Ghost Town Trip gets GOLD & BIG OLD SILVER

Cal_Cobra

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Northern California
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Detector(s) used
Minelab EQ800 & Makro Multi Kruzer, the rest are collecting dust...
This was a fun trip, not only because I got to hang out with several of my detecting buddies :)o and was able to make some nice finds, but I also touched several of my other hobbies while metal detecting, that rarely happens. So while most people screen/sift at the mining town dumps, some go to the extreme, and metal detect them. With the right tools, lots of patience, and a little luck, you can find just as many goodies as the sifters, and IMHO it's a lot more fun detecting and a lot less dirty then sifting! Heck I'll even share my site with you :)

DCIM\103MEDIA\DJI_0040.JPG by Calcobra, on Flickr

My first fun find was a toasty Morgan silver dollar!! She had a rough life - well circulated, holed in the center, and left for dead in the Nevada desert for the past 100+ years, but finally brought back to life. She's not pretty, but silver dollars don't get under my loop very often, so I'm thrilled to dig my second ever Morgan dollar . I found this detecting the dump site with my Racer2 using the CORS Shrew coil (aka NEL Snake coil) . Talk about a banging signal - lol Amazingly it still has a readable date, it's an 1890 and It looks like there's an O mint mark on the back. Here she is before cleaning:

Morgan1d by Calcobra, on Flickr
Morgan1e by Calcobra, on Flickr

Here she is after an ezest soak, lemon juice soak, and a baking soda rub, tough coin to clean, but I'm going to leave it as is, she has a story to tell (yes it's the coin on the right, the left one is for comparison):

Morgan1a by Calcobra, on Flickr
Morgan1b by Calcobra, on Flickr

Next up was this fun little find, a sterling silver pin, I'm thinking it's a military award circa WWI era or earlier ? The silver is pretty tarnished, and the pin on the back is missing, but I'll take it!!

I was using the Impact and small coil for this one, man was it in the thick of the junk, more overloads in an hour then most probably get in a year, but this signal sang out from the grave to be rescued. Even in heavy iron, no matter what angle I was swinging from, I was getting a sweet sounding solid low 70's signal, the sound kind of reminded me of a light sabre swoosh every time I swung the coil over it, had a beautiful pure laser sharp sound to it. You know the sound when you get it.

SMPIN1a by Calcobra, on Flickr
SMPIN1b by Calcobra, on Flickr
SMPIN1c by Calcobra, on Flickr


I kept going, and made my first interwoven hobby find, a silver crown cap perfume bottle stopper. While I don't per se collect perfume bottles, I do collect antique blown art glass, and because of that, when I dug this little silver crown cap perfume dauber, I immediately knew what it was! I was a bit taken back considering where I found it, but it's a crown cap dauber to a Loetz Austria blown art glass miniature perfume bottle. These little perfume bottles were only 2" tall, and were retailed at a high end London shop around 1900.

TP2 by Calcobra, on Flickr

Here's an example with a similar top:

loetzcandiaperf.jpg



Then after a little dry spell (not for lack of trying), the next piece that intersected with a different hobby was dug. I dug a neat little Victorian gold ring in the thick of the junk that locked in at a solid, sweet sounding 29 on the Impact, one of those pure signals begging to be dug!

Video digging the ring: https://youtu.be/tHKCsBlRZm0

The ring has a nice Victorian design. It was missing the stone when I dug it, and examining it under a loupe you can see that one of the prongs broke, likely the culprit of the lost stone. It looked like it had been through a fire when I dug it, which is totally possible given the site:

TDRing1aa by Calcobra, on Flickr

I dipped it in some ezest and it cleaned right up. I used to collect cut gem stones, so I was delighted when I dug it to see that it wasn't bent, broken or otherwise damaged, that will make it easy to restore with a stone from my collection. I showed it to my wife, who immediately tried it on, and darn if she didn't declare that it was a perfect fit!!! I showed her some options for stones:

RingStones by Calcobra, on Flickr

I asked which one she liked the most, and she said "The blue one!". She could've picked a pink sapphire or ruby, but blue topaz it is :)

On my way home, I detected a long defunct obscure railroad depot that I've detected before a couple of times, including once with a friend and we've never found anything there. There's evidence of sifting there, so I suspect that it was a hot site at one time and someone has methodically strip mined almost every conductor at the site, it's amazing how sanitized it is but the potential for a good find is sure there. I spent a couple of hours hoping that the Racer2 with the Shrew/Snake coil would bring the place back to life, but it only eek'd out two OK finds - one is a decorative do-dad, and the other is a railroad lead seal. It's from the long defunct Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad line. I've found several Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad seals before, but this one has a number that I've never seen. Most of the ones found at the other depot site are the marked with the same #. Last time I'll hunt this site, but I was glad to finally find one railroad related relic at it. Excuse the sideways orientation, it's an iPhone thing :(

T&G RR = Tonopah & Goldfield Rail Road:
myrick.gif


TGRR1a by Calcobra, on Flickr
TGRR1b by Calcobra, on Flickr

Overall a great time was had by all, other peoples finds ranged from coins, marbles, and tokens to a 1909 dog license tag. Here's more pics of my finds:

TP3 by Calcobra, on Flickr
TP1 by Calcobra, on Flickr

Thanks for looking!
Cal
 
Upvote 39
What an amazing bunch of finds- Congrats!

-- Jeff --
 
Excellent post and great finds!
The glass bottle toppers are my favorite for sure!
Glad to see that the ring fits and it will be beautiful when its finished!
Congrats & HH!
 
Excellent post along with the recoveries. That Morgan is one gnarly silver coin. Totally cool on the CHARACTER scale!:headbang: Love how well your gold ring turned out and that it fits the beloved. Blue stone it is. Thanks for sharing this remarkable hunt. :hello2:
 
I have to agree with the wife. The blue topaz is the best fit, it looks awesome! Some nice finds for sure.
 
Thanks everyone, really appreciate all the comments :thumbsup:

hh,
Cal
 
Fantastic finds...what a haul, congratulations! :occasion14:
 

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