Old Deserted School

[RickRobinson]

I got permission to detect an old school which is now private property. The school shows up on the plat maps around 1900. I've been hitting the school for the past few weeks and it paid off. I never got anything worth bragging about until now.



More info is under the Best Finds forum.
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,268525.0.html

Finds:
Buffalo Nickel 1923
Buffalo Nickel 1928
Buffalo Nickel ?
Canadian Penny 1962
Indian Head Cent 1897
Jefferson Nickel 1947
Lincoln 1959
Lincoln 1963
Lincoln 1963
Lincoln 1964
Lincoln 1965
Lincoln 1968
Lincoln 1968
Lincoln 1975
Lincoln 1975
Lincoln 1979
Lincoln 1981
Lincoln 1983
Lincoln 1983
Lincoln 1983
Lincoln 1985
Lincoln 1988
Lincoln 1990
Lincoln 1990
Lincoln 1991
Lincoln 1992
Lincoln 1994
Lincoln 1999
Lincoln 2000
Lincoln 2002
Lincoln 2005
Mercury Dime 1928
Mercury Dime 1942
Ring 10k Gold
Ring Silver Plated
Roosevelt 1979
Roosevelt 1994
Roosevelt 2001
Roosevelt 2004
Standing Liberty Quarter 1928
Generic Token
V Nickel 1906
Walking Liberty Half 1921
Washington Quarter 1965
Washington Quarter 1966
Washington Quarter 1989
Wheat Penny 1914
Wheat Penny 1918
Wheat Penny 1919
Wheat Penny 1919
Wheat Penny 1927
Wheat Penny 1936
Wheat Penny 1941
Wheat Penny 1946
Wheat Penny 1957

Thanks for viewing...

 

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[BandB1]

Nice assortment of finds, Congrats

Good luck,
HH.

 

[Giant056]

You got an awesome haul outta that spot for sure, great bunch of finds

 

[RPG]

Very nice. You have something to brag about now.

I too have a very old school on private land I'm trying to get permission to hunt. It's no longer standing. I found it looking at some old aerial photos. It stood out like a sore thumb. Looking forward to Fall and winter.

Good Luck
Randy

 

[Michiganne]

Very nice!! Good luck on any future hunts there.

HH

 

[postalgriff]

welcome to Tnet and wow, that is a great bunch of finds, a very productive spot for sure. congrats on all those oldies! how did you clean those? those nickel and copper finds look amazing for coming out of the ground

 

[Mike from MI]

WOW! how did you clean the indian, and the nickels?

 

[RickRobinson]

Re: Old Deserted School coin cleaning

I know it's going to make some cringe, but the steps in cleaning the coins were:
1. Tumble with aquarium gravel and water for about 6 to 8 hours
2. Soak for a couple of minutes with Tarn-x tarnish remover in a small bowl
3. Brush coin with a Dremel tool with a wire rotary brush
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until clean
5. Tumble with a vibratory tumbler with ground walnut for a couple of hours

The dremel with the wire brush made the most dramatic results. I couldn't notice any scratch marks after brushing them (but my eyesight ain't what it used to be). The tarn-X would loosen the grit a little more and I would brush with the dremel while still wet. It really brightened up the nickels. The copper pennies seemed to do well also. The silver didn't take much to clean them. Some of the clad pennies couldn't be salvaged - no great loss; just had the zinc cancer too bad.

I know that the conventional wisdom is to never clean coins 'cause collectors don't want to mess with them but the cleaning makes for some pretty coins. I wouldn't want to do this to anything valuable.

 

[fistfulladirt]

Wow RR, I would think that school would be barren of any finds! Lots of stuff still there; love it when you can return to a spot over and over again. I found a spot like that last year, I killed it, finding 1800's silver and copper.
First I hit it with one detector, thought I'd found it all. Hit it with another and found another 30 or more old coins.
I agree about cleaning, I have tumbled almost all my wheats and a couple indians. Even have used vinegar and salt, yow! Either method will remove that old patina tho.
Good luck on future hunts. ffd

 

[RickRobinson]

The stars aligned right for this one. The school has been closed for as long as I can remember. While detecting there, a passerby said that he was in the last class there. I believe he said it was in the late 1950s. He said that the school system opened the school temporarily for the 7th and 8th students because they were adding onto the main elementary school. My recollection was that it was being used for a boxing club in the 1970s and that was only for a couple of years. I'm not sure when the school district sold it, but it's been quite a few decades. The property has been neglected for quite a while.

I think the township was pestering the owner about cleaning out the lot. When I got permission, the lot had been freshly cleared of trees and brush by the building and the lot was mowed. This opened up some spots that were previously un-accessible. In fact, I thought the person clearing the lot was the owner. I asked him about the property and he got me in contact with the owner.

One spot in particular, was next to some steps by a side entrance were the brush was cut back. It had so much metal trash that I put down my detector and used a pinpointer for about an hour and a half. I think this area was where trash was stored or loaded and carried away. Small pieces of conduit connectors, plumbing, fixtures, screws and unidentifiable junk had obviously been accumulating for years – and old coins. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I got a grocery sack of junk out of this one spot.

Towards the back of the lot was a baseball field. The baselines were overgrown with brush, but behind the baselines (where spectators usually are) was another good spot; not an easy area to metal detect. Some old coins were waiting there too. My passing spectator said that the boys would line up in the outfield to catch pop flies from a batter at home plate. He figured that a lot of things fell out of their pockets while jumping to catch the balls.

On one side of the building was rather large area which, under a couple of inches of soil, was pea gravel. I found a couple of rings there along with some coins. This was probably some sort of play area, although any swings, monkey bars have long since been removed.

Some of the relics brought back memories too. I found an old thermometer that had the old style phone number (PR-3-5505). I dug up about a hundred pieces of tin foil that I later figured out were foil caps for those old small milk bottles. (I fall into the age group that remembers them).

This school gave me my first mercury dime, walking liberty half, standing liberty quarter, V nickel and indian head. Even though I dug a lot of trash, I also got the highest ratio of good coins vs clad I ever experienced. Like I said, all of the stars were aligned just right and I fell into a fortunate situation. I've been able to search the area thoroughly over an extended period of time and it paid off.

 

[Jim 2.0]

Good story, great finds!

Jim

 

[RON (PA)]

Great finds. I hope there is more there for you. Welcome to TreasureNet.

 

[michigan michael]

Wow! That is awesome! Love that walker!

 

[Brentallica]

Awesome assortment of coins. Cleaned up very nice.
Congratulations!!