The best find I found in my backyard was on Mother's Day 2004. I had been out hunting at a very old cemetery, that had not been kept up, and was not finding anything but ticks. And since Lyme disease is pretty common here, I decided to call it a day after only approximately 30 minutes.
I got back home, and got to thinking, I never hunted around my apartment, and since it had a dirt basement, thats where I went first, however, being that I am 6'4" and the basement is really just a crawl space, this did not last long. Plus the previous tenants liked throwing pull tabs down there I guess.
I just knew I had to find something this day though, since it would be one of the very rare chances I would get this year. At the time, I had two boys, 5 and 3, and a child on the way. My wife had taken the kids to her mothers, but time was running, so I headed out to the very small backyard.
The apartment I live in was built in the 1940's, so I figured there had to be some wheat cents there at least, and maybe some silver. Well, I started out finding alot of clad. Did not even really need a detector for most of it, since it was not even really buried. I was up to 54 cents before I found the first wheat cent, 1958. Nothing to get excited over. Next coin I found was a 1947 wheat cent. Again, no real excitement, but at least I was finding stuff. Found a couple more clad coins, and then one last signal. I dug two inches down and there it was. A completely dirt covered coin, about the size of a penny, but otherwise, indistinguishable, other the fact that it seemed oddly thicker then a regular penny. But the kids were now running down the backstairs looking for me, so I just stuck it in my pocket, and when I got inside, threw it in with my clad coins I keep in an old coffee can.
Well, about three days later, I was still thinking how oddly thick that coin felt, so I decided to run it under the sink and wash some of the dirt off. The first thing that I noticed was a bird wing all the way on the right, on the front of the coin. It was still pretty dirty, but for some reason, I was thinking a 1967 Canadian cent. But the coin still seemed a little thick. So I kept washing the dirt off, and then I noticed United States of America above that wing, and about 25% of the bird came into view. Turns out, I had found my first flying eagle cent. I have found about 50 Indian heads, and a total of 6 large cents, including a 1794 and an 1803, but never a flying eagle cent. Unfortunately, the coin is in such poor condition, you really can not make out much else. The date is not legible, although from the parts that are there, you can tell that the coin is either an 1856, which I am not 99.9% certain that it is not, or an 1858. Would be nice if it were an 1856, but the condition the coin is in, there just is no way to verify.
As for the 1794 and 1803 large cents mentioned above, those were found in my fathers backyard, when I was a kid of 12, with my very first metal detector, a Whites 1D/B. The house he lived in was built in 1774. I also found there an 1861 Indian head, several tokens, lots of relics, but never any silver. Would be nice to go back there now with the detector I have.
Anthony
lol <sorry>
Everything in your house should
