Sometimes You Can Judge A Book By Its Covers ( Coin Hunt )

[GB_Amateur]

This is a long post, so if you are in a hurry you can just jump to the end to see the (fuzzy) pic.

I've been searching a particular muni park for about a year now.  It has been a city park since the late 40's, and in the late 19th and first quarter of the 20th century it was a stone quarry which eventually filled with water and became a swimming hole (legal or otherwise).  You wouldn't know its history from looking, though.  I'd estimate I've hunted there for 40-50 hours and two best finds are a 1900's Indian Head and Civil War button (don't know how that ended up here).  About 6 weeks ago I noticed that an old tree overhanging the park (but appearing to be on a private lot with house) had been surrounded by one of those orange plastic fences with associated "keep out" signs saying something about "vegitation protection".  At first I feared I might even share some responsibility since I've dug under that tree multiple times.  Did I damge the roots?  I decided to lay low and work in my other parks and schoolyards until the vigilante posse tired and went home.

Last week while driving by I noticed that the house (with the tree on its property) was gone!  Unfortunately much of the lot had been dug up and smoothed, but quite a bit was still in its original sodded state.  I fairly quickly reached a conclusion (which might not be right) that the city had bought the property to append to the park.  In my possibly faulty thinking this made it fair game for hunting.  I was out-of-town for the weekend but the morning of the 4th was open, so....

I took all three of my VLF's with small coils (5" round on F75, 6" 7.5 kHz round on my X-Terra 705, and 6" coiltek prototype DD on the Gold Bug Pro).  I started with my new F75 in discrimination 'de' (default) process wide open for any metal, 4H tones (four in number with nickels hitting high), and I think a gain of about 90.  Started swinging at 6:55 AM and within a couple minutes had my first positive signal.  I tend to dig-it-all (except ferrous and maybe foil), at least starting out, so pulled out the Lesche (garden trowel size) and at about a depth of only 2.5 -- 3 inches (7-10 cm) out popped the all too rare glint of silver ("silv in the hole!" as KG and Ringy like to shout, but I kept silent).  Those of you who coin hunt know that most of the time (all the time in my limited experience) you know silver immediately because unlike copper, nickel 5c, nickel clad, and the disgusting zinc coins, silver doesn't tarnish/discolor in the ground.  First good target = first dig is a silver Mercury dime.   I avoid rubbing coins right out of the ground and I don't wear bifocals anymore when hunting so I couldn't see a date if I wanted.  But I knew the coin design I had.  Date to be determined later.

By about 8:00 AM, with a few more good targets (copper pennies, but I couldn't see a Memorial and, as above, wasn't about to rub to find out) I decided to switch to the Gold Bug Pro.  After another hour I went to the X-Terra 705 and finally with only about half an hour remaining before I had to get home and cleaned up for a holiday reunion I went back to the F75, but this time in fa ("fast") process.  (Since my original dig I had not found any real silver, but in total I had 11 copper pennies, one Stinkin' Zincolnd, and one clad dime.)  In my very limited experience, fast process is much more susceptible to EMI, and I have a Digital Shielding Technology (DST) version F75.  So I turned down the gain to about 65-70 range, still quite high compared to many detectors.  I looked at my cellphone a while later to see "10:30" and decided "time for one or two more digs" and quickly got an 83 reading, which is right where quarters are supposed to hit on the F75.  Down about 4 or so inches I experience another coin hunter's high -- the white reeded edge of a silver US quarter!  You now have probably figured out my title -- 'covers' = first and last digs of the hunt are the best finds of the day.

Although my picture taking is so bad you probably can't read the date on the Merc, it's a 1937 in F-12 condition.  The 1940 Washington is well worn ('G' condition might even be stretching it).  Neither has a mintmark and in terms of worth (to anyone but the finder ) these have silver bullion value only.  Of the 11 coppers, 6 Memorials and 5 wheats, with the oldest being 1916 (plain = no mintmark, so Philadelphia); two in the 40's and two in the 50's, with none being key/semi-key dates+MMs.  As mentioned, one Zincoln and one clad dime.  Amazing (to me) ratio of old to new coins.

This weekend looks like another opportunity and I've only covered about 50% of the undisturbed ground in that lot, so fingers crossed for more excitement.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

It's always great finding silver! The Mercury dime is probably my favorite coin since they are rare enough to be a good find but not so rare that they never show up. Our coinage went to heck as soon as we started putting presidents on the coins instead of Lady Liberty. Good luck, I hope there is more silver there waiting for you.

OK, gotta ask..... Coiltek coil for Gold Bug Pro?

[GB_Amateur]

2 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

OK, gotta ask..... Coiltek coil for Gold Bug Pro?

Yes.  Apparently (read this on the internet, but everyone knows to be a bit wary of that) Coiltek decided to dip a toe into the Fisher market.  They made at least 2 of these (there is a posting on another forum talking about one with serial number 00002.  Mine is 00001.)  Rumor has it that Fisher, for whatever reason, in the end wasn't keen on the idea and it ended there.

I bought it on Ebay and the seller said it worked on his F5, but couldn't get it to work on the (new) Gold Bug.  I took a chance and bought it.  Lucky me, it worked first time, every time on my GB-Pro.  I haven't done an exhaustive study so I can't say how much better (if any) it performs compared to the factory stock 5".  It's considerably heavier (which shouldn't surprise anyone with experience using Fisher coils and Coiltek coils) but I just have a lot of confidence in it so it's my go-to coin hunting coil for the GB-Pro.  That's not to take anything away from the stock 5" because it works well, too.  When I'm in the desert, mountains, or searching under water I use the 5".

I'm not quite as hard core as you regarding the switchover from Lady Liberty to presidents (1909, 1932, 1938, 1946, 1948 depending upon denomination).  My biggest dark year for US coin minting was 1965 when they went from 90% silver (yeay!) to pure copper core, copper-nickel faced 'clad' (Booo!!)  Congress (and the conforming President Johnson) ruined coin collecting with a few strokes of the pen.  1982 was just stupid -- replacing 95% copper penny with zinc core and copper coating.  They made that idiotic move without even realizing they created a self-destructive battery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion

The 'rationale' was that a copper penny cost more than 1 cent to mint.  Not long after, the zinc penny shared the same characteristic.  I don't know what to do with the Zincolns I find, because it would be ridiculous to take them to a bank to get cashed in let alone spend them; they are in such pitiful shape.  Meanwhile, one cent is so meaningless that people throw them on the ground rather than have to carry them in pockets/purses.  But the mint still keeps cranking them out as if nothing is wrong.

 

[GB_Amateur]

On 7/5/2017 at 2:36 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

OK, gotta ask..... Coiltek coil for Gold Bug Pro?

"Picture is worth a thousand words?"  and "Better late than never!"

Shown next the 3 kHz 'Digger' coil for the X-Terra 705 (&505?).  Appears to be from same mold for the housing but obviously drab gray instead of usual salmon(?) Coiltek color.