Pondering fields and some ?s

[UnEarthed72]

Pondering fields and some ?'s

Recently Ive been eyeing some fields in my area,wondering how long its been in that spot.I know i could trace fields back on old maps(winter research)which I'm planning on doing while its snow covered around here.

So my question is..when you hunt a field..are there ones that produce more than others? What makes a field look good enough for you to want to gain permission to detect that area?

 

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[teverly]

Re: Pondering fields and some ?'s

Research....unless i see an old school house or church in a field i will look at old maps to see where houses,schools,churches ect....used to be.
Unless you know that something has been there you will be wasting a lot of time and batteries.....

 

[SgtSki in MI]

Same as teverly says

Check the site against old plat maps to see if there was a farmstead there. A lot of times they be on plat maps as little black squares and rectangles. Then check it against a current plat map to see who owns it. The southwest 1/4 of the northeast corner of Section 12, YouNameIt Township is the same spot on a 2006 plat as it was on the 1875 plat. Then go to the township clerk to find out if the same person owns it as listed on the current plat. Then get permission. Once you have permission, go walk around in the field. If the field is currently being farmed, look for itty-bitty pieces of glass, china, pieces of crockery, brick fragments, bits of tarpaper, and such. If you see that, you are at a likely home site. Yes the plows move stuff around a bit, but not really THAT much. If you see the previously mentioned stuff, now get out your detector and run it in all-metal mode for awhile. Now we are looking for rusty, crusty nails, pieces of cast iron, and stuff like that. Dig every signal!!! If you find stuff like that then you have a good spot for coins. Set your detector up how you want to at this point and go at it!!! Also be prepared to find tractor/implement parts, harness hardware from the field being worked by draft horses, rifle/shotgun brass. But you should also find coins!!! You can concentrate in the area where the house was, but you can also work farther out from it. There will be less to find, and you'll go through some batteries as teverly said, but there's some goodies out there too if you wanna be patient. I run my detector wide open with no discrimination when I hunt fields.

My best Indian Head came from a field (1866 in EF-45) and also in the same field I found am 1866 Shield Nickel and 2 Large Cents (1846 and 1851). I'm far from done hunting it too.

HH and Good Luck,
-SgtSki

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: Pondering fields and some ?'s

Yes, some fields can be loaded others not a target, all about the history.

Usual criteria for a possible productive field site? Older settled area, high spot, near water. But no rules apply and you never know until you try.

 

[wedjlok]

Re: Pondering fields and some ?'s

Along with what the others have said, and then more research, oftentimes if there is a hill in the field, there once stood a house there as well. There are a lot of those in the Midwest that are that way. Also, look for any areas of larger rocks in the fields as well as areas that the farmer may be less likely to plant int sometimes. Areas where houses used to be in the fields tend to be a bit rockier and harder on the equipment and they sometimes avoid those areas a bit more.

Hills were always a dead giveaway for me up north, though. Expect to find some iron trash, and if you get hinges and the like, as well as pieces of pottery bits, then start keeping an eye out for those large cents! And, of course, that large, lone tree in a field is almost always a giveaway to a prime area.

Aeryck

 

[Tin Nugget]

Re: Pondering fields and some ?'s

If you can't locate any history on it and the terrain doesn't offer any info and you still want to try it then take your biggest coil and plow through it fast. If you start getting signals all of a sudden, slow down and give it a good going over. You may miss the odd find going fast like this but if you are hoping for a spot that had some permanent activity for a while you need to move it. This is what I do when trying to find old home sites and such.

HH