I got him interested in detecting around 6 years ago), and my wife and I gave her nephew a Garrett ACE 250 for his high school graduation, so we all did a bit of detecting together over the past two weeks.
My in-laws live in an old farm house on 20 acres of land. The house was built somewhere in the mid 1800s as best we can determine. There is a barn foundation on the property, and another barn that is still standing. A lot of the property is very overgrown, including the field behind the standing bard that was an active farmers field for many years prior to my in-laws buying the property around 1970. I have been detecting the yard and the surrounding property every time we've visited for the past 10 years (probably at least 20 visits of anywhere from a 10 days to two weeks each). The finds were certainly more plentiful when I first started detecting the property, and now they are much fewer and farther between, but I am convinced there is still a lot to uncover here. My plan in the fall when we go back for a week at Thanksgiving is to get a small excelerator coil for the DFX, as the yard is still full of iron trash - lots of square nails, tin snips from aluminum siding, rusty old iron whatsits, etc. I will get either the 5 inch Excelerator or the 4.5 inch by 7 inch (any recommendations of which would be better in an old farmhouse yard with TONS of iron trash?).
Here's a picture of the old barn foundation and the newer barn (which is still an old stone foundation barn) - you can see how overgrown it is around the barn foundation. This fall when the weeds have died off or thinned out, I may try to clear out the inside of the foundation and detect in there. I have tried this in the past, and there are a million detections which sound like large iron junk. I am hoping that will a small search coil, I can isolate the individual detections and just start clearing it all out. The first two pictures below were just taken this past week, and the second two pictures were taken last fall when things were not so overgrown...
Here's what I was able to find over these past two weeks (I didn't take pics of the few iron relics that I left there in Michigan - looked like a couple of bridle rings and a chisel):
Only a few coins... the wheatie is a 1941...
Half of a mesh (like chainmail) change purse - I was so bummed I couldn't find it intact with coins still in it...
Every little square that makes up the mesh chainmail side of the change purse is a piece of metal with four tabs folded over and weaved into the hundreds of other little squares...
Here is a shot of most of what I unearthed during this trip (includes most of the same coins as above)...
I have no idea what the flat arrowhead shaped piece of rusted metal is, but liked the shape of it so I kept it with me...
The smaller pointed object next to it appears to be made of copper, but it is pretty dented up and I don't know what it is either...
The odd shaped coin is a flattened 1962 penny - most likely set on the railroad tracks by some mischievious young boy...
While digging I came across the almost perfectly round stone - so round that it made me wonder if it is some sort of indian artifact...
And in another hole I was digging I did find what I believe to be an arrowhead - or at least the beginnings of an arrowhead that probably broke while it was being made and discarded...
My wife's nephew scored a few coins with his new ACE 250, including these two indian heads...
The fact that he found these two indian heads in the yard that I've hammered over the past 10 years with either my White's Eagle Spectrum or the new DFX, tells me I need to work the yard with a much smaller search coil. The indian heads were not very deep, and he was able to pick them out from among the iron trash with the small oval search coil on his ACE 250.
Following are the worth mentioning items that have been found in the yard over the past 10 years:
My father-in-law unearthed this quarter while shoveling in his garden - no detector was even used here...
And with his detector, my father-in-law scored this awesome token...
... and this buffalo head...
... and these tiny little printing press dies...
My finds over the years include the following:
Very cool hubcap from a Nash...
Unidentifiable strange shaped metal object (two pieces of it anyways) with a "D." on one piece...
Token for an electric piano...
Mercury Head Dime - the only silver coin I have ever found on this property...
1837 Canadian Bank Token Half Penny - the oldest coin found on the property - found way out behind the field on a rise up to the woods behind the property...
Interesting commemorative coin/token - Light's Golden Jubilee - Thomas Edison...
Large copper or bronze good luck token...
Dog License from 1927...
Metal man figure that looks like it was probably driving a metal tractor toy at one point...
Piece of a pocket watch case...
And this piece of an unknown item...
I am certain that this property has many hidden gems yet. I am tempted to rent a farm tractor and plow under the field behind the barn so that it can be detected. The weeds are so thick in this field, even in the fall and spring, that I've never been able to get any detections out there - just way too much matted weeds between the coil and the ground. I also want to spend much more time out in the wooded area past the rise where I found the 1837 Canadian Bank Token half penny.
If anyone has any suggestions of how they'd attack the property, please share them. I'll post about this property again in the future - next time I detect there.
Jim
I just got back yesterday from a family vacation at my wife's parents' house in Pinckney, Michigan. I had a new Whites DFX 300 shipped back to Michigan so it would be there for me to use during this 12 day vacation. My father-in-law has an XLT (I got him interested in detecting around 6 years ago), and my wife and I gave her nephew a Garrett ACE 250 for his high school graduation, so we all did a bit of detecting together over the past two weeks.
My in-laws live in an old farm house on 20 acres of land. The house was built somewhere in the mid 1800s as best we can determine. There is a barn foundation on the property, and another barn that is still standing. A lot of the property is very overgrown, including the field behind the standing bard that was an active farmers field for many years prior to my in-laws buying the property around 1970. I have been detecting the yard and the surrounding property every time we've visited for the past 10 years (probably at least 20 visits of anywhere from a 10 days to two weeks each). The finds were certainly more plentiful when I first started detecting the property, and now they are much fewer and farther between, but I am convinced there is still a lot to uncover here. My plan in the fall when we go back for a week at Thanksgiving is to get a small excelerator coil for the DFX, as the yard is still full of iron trash - lots of square nails, tin snips from aluminum siding, rusty old iron whatsits, etc. I will get either the 5 inch Excelerator or the 4.5 inch by 7 inch (any recommendations of which would be better in an old farmhouse yard with TONS of iron trash?).
Here's a picture of the old barn foundation and the newer barn (which is still an old stone foundation barn) - you can see how overgrown it is around the barn foundation. This fall when the weeds have died off or thinned out, I may try to clear out the inside of the foundation and detect in there. I have tried this in the past, and there are a million detections which sound like large iron junk. I am hoping that will a small search coil, I can isolate the individual detections and just start clearing it all out. The first two pictures below were just taken this past week, and the second two pictures were taken last fall when things were not so overgrown...
Here's what I was able to find over these past two weeks (I didn't take pics of the few iron relics that I left there in Michigan - looked like a couple of bridle rings and a chisel):
Only a few coins... the wheatie is a 1941...
Half of a mesh (like chainmail) change purse - I was so bummed I couldn't find it intact with coins still in it...
Every little square that makes up the mesh chainmail side of the change purse is a piece of metal with four tabs folded over and weaved into the hundreds of other little squares...
Here is a shot of most of what I unearthed during this trip (includes most of the same coins as above)...
I have no idea what the flat arrowhead shaped piece of rusted metal is, but liked the shape of it so I kept it with me...
The smaller pointed object next to it appears to be made of copper, but it is pretty dented up and I don't know what it is either...
The odd shaped coin is a flattened 1962 penny - most likely set on the railroad tracks by some mischievious young boy...
While digging I came across the almost perfectly round stone - so round that it made me wonder if it is some sort of indian artifact...
And in another hole I was digging I did find what I believe to be an arrowhead - or at least the beginnings of an arrowhead that probably broke while it was being made and discarded...
My wife's nephew scored a few coins with his new ACE 250, including these two indian heads...
The fact that he found these two indian heads in the yard that I've hammered over the past 10 years with either my White's Eagle Spectrum or the new DFX, tells me I need to work the yard with a much smaller search coil. The indian heads were not very deep, and he was able to pick them out from among the iron trash with the small oval search coil on his ACE 250.
Following are the worth mentioning items that have been found in the yard over the past 10 years:
My father-in-law unearthed this quarter while shoveling in his garden - no detector was even used here...
And with his detector, my father-in-law scored this awesome token...
... and this buffalo head...
... and these tiny little printing press dies...
My finds over the years include the following:
Very cool hubcap from a Nash...
Unidentifiable strange shaped metal object (two pieces of it anyways) with a "D." on one piece...
Token for an electric piano...
Mercury Head Dime - the only silver coin I have ever found on this property...
1837 Canadian Bank Token Half Penny - the oldest coin found on the property - found way out behind the field on a rise up to the woods behind the property...
Interesting commemorative coin/token - Light's Golden Jubilee - Thomas Edison...
Large copper or bronze good luck token...
Dog License from 1927...
Metal man figure that looks like it was probably driving a metal tractor toy at one point...
Piece of a pocket watch case...
And this piece of an unknown item...
I am certain that this property has many hidden gems yet. I am tempted to rent a farm tractor and plow under the field behind the barn so that it can be detected. The weeds are so thick in this field, even in the fall and spring, that I've never been able to get any detections out there - just way too much matted weeds between the coil and the ground. I also want to spend much more time out in the wooded area past the rise where I found the 1837 Canadian Bank Token half penny.
If anyone has any suggestions of how they'd attack the property, please share them. I'll post about this property again in the future - next time I detect there.
Jim
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I found the info online somewhere, can't remember where though. The 1/2" diameter ones were worth $25.00 each, 3/4" dia. 50.00, 1" 75.00 each. 
Anything larger was extremely rare. My pouch contained over 75 marbles! 
. So goes the story of my life, never trust anyone who is smarter than you, when you don't know what you have......... Not GE
