Disappointed by an old park...

[JeepGuy]

So I've been researching this park on the North side of town for a few days and decided to give it a try. It's in a "less shiny" area of town across from a group of cemetary lots, but seemed like it'd worth the trip. After all, the park had been there for 60 years or so. There is currently a neighborhood ballfield and an old water tower slab as well. After about 30-45 minutes I was overwhelmed by the consistant overload tone set off by the TONS of junk in the ground. It was unbelievable! There wasn't a 6-inch stretch in the park that didn't have pull tabs, bottle caps, or some type of wire just under the surface (or ON the surface). As I realized that I was pretty much doing community service for the thousands of folks that decided that the ground was the best place for their trash, my excitement died and I called it quits.
What's the general concensus when it comes to trashed areas like this? Just avoid? Any tips?

 

[oknorom]

Step one: get an Explorer. If you don't have one already, that is.

 

[JeepGuy]

Step one: get an Explorer. If you don't have one already, that is.

I'm actually running a Teknetics Delta... no luck on the extra grand for the Explorer.

 

[underarock]

If your looking for coins then lower sens. and notch out or disc. everything except the hi tone coins sections. Silver usually still hits pretty deep and strong with most detectors even with the sens. down. So its worth it to lose that inch or two of depth to not dig 100+ pulltabs/aluminum can bits. manually ground balance if you can find a metal free spot to do it in. If your going for gold then you might find it but not before you have a trunk full of pull tabs. Trash and maybe gold or almost definite stack of silver? (If the parks old and had been used enough over the years).

 

[crankyolman22]

I sympathize with you. There is a park like that near me that every once in a while I try to hunt but its just too trashy. My little coil helps but not enough to make it worth the effort. Maybe I'm just too easily discouraged but I have much better places to hunt. I do wish you lots of luck any way you go.

 

[Roger Mn.]

Practice on a dime, nickle and Indian cent. Something small brass. Listen to the tones.
Pinpoint these and you will see the small area they pinpoint in compared to a pop can.
Now go back to the park and pass up most of those junk signals which will be thousands.
If there is a woods near the park go there.Less junk.
Go around large trees and the shaded areas are a good place to start.
roger

 

[vanoldschool]

Claim that spot and dig everything, after alot of trash your bound too find a few keepers!!

 

[fortunehunter]

I drove an hour today to check out some very old abandoned homes in the country.I too was hitting junk every two inches.It drove Me crazy!I guess these Rednecks just threw everything out in the yard!As I was leaving the last place,I got a flat tire.Had to buy a new tire.Not very profitable.

 

[djm of PA]

sorry about the flat tire, but if you are in the sport for profit, I think you better find a new hobby

as for your original park, keep at it, as you clean away the surface junk, which could take a long time, you will start hitting those deeper/better targets. If a better machine is not in your budget, patience and lots of digging is about your only way to go. Good luck and keep us posted, if the park has age, you will find good stuff there, eventually.

 

[Getty]

Keep at it, dont get discouraged. Log that site in memory bank and move on. There may come a time (after more time/experience on your MD) to go back to that site. Remember as Lonewolf used to say , "the road to gold is paved with pull tabs".

 

[Ted Mac]

Having a machine with audio ID does help alot. I have two that have it, they're older than methuselah, but they work great especially in high trash areas. If I got a new machine it would have to have audio ID after 25yrs of detecting with audio ID, it would be tough to go without it. You may want to look for a used Teknetics Mark I or a Compass coinscanner pro.

 

[N.J.THer]

As other have said just have a little patience and it will pay off. If the park is not too far from the house I would try the following. These are my strategies from hunting urban parks for a few years with some great successes.

1. Step back and try to see the park layout from 60 years ago not today. Those parts that were used back then which may not be as popular today should have less modern trash. If you are hunting by the current ballfield then your digging years of trash from players and spectators.

2. If a bulk of the trash is pulltabs and twist caps from alcohol then move your hunting to the open spaces around the edge of the park. People drinking in parks don't like the cops to see them when they drive by. Warning: In parks with lots of drinking stay away from trees with puddles around them...they are the outside urinals.

3. If all else fails and you must hunt the trashy area you can try as stated playing with the discrimination on your detector to try to block out some of the junk. Keep in mind you will also be blocking out most of the gold finds. You can try getting a sniper coil (small coil) which will help you separate close targets. Or you can do what I do and pick a promising spot and dig everything until you get to the good stuff.

Last month out of a park I've been told by multiple people that have been hunting for 20-30 years was 'cleaned out'. I pulled a 1885 O Morgan Dollar, Flying Eagle cent, multiple Indian Heads including a fatty and a 2 cent piece. First time over a park I move much quicker then I usually like to hunt to try and find what I call the low hanging fruit. Older pieces that maybe closer to the surface then normal. Once i get a feel for the park then I decide on what areas to focus on then slow my swings down. Once I figure out the hot spots then I go super slow over that area. This may take many, many, many trips to accomplish.

Good luck
NJ

PS If you have old photos of the park these will be extremely helpful.

 

[ES66]

The best thing to do is dicriminate out the trash signals so you are only picking up signals in the coin range... I've been there before, and outside of digging everything, it's probably the best way to find some coins among all the trash... My guess is there are some good finds waiting for you at this park...

 

[njnydigger]

Honestly, I just try & avoid sites like that. Yes, there MIGHT be goodies under all that junk, but, I really choose NOT to spend many, many hours cleaning the site out for a 'what if' Light junk to moderate junk...bring it on. However, a place that's infested just isn't my cup of tea. In general though, here's some tips for trashy places...

1. SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW down. Then slow down some more. It's boring, it sucks, but, it HAS to be done. ESPECIALLY if you're using a concentric coil versus a DD. Pick one decent sized spot and hunt it real slow as best as you can.

2. Use the smallest coil you can get. The little 'shooter' coils are great.

3. Use a DD coil if your detector permits.

4. When clearing an area, dig ALL signals above iron. Why? First, you want to clean the place out. Second, target ID's are normally off (sometimes WAY off) when a lot of junk is present. Hard to zero in on one target. So the detector picks-up the fringe targets too. This affects the tones and numerical ID.

5. Keep a positive attitude. You will be digging a TON of mostly junk obviously. B-U-T, after you clear the place out, you'll have an almost untouched site to pick apart.

Good luck!!!

 

[jas314]

I feel your pain on this one. Unfortuneately I live in a town where metal detecting was taught at the college for many years, and parks especially it can be down right frustrating to next to impossible to pull out anything old as a result. So I am usually left hunting areas just like you described ,but I will share some tips I have learned over the years for doing just that. I know I am going to say alot of the same things others have said.
First off patience and experience will be your biggest ally. Go to some less trashy areas first. Maybe a newer park and just coin shoot for some modern clad to help learn your machine and what its telling you. And as everyone has said go SLOW swing your coil.
Second research find old photos, landscaping plans, try to find out what it was before it was a park etc.
Third when you are there think outside the box. Go next to concrete like curbs, picnic tables etc, maybe metal fences, light poles, woods behind the parks are some of my favorites. I have pulled some of my best old coins out of parks doing this as they tend to be places people avoid. When I get close to large metal objects I just turn my sen. down and get as close as I can without the machine going batty on me.
Really though I just have fun and set a small goal for myself and that is to pull atleast a wheat penny out everytime I go out. Another thing I do and this may sound nuts lol. I run my machine with no disc. The reason for this is. Disc esp in high trash cuts out alot of your good targets. The mach has to process whether to sound off or cut the target out and it slows it down alot, and alot of junk can simply overload it doing so. With no disc I am hearing every target in real time. Running your mach like this can be very overwhelming and frustrating at first, but it is well worth learning to do so even though it takes alot of time to learn it will give you a huge edge over others out there. Also it helps to have a multi tone mach to run like this as it will cut down on the frustration lol.
But be patient and really try to master your machine and the great finds will come. Overall just have fun. Happy hunting

 

[NOLA_Ken]

New Orleans has no laws against drinking in public, and as a result, there's not too many places where the ground isn't blanketed in caps and tabs. You just have to move slowly and listen to the machine. I feel your pain, I found the site of an old plantation house in what is now a park.....spent a few hours there and came up with nothing to show but caps, clad and can slaw. I plan to go back one day, but it was just too much especially in the heat to spend a day digging trash.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

Claim that spot and dig everything, after alot of trash your bound too find a few keepers!!

Yep..thats exaclty what I do to..I find a spot..and go over it pulling out specific targets..i go thru once and get all the 25c signals..then dime penny signals..and so forth..it seems to work for me ...good luck!

 

[JeepGuy]

First of all, thank you to everyone for the TONS of good advice.
I was able to find the park on historicaerials.com and the earliest shot available was from 1955. I will take all of this into account when adjusting for my new plan of attack:
focusing on park areas less popular today, dialing down the sensitivity, and discriminating out the junk.
I know this will probably take gold out of the equation, but maybe a silver find or two may build up my morale enough to dig more!
Thanks again & I'll post updates after I get a chance to go back!

 

[fishbone3d]

The Teknetics Delta is a good machine. Turn down the notch to almost zero. It will be really annoying, but it will do better. If it is chatty, turn down the sensitivity a little also. Remember, 9 times out of 10, it is the detectorist and not the detector. I know a man in his 80's who can whoop me and my 1200.00 detector ragged with his 1980's one. It just takes a lot of time and practice. As the others said, go really slow. When you find a somewhat interesting signal, pinpoint it and try it at different angles. You can get rid of a lot of nails, and Halo effect like that. Remember, that a trashy ball field is probably pretty virgin. Ask some of the folks about those trashy cellar holes, that produced colonial coins. When you go to a public area, and your detector is silent, then you should worry. Take it slow. Patience is the game in this hobby. Hope you find some goodies!

 

[George (MN)]

Sounds like a great place to detect, but you will certainly have earned whatever goodies you find.

Tips: Turn up discrimination to reject everything but high tone coins. Turn down the sensitivity. This is not just to avoid signals from items smaller than coins. It will help separate larger items, as the coil's detection will be limited to near the center. This will improve IDs.

Sweep slow to give both the detector & yourself time to react properly. You may only get shallow clad at low sensitivity, though there could be some old coins that are shallow.

Pick up the trash on the surface, at least in a small area. Use a screwdriver to probe & pry up objects if you can. Got a pinpointer? That would help separate things, too. The Cen-Tech from Harbor Freight is cheapest, about $20.

I had a Delta & tried it with low sensitivity in some fairly trashy areas & couldn't believe how many coins were on or near the surface.

The trash is good in a way because it may mean nobody has ever detected this park very successfully. Also, great amounts of trash make it unlikely the park has been heavily renovated with fill dirt.

What is a park like that's essentially undetected? One example is a guy who was detecting a small park in the early '70s (pre-discrimination, digging everything). Park size a couple blocks. Don't think he said how many silvers but I remember they included over 200 Barber Dimes! So their could be several thousand silver coins in your park, tens of thousands of wheat cents.

If you do decide to upgrade your detector, you needn't spend $1,000+. I love my Garrett AT Pro ($594.95 but a dealer can quote a lower price by phone or e-mail). Quiet & stable between accepted metals, separates well, accurate IDs down to at least 7" in my somewhat mineralized & very dry soil. Teknetics G2 $699, makes noise but coins are louder, excellent separation in trash, one Explorer expert using G2 says it's better in trash. Best wishes, George (MN)