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Happy New Year everyone!

Here is my 2016 detecting year review. 

This was my first full season running the CTX 3030 and I used it almost exclusively for all my detecting. The Makro Gold Racer is responsible for a few of the finds and I plan on giving it more swing time next year.  

In fact, besides my Chinese coin my Gold Racer found my oldest coin of the year.

An 1875 Deutsches Reich 2 Pfennig.

Almost all hunting was done in Public Parks with a few curb strips and private home sites thrown in but I would say over 90% of the finds were from parks..

My goal for the year was 100 Silver Coins and I just made it with 106..

Next years goal is to NOT set a goal.  It kind of took some of the fun out of detecting towards the end of the year with the pressure on and unusually bad fall weather cutting in to hunt time as I was trying to reach 100.

Once I hit my number everything was good again. I was able to slow down and enjoy the hunt. 

I didn't get a chance to do any nugget hunting this year so I hope to change things up a bit in 2017 with some nugget and relic hunting too.

2016 Totals:

Wheat Cents            328  might be missing some

Indian Head Cents   30

Silver Coins.             106

V Nickels.                  9

Buffalos.                    8

Silver Rings              11

Misc Silver Jewelry 10

Gold Rings.                2 

 

Key Date and better date coins

1921 D Mercury Dime 

1895 S Barber Dime

1917 S Buffalo Nickel  

1931 S Wheat Penny

1909 VDB Wheat x2

1911 D Wheat x2

1912 D Wheat

1912 S Wheat x2

1913 S Wheat x2

1914 S Wheat

1915 S Wheat x2

1926 S Wheat x2

 

Foreign Coins

No Date Victoria Quarter 1870-1901

1907 1956 Canada Dimes

3 Fish Scales (5 Cent)1892 1909 and a no date

1875 Deutsches Reich 2 Pfennig. (Gold Racer)

Chief Lung Tung Pao 1736-1795

Several older Canada pennies

 

My favorite finds of the year are probably my Key Date 1921 D Mercury Dime (VF-XF)

And my Sterling Type 1 Eagle Scout ring 1930-1940.

I also remember the Sterling pocket watch belt clip being an exciting find also with its booming high tonesand lots of silver flash when I opened the plug. 

Although my area in the Pacific North West lacks some old history and does not produce really old coins like other parts of the country, it kind of makes up for it a bit with a lot of S and D mint marks..

A lot of the key date pennies I found are really nice and should still have some good value even after coming out of the ground. Coins hold up well around here for the most part with a few exceptions. 

I found quite a few VF XF coins.

I moved mid year so lost a lot of hunt time and am missing some of my misc. finds like buttons, keys, pins and tokens.  I'll find them eventually if I ever get fully unpacked. 

The  more serious I get about old coin hunting the more I don't care about the quantity but rather the quality of my finds and the hunt itself.  Might not ever find a hundred Silvers again in one year and that's ok with me. Funny how you perspective of things can change over a year.  

Thanks for looking and enjoy the hunt. 

Bryan

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That is actually inspiring Bryan, thanks for posting. It is good to see that persistence still pays off, even for detecting old coins in parks, which is getting to be as challenging as nugget detecting.

I am curious on your take on the CTX 3030 given your collection of Tesoro detectors. Opposite ends of the spectrum on both weight and operational designs. The success speaks for itself but I am wondering just how much you think the CTX may have contributed to that, or is it just a wash. Tesoro units are very good in the right hands.

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If the word gets around (and it might), I predict a boom in detector sales in the US.  I'd be thrilled with a random 5% of your finds for a year.

10 hours ago, Cabin Fever said:

The  more serious I get about old coin hunting the more I don't care about the quantity but rather the quality of my finds and the hunt itself.  Might not ever find a hundred Silvers again in one year and that's ok with me.

I agree with the first part.  However, for me, any silver (coin or jewelry) fits in the 'quality' category.  I have a couple questions:

1) How many hours (or if easier, days) did you spend finding all this stuff.  (Sorry if you said that already and I missed it -- I may have been too busy looking at all the pretty pictures.)  :rolleyes:

2) Based upon the number of mintmarked 1909-1915 Wheaties, I'm wondering if you found some kind of timewarp zone (for lack of a better term).  I.e. were you in a place(s) that was preferentially visited during that time period, such as an old church/park that was closed in the late teens.  Do you have a count of the number of non-mintmarked Wheaties that you found last year that were minted in that decade?

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Thanks everyone! 

Patience and persistence like a couple of you said is a big part of my success.  The Parks in my are are not "untouched" and our city has had very active club since 1971. The Parks I hunt have been pounded.  3 silvers in one day is considered a good day for me to kind of put in perspective.  When I go to a park I establish that parks old zone depth wise and focus on that area which usually starts somewhere between 5 and 7 inches.  I'm not a clad hunter and bring home very little.  The more time I spend fighting a zinc penny from  the grass roots is that much less swing time try to get to put my coil over an old coin..

GB Amateur maybe I didn't explain my finds very well. I have found lots of wheat cents of all dates including the later date coins.  I just didn't show them.  I added a photo of the jar of common wheats I found this year to my post. I just put the better date and condition coins in the flips that I have pictured. 

Steve I have a weird obsession with Tesoro detectors and can't help myself when one comes up for sale on Craigslist for dirt cheap so I buy it.   I have very little actual swing time with them but I plan to put a lot of time on them this year as I hope to do some relic hunting if I can get to some ghost towns.  Another reason I want to use one is to see if I can improve my detecting skills. The simplicity of them fascinates me I guess. Buying and selling used detectors is kind of part of the hobby for me. 

I have to give a lot of credit to the CTX for my success as it can ID deep coins and coins on edge in bad soil better than any detector I have ever used.   I would like to take a little credit for learning to push the CTX and eke out those really tough signals that many people might walk past.  Most of the easy stuff is long gone in these parks and all that's left are the ugly signals. 

Another detector I forgot to give credit to this year is the Minelab 705 coupled with the 15" Minelab 3kHz Coil.  It's actually a little deeper than my CTX on silver coins but does not have near the ID power of the CTX. 

Thanks, Bryan

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Congratulations on a successful, and very impressive 2016!!!

Your results speak volumes about how you approach what most of us call a "hobby" or a" pass time".

In your case, I believe the word, "craft", would be more accurate!!!

Setting goals can be a double edged sword. Been there, done that ......

Have a rewarding and fun 2017!!!

Joe

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Bryan- awesome job on all your finds. Looks like you have some great places to hunt up there. There is still some silver in the ground in the bay area but it's getting tough. Most of the silver coins I get are from private property. There is an old park 10 min from were I live (goes back to 1901) 2/3 of it was destroyed so they could build a community center. All that is left is an area about 60x80 yards. Unfortunately I was not into metal detecting when the park was still untouched. So is the story in a lot of areas around here. The CTX is like my right arm....in fact a while back I had to send it in for repairs. I was so distraught from being without for 6 weeks that I traded in one of my other machines for another CTX so I'd have a back up. I let my wife use the new CTX when we went to Pismo Beach last summer. She was ready to throw her AT Gold into the Ocean lol. I still keep the At Gold because it has a use in water hunting in areas of thick black sand that the CTX does not like very well.  I was wondering what setting you like? Combined ? Ferrous coin? 

strick 

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