High School front lawn wheat field

[morgandollar]

I spent my summer vacation at my old home town in upstate New York. This is where I started my metal detecting hobby with a metal detector that I built myself from a Radio Shack kit. No discrimination and maximum depth of about two inches. That was 30 years ago, Wow has it been that long, now today armed with the latest in technology and all the years of experience, let the hunt begin. I started with a couple of local parks. Looks like nobody else is checking these parks since I did in 1978 as I found a ton of clad. I had to adjust my discrimination to dime and higher and still was digging targets every couple of feet. No old finds so I decided to go to the high school and try that, it was build in 1915. Found a lot of clad but then I started hitting the older deeper targets. Finished the front lawn of the school with the following keepers: 1890 Indian head; 13, 16, 27, 29, 39, 42x3, 45x2, 53, 55D, and 55 wheat cents; 43 and 44S Washington quarters. I guess I missed a few with that old Radio Shack detector. Well I'm back in Florida now, have to settle with what washes up on the beaches or what the tourists leave behind.

 

[MrBling]

It's a lot easier to find jewelry in Florida than old coins
Oh well, everything's a trade-off I guess

 

[mikewaz]

Those are some great finds!

It's amazing the amount of keepers still in the ground after all these years. As far as Florida goes, like they say "the grass is always greener". I've been thinking of moving down there just so I could detect the beaches year round.
Mike

 

[grasshopper]

cool finds, where abouts did you grow up?

 

[goldencoin]

neat digs...i built my own md from scratch a few months ago

HH
-GC

 

[Dman]

Nice finds. Detectors have come a long way since 1978. I use to have an old Radio Shack detector.
Dman

 

[kimsdad]

Great story! I built my first one too, in the 70's as a high school, er, um, kindergarten project.

Congrats on the great coins!!

 

[crazyjarhead]

Excellent hunt

 

[trhunter1]

You would think those areas like that would have been hit to death. You did the right thing by not over looking the obvious. Great finds!!

HH

Trhunter1

 

[t-bucket]

Sweet finds and the ground is easy on coppers in your area !!!

 

[Detectingfreak]

congratulations on the 2 silvers and the indian head penny!!!

 

[morgandollar]

First thanks for all of your replies, now to answer some of your questions.
I am originally from the middle Mohawk valley of central New York, the village of Fort Plain. The high school here as I stated was build in 1915, prior to that this was the location of the Clinton Liberal Institute. This was a college preparatory and military school. It was built in 1879 and burned down March 25, 1900. It was during this period that the Indian head penny was probably dropped. I wish I had more time to detect this area, but I only had a couple of days. It took two full days to cover the front lawn with my 9.5 inch coil. I also have a 5 inch EXcelerator coil that finds coins a lot deeper but it would have taken all week to search the same area. I am sure there are a lot more older coins here as the Indian head was about 6 inches deep. The soil conditions here are great. The copper coins were cleaned with hot hydrogen peroxide and rinsed. The silver coins were only rinsed in water. While here I met another guy who showed me a colonial copper he had recently found on a local farm field, it was in great shape for being in the ground for over 200 years. Here in Florida most copper coins I find are green discs, when you try to clean them they just about dissolve. I currently live about 15 miles from the beach but I only hunt the beaches about once or twice a year. You can really clean up good at the beach but you have to be out there almost every day, and at 4 or 5 in the morning. Every time I go there are at least 3 or 4 other guys out there with detectors. There is this one guy that's retired, he is there all the time, every one calls him diamond Jim, I hear he has quite an impressive ring collection. The other problem with beach hunting is the $1.00 to $2.00 per hour parking fee and you would not believe the trash that people leave behind. The good thing with beach hunting is digging your finds, just scoop up the sand, no need to cut a plug in hard ground. If you want gold nothing beats the beach but be ready to dig about one hundred pounds of trash for every ounce of gold. Most of the guys that find the good stuff are using under water detectors, finding rings in waist deep water at low tide. Maybe some day I will invest in one of those detectors and spend more time at the beach.