keverett
Hero Member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2009
- Messages
- 513
- Reaction score
- 8
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- The NO town, CA
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab E-trac w/ Sunray X-1 Pro Coil and 10x12 SEF, Tesoro LST
After a week of rain, some of the local hunters and I decided to hit one of the old “pounded out” parks in our area. The warden and I left around 9:00 to go to Orchard to get her an apron for her finds and trash, and then head down to meet up with a fellow dirt fisherman. We packed 3 detectors, bags, extra coils, batteries, vests, pouches, aprons, drinks, and two of every animal into the trunk of my 2006 Chrysler 300 and off we were!
We got to the park about 10:00 and drove around a bit in search of the “prime” spots to detect on a beautiful Sunday morning. Lucky for us the traffic was very low, and the vagrants were still sleeping one off. After a couple of fly by’s we decided on an area that had produced a ton of silver coins when the Explorer first came out, and we were hoping that a few got left behind for us to find.
Since the warden decided to join us today, she was using the Minelab X-terra 70, and had my only pinpointer at her disposal. I was using the only other machine I have which is a Tesoro Lobo-Supertraq. I met Les Berg at the Gold Show last week, and he gave me a few pointers on using the LST. I was running in Discrimination Mode set at 2, and was running the Sensitivity at 10 as he suggested. I dug a couple of pulltabs close to the road, but decided against upping the discrimination. I was trying to get used to “hunting blind” without multi tones, or a Target ID display. Not the easiest when you are hunting a park with tons of trash!
The 4th target I got was a solid tone on the LST with the Disc. Set at 2. I moved the Disc. Up to 5 while crossing over the target, and the signal started to crack. I thought to myself that it was probably another pulltab, but I decided to dig it anyway since it rang up so clear. I dug the usual 3 sided trap door plug about 4 inches deep. The target was not in the plug, and since I didn’t have my pinpointer I had to scoop the dirt out by hand and wave it in front of the coil. The second or third handful of dirt had the target inside. I looked down at the clod of dirt in my hand and saw a shiny rim of a 10 sided object. The first thing that I thought was it had to be some kind of brass pipe fitting. I rubbed some of the dirt off and stuck my finger in the hole……..JACKPOT!!! The clod fell out of the center of the ring, and I could tell now that it was a Men’s gold ring. I turned towards the boss and told her that I just dug a ring. She came over to see what new shiny precious she was about to be the new owner of. She looked at the ring for a couple seconds and said “Its 14kt!” Too bad it was a men’s ring….LOL.
The ring is 8.20 gm of 14kt yellow gold. It doesn’t have any kind of inscription other than 14kt. Seeing as how it was at least 4 inches deep, I don’t think it was lost recently. Do you guys feel that I should post an add on craigslist in the found section? Judging by the style of the ring, and how deep it was I would guess that it was from the 1980’s, but I could be way off on that estimate. I would have no problems giving the ring back to its owner, especially since it’s a wedding band. I just don’t know if I want every wacko who lost a ring at this park to be calling me to identify the lost ring in question.
I was on cloud nine for the rest of the 4 hours we hunted. The girlfriend and I didn’t dig anything else of value (about $4.00 in clad), but I had found my first gold, my first ring, and my first valuable anything all in one day! Some of the hunting buddies did pretty well too. One of them found a nice F to EF 1939 Mercury Dime, and the other found a 1917 and 1919 Wheat Penny! Not bad for the ole’ “pounded out” park. I am very glad for the opportunity to hunt with class act guys!! I can only hope to dig something like this again. Thanks for reading everyone!
KEverett
We got to the park about 10:00 and drove around a bit in search of the “prime” spots to detect on a beautiful Sunday morning. Lucky for us the traffic was very low, and the vagrants were still sleeping one off. After a couple of fly by’s we decided on an area that had produced a ton of silver coins when the Explorer first came out, and we were hoping that a few got left behind for us to find.
Since the warden decided to join us today, she was using the Minelab X-terra 70, and had my only pinpointer at her disposal. I was using the only other machine I have which is a Tesoro Lobo-Supertraq. I met Les Berg at the Gold Show last week, and he gave me a few pointers on using the LST. I was running in Discrimination Mode set at 2, and was running the Sensitivity at 10 as he suggested. I dug a couple of pulltabs close to the road, but decided against upping the discrimination. I was trying to get used to “hunting blind” without multi tones, or a Target ID display. Not the easiest when you are hunting a park with tons of trash!
The 4th target I got was a solid tone on the LST with the Disc. Set at 2. I moved the Disc. Up to 5 while crossing over the target, and the signal started to crack. I thought to myself that it was probably another pulltab, but I decided to dig it anyway since it rang up so clear. I dug the usual 3 sided trap door plug about 4 inches deep. The target was not in the plug, and since I didn’t have my pinpointer I had to scoop the dirt out by hand and wave it in front of the coil. The second or third handful of dirt had the target inside. I looked down at the clod of dirt in my hand and saw a shiny rim of a 10 sided object. The first thing that I thought was it had to be some kind of brass pipe fitting. I rubbed some of the dirt off and stuck my finger in the hole……..JACKPOT!!! The clod fell out of the center of the ring, and I could tell now that it was a Men’s gold ring. I turned towards the boss and told her that I just dug a ring. She came over to see what new shiny precious she was about to be the new owner of. She looked at the ring for a couple seconds and said “Its 14kt!” Too bad it was a men’s ring….LOL.
The ring is 8.20 gm of 14kt yellow gold. It doesn’t have any kind of inscription other than 14kt. Seeing as how it was at least 4 inches deep, I don’t think it was lost recently. Do you guys feel that I should post an add on craigslist in the found section? Judging by the style of the ring, and how deep it was I would guess that it was from the 1980’s, but I could be way off on that estimate. I would have no problems giving the ring back to its owner, especially since it’s a wedding band. I just don’t know if I want every wacko who lost a ring at this park to be calling me to identify the lost ring in question.
I was on cloud nine for the rest of the 4 hours we hunted. The girlfriend and I didn’t dig anything else of value (about $4.00 in clad), but I had found my first gold, my first ring, and my first valuable anything all in one day! Some of the hunting buddies did pretty well too. One of them found a nice F to EF 1939 Mercury Dime, and the other found a 1917 and 1919 Wheat Penny! Not bad for the ole’ “pounded out” park. I am very glad for the opportunity to hunt with class act guys!! I can only hope to dig something like this again. Thanks for reading everyone!
KEverett
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