ArkieBassMan
Silver Member
Went on my longest road trip so far covering around 450 miles roundtrip. Left home at about 6:45 am and returned about 8:15 pm. I saw a lot of beautiful countryside and had a lot of fun. I scored a box of halves (skunk) as well as a couple of partial bags, handrolls, and loosies totaling about $2700 to search. I hit 41 banks in 16 towns. Not my best trip, but I have no complaints. The take:
87 40%
8 '64 Kens
1 Ben ('63)
'80S clad proof
Noteable scores included 43 40%ers from $190 in handrolls from a tiny 1 bank town, 20 40% and 4 '64 Kens from a partial bag in another town, and 12 40% and 3 '64 Kens from $11 worth of loose halves from my very last stop. Great way to end the day!
Also one very funny story: I walked into one of the banks to find the teller sitting in one of those tall bar stool-type chairs sorting a roll of pennies looking for wheaties. Of course I immediately expect to find no silver, but ask for halves anyway. He has a couple of rolls and the teller at the drive-thru has a couple more along with some loosies. I chit chat with the guy a bit and watch him pull a couple of wheats. After finishing with the customer at the drive-thru, the other teller comes up grabs the rolls from the guy sorting wheaties and directs me to the neighboring stall. She begins counting out the loose halves and I hear silver. So does the other teller. He whips his head around (so quickly I'd be surprised if he doesn't have whiplash), and somehow falls out of his chair scattering pennies all over the place. It was only 2 40%ers, but a sight I will never forget.
On a somewhat different note, I got to see and hold a US coin that I had only seen in pictures. In about 2 months my dad hopes to retire. He got me into coin collecting and metal detecting as soon as I was big enough to read dates and swing a detector. We both stopped detecting in the early '80s. I picked it back up a few years ago. I decided to get him an early retirement present and got him a Garrett Ace 250. Saturday we went detecting. Since he had zero practice time with the new machine (as well as no detecting in about 30 years), I went off looking for an "easy" shallow target so he could gauge what a coin would sound like on his machine. Within a minute I had located a clad dime about 1" deep. As I turned to tell him, he had a target of his own. He asked me to check it with my DFX. It was a bouncy penny-ish signal about 6" deep. I told him it wasn't a great signal, but I liked the depth, and I've had deep wheaties give off that kind of reading. He proceeds to dig and I head off down the lot. In about 2 minutes he walks up smiling. I asked him if he found that wheatie and he says, "No...bigger. I didn't bring my reading glasses, but I think its a shield nickel." I'm immediately skeptical as the signal was nowhere near a nickel signal, and the houses that used to occupy these now empty lots dated to the 1930's at the oldest. He hands me the coin, and sure enough there is the shield showing with a date of 1865. But the coin just doesn't look right. It seems a bit bigger than a nickel to me, and its not the usual "rust" color of a dug nickel. I flip the coin over looking for that big "5" on the back, and to my utter amazement there is no "5". There is however a "2". My father, who hasn't been detecting in 30 years, who had about 1 minute of experience with his new Ace 250, had just dug an 1865 2 cent piece.
87 40%
8 '64 Kens
1 Ben ('63)
'80S clad proof
Noteable scores included 43 40%ers from $190 in handrolls from a tiny 1 bank town, 20 40% and 4 '64 Kens from a partial bag in another town, and 12 40% and 3 '64 Kens from $11 worth of loose halves from my very last stop. Great way to end the day!
Also one very funny story: I walked into one of the banks to find the teller sitting in one of those tall bar stool-type chairs sorting a roll of pennies looking for wheaties. Of course I immediately expect to find no silver, but ask for halves anyway. He has a couple of rolls and the teller at the drive-thru has a couple more along with some loosies. I chit chat with the guy a bit and watch him pull a couple of wheats. After finishing with the customer at the drive-thru, the other teller comes up grabs the rolls from the guy sorting wheaties and directs me to the neighboring stall. She begins counting out the loose halves and I hear silver. So does the other teller. He whips his head around (so quickly I'd be surprised if he doesn't have whiplash), and somehow falls out of his chair scattering pennies all over the place. It was only 2 40%ers, but a sight I will never forget.
On a somewhat different note, I got to see and hold a US coin that I had only seen in pictures. In about 2 months my dad hopes to retire. He got me into coin collecting and metal detecting as soon as I was big enough to read dates and swing a detector. We both stopped detecting in the early '80s. I picked it back up a few years ago. I decided to get him an early retirement present and got him a Garrett Ace 250. Saturday we went detecting. Since he had zero practice time with the new machine (as well as no detecting in about 30 years), I went off looking for an "easy" shallow target so he could gauge what a coin would sound like on his machine. Within a minute I had located a clad dime about 1" deep. As I turned to tell him, he had a target of his own. He asked me to check it with my DFX. It was a bouncy penny-ish signal about 6" deep. I told him it wasn't a great signal, but I liked the depth, and I've had deep wheaties give off that kind of reading. He proceeds to dig and I head off down the lot. In about 2 minutes he walks up smiling. I asked him if he found that wheatie and he says, "No...bigger. I didn't bring my reading glasses, but I think its a shield nickel." I'm immediately skeptical as the signal was nowhere near a nickel signal, and the houses that used to occupy these now empty lots dated to the 1930's at the oldest. He hands me the coin, and sure enough there is the shield showing with a date of 1865. But the coin just doesn't look right. It seems a bit bigger than a nickel to me, and its not the usual "rust" color of a dug nickel. I flip the coin over looking for that big "5" on the back, and to my utter amazement there is no "5". There is however a "2". My father, who hasn't been detecting in 30 years, who had about 1 minute of experience with his new Ace 250, had just dug an 1865 2 cent piece.
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