saftgeek
Full Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2007
- Messages
- 111
- Reaction score
- 355
- Golden Thread
- 1
- Location
- Jefferson City, MO
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Equinox 800, CTX, GPX 4500, and another Nox 800 for my friends...
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Well - here it goes... I was invited to go on a detecting adventure with a buddy. We were given permission to detect a piece of property in central Virginia. I use my Minelab CTX pretty much exclusively in MO, and do fairly well. I thought I may need a back up detector as well and bought an XP Deus- just in case. My buddy took a Whites PI and his MXT. Little did we know the soil in Virginia can be pretty unforgiving. On the first day we hit a piece of the property where we'd been told the owner found relics in the past and weren't disappointed. An eagle coat button was my very first find and I was extremely happy to see it emerge from the ground after 160 plus years. We moved pretty quickly through the areas where the grass would allow a 17" coil to swing. We were finding bullets, buttons, and passing on iron targets. As I was detecting, I noticed I would have a great signal and target ID but as soon as I opened the hole - it would disappear. That was my first encounter with mineralized soil and boy was it working its magic on my detector. Even with all the issues the CTX with the 17" coild did very well... Below is a picture of my finds on the first day, just before noon... Before you blast me for having my coil on backwards, I was pretty excited and in a hurry when I attached it - I promise I'll never do it again 
.
The afternoon was spent chasing more signals. That afternoon I learned that I had dug a couple buttons that proved to be better than I ever could have imagined. I dug a Rhode Island and a Calvary cuff button. Talk about surprised when I was told they still had gold guild and that some minor cleaning would really do the trick. I let the fella who owned the relic shop we stopped at show me how to clean them. It was amazing what his magic potion did... talk about a wonderful clean-up job.
After a day like that I thought there was no way it could get any better... I had dug over 10 bullets and 4 or 5 buttons, along with some slag and other buckles, rivets, grommets and rusty square nails. Our spirits were high on day two, despite a rain that had set in. We were forced to detect in a downpour. Like a dummy I put my raincoat on but ignored the lower parts... After a bit I was soaked but still optimistic about our day. We tried a spot where a wagon road was supposed to be located, but it seemed it had been picked over sometime before. I left the old wagon road bed and was hiking up the hill when I hit a great signal in the leaves. There was nothing else anywhere around. After digging down about 12" - I pulled a large bullet which I had not dug before. This is the only one of this variety that either of us dug. The icing on the cake was the ramrod marks on the nose of the bullet - a fired bullet! Really cool target. I put it in a little case along with what I think is a .577 Enfield and an Eagle cuff button with a little gold guild showing through.
If you're still with me, it's about to get good. We decided to go back to the area where we had detected the day before. We were trying to poke around in the nooks and crannies we may have missed. I was in the edge of the woods and noticed it looked like someone had dug a huge hole and covered it back up. I decided to detect around the edges and found it to be littered with iron targets. I thought I'd move a bit down the outside edge and got a screaming high tone. I started digging but couldn't get a good line on where the target was. When I put the pin-pointer in the hole it would scream out. I thought I'd better not use the big Predator shovel anymore, just in case. I switched over to my hand digger. It was tough digging with all the roots and a big limb right over the hole, but I was determined to see what was giving such a high tone. When I couldn't find it in the bottom of the hole I used the tip of the pin-pointer and figured out it was close to the bottom, but on the left side. I stuck the Lesche in, flipped a large chunk out, and was shocked to see a green rectangle fall to the bottom of the hole. I just stared at it. I could not believe what I'd just found. I didn't move it till I found my buddy and showed him the target at the bottom of the hole. After a couple pictures I pulled the green rectangle out and handed it to my buddy. We high-fived and contemplated how the plate had ended up where it did. My buddy had missed this spot by 10' about 20 minutes before I found it. We were soaked to the bone and I was ready to celebrate. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the relic shop and the owner worked his magic to remove the dirt and grime that 160 plus years of being buried had placed on it. We were all a bit surprised at just how much gold plating was still intact, and how beautiful the piece looked with just a few minutes of cleaning. He suggested I do more cleaning when I get home, but I'm pretty happy with the way it looks now.
I'm going to leave you all with one of the curiosities of the trip. I found what appeared to be a chess piece, or some sort of handle. I had purchased a relic identification guide the day before and could not believe it when I found a similar item inside. With the identification made it was obvious that this was something that would have been greatly missed by the owner - a water filter. The owner obviously knew the dangers of drinking unclean water and was doing what he could to keep from getting sick. Again, hard to believe this was last used in 1862 or 1863. A hose connected to one side, and the user would suck water through the burnt wood inside. The final picture is a tally of my finds. I cannot believe what a great day and am hoping to get back there as soon as we can swing it.
.The afternoon was spent chasing more signals. That afternoon I learned that I had dug a couple buttons that proved to be better than I ever could have imagined. I dug a Rhode Island and a Calvary cuff button. Talk about surprised when I was told they still had gold guild and that some minor cleaning would really do the trick. I let the fella who owned the relic shop we stopped at show me how to clean them. It was amazing what his magic potion did... talk about a wonderful clean-up job.
After a day like that I thought there was no way it could get any better... I had dug over 10 bullets and 4 or 5 buttons, along with some slag and other buckles, rivets, grommets and rusty square nails. Our spirits were high on day two, despite a rain that had set in. We were forced to detect in a downpour. Like a dummy I put my raincoat on but ignored the lower parts... After a bit I was soaked but still optimistic about our day. We tried a spot where a wagon road was supposed to be located, but it seemed it had been picked over sometime before. I left the old wagon road bed and was hiking up the hill when I hit a great signal in the leaves. There was nothing else anywhere around. After digging down about 12" - I pulled a large bullet which I had not dug before. This is the only one of this variety that either of us dug. The icing on the cake was the ramrod marks on the nose of the bullet - a fired bullet! Really cool target. I put it in a little case along with what I think is a .577 Enfield and an Eagle cuff button with a little gold guild showing through.
If you're still with me, it's about to get good. We decided to go back to the area where we had detected the day before. We were trying to poke around in the nooks and crannies we may have missed. I was in the edge of the woods and noticed it looked like someone had dug a huge hole and covered it back up. I decided to detect around the edges and found it to be littered with iron targets. I thought I'd move a bit down the outside edge and got a screaming high tone. I started digging but couldn't get a good line on where the target was. When I put the pin-pointer in the hole it would scream out. I thought I'd better not use the big Predator shovel anymore, just in case. I switched over to my hand digger. It was tough digging with all the roots and a big limb right over the hole, but I was determined to see what was giving such a high tone. When I couldn't find it in the bottom of the hole I used the tip of the pin-pointer and figured out it was close to the bottom, but on the left side. I stuck the Lesche in, flipped a large chunk out, and was shocked to see a green rectangle fall to the bottom of the hole. I just stared at it. I could not believe what I'd just found. I didn't move it till I found my buddy and showed him the target at the bottom of the hole. After a couple pictures I pulled the green rectangle out and handed it to my buddy. We high-fived and contemplated how the plate had ended up where it did. My buddy had missed this spot by 10' about 20 minutes before I found it. We were soaked to the bone and I was ready to celebrate. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the relic shop and the owner worked his magic to remove the dirt and grime that 160 plus years of being buried had placed on it. We were all a bit surprised at just how much gold plating was still intact, and how beautiful the piece looked with just a few minutes of cleaning. He suggested I do more cleaning when I get home, but I'm pretty happy with the way it looks now.
I'm going to leave you all with one of the curiosities of the trip. I found what appeared to be a chess piece, or some sort of handle. I had purchased a relic identification guide the day before and could not believe it when I found a similar item inside. With the identification made it was obvious that this was something that would have been greatly missed by the owner - a water filter. The owner obviously knew the dangers of drinking unclean water and was doing what he could to keep from getting sick. Again, hard to believe this was last used in 1862 or 1863. A hose connected to one side, and the user would suck water through the burnt wood inside. The final picture is a tally of my finds. I cannot believe what a great day and am hoping to get back there as soon as we can swing it.
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