Follow those paving trucks

[Beach_hunter]

Searched a one block section of road bed yesterday. The street had been torn up to be repaved. Found a pocketfull of clad and copper, and the biggest railroad spike I've ever seen. Neat that nothing was dated past 1964, guess thats the last time it was paved.

 

[battlecat]

Wow a railroad spike?? what was that doing there??
sounds like you had fun....and yes we will have lots of fun on sunday
Jimmy

 

[undergrounddrew]

We used to drive Railroad Spikes as BenchMarks in my old surveying days.
That could be the answer.
This is a great site, I am just getting into this wonderful hobby.
This forum is addictive! Good Luck.

 

[bigrig40]

I was working a back section of my fairgrounds when some earthmovers started coming back there dumping alot of sod,so I obviously followed to see what was going on,well they were tearing up the old pavement and about 4inches of sod to repave the area.When they were done for the day it was dark but I took a flashlight and just looked around and saw a broken ring from a old ring toss game a crushed ping pong ball and misc old pulltabs.The next me and my fiance went there with my MXT and with 5 min. turned a merc,I was like HELLO!!! Well we hunted the area for 3 days until they started repaving and we found quite afew s.quarters,s.dimes,wheats,and a 1880 IH,and a1896 V nickel.Lots of fun,we totaled around 146 older coins.

bigrig

 

[DeadLizard7]

A few years ago my hometown was redoing the main street and had it all torn up. There were those mounds of dirt along the sidewalk where new plumbing, electricity, etc was being replaced. I went down one evening with my old Garrett and searched those mounds for barely over an hour and ended up with a nice 1898 V-Nickel. Those coins are there, just wish I had had more time!!! Always keep your eye open and take advantage of your opportunites as they might not be there tomorrow!

DL7

 

[Darod]

Undergrounddrew,

Welcome

That was great work on the finds! I went to Montana a few years ago and found a railroad spike. I brought that baby back in my luggage. They gave me some kinda hard time at the airport! They let me keep it though

Rod

 

[Lowbatts]

If you do almost any general md'ing for more than a couple years it's hard for me to imagine not finding any RR spikes. Same goes for cut telegraph wire clippings in some parkways. One time in town here they shaved the pavement and the old trolley rails were still in place, ready to be used again if wanted. They tore them out and as a consequence spread the spikes all over the street side, many still waiting for future md'ers.

Look at pictures of most metropolitan areas from 1900 to 1930's or so. Man some streets were so covered by telephone/telegraph lines and electric trolley lines it's hard to imagine sunshine getting through. What happened to it all? A lot is still there, masking that nice old coinage around curbs! Keep looking!

 

[Leon]

My cousin and myself had followed a sidewalk crew over past summer...
We found quite a few older coins. Only problem we had was trying keep up with the crew...