A Little Ghost Towning In Nevada

[UtahRich]

Last weekend concluded Monte's 12th Welcome To Hunt Outing (WTHO), a gathering of new and old detectorists looking to get together and spend some time out testing their detecting skills against some Western Ghost Towns. This gathering centered around Wells, NV. I was really looking forward to getting away after being cooped up at the house for the last couple months and working from home due to the pandemic. The outing came at the right time.

We ended up having 18 detectorists from the Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Texas. More were scheduled, but some had to cancel due to the impact from the Virus going around  I hope they can make it next go round.   

I arrived Saturday, May 30th, to help Monte and OregonGregg scout out places most everybody would likely want to hunt. Metropolis, Tobar, Shafter, Tecoma, Cobre and Toano are the most popular.

I hunted with my Deus, EQ800 and Nokta FORS CoRe.  All three made some good finds. 

For me, there were lots of bits and bobs found. I'm amazed at the number of little ornate buckles that turn up. And the bullets, the never ending run of bullets and empty cartridge cases.   

And it is always interesting to watch other detectorists at work and observe detectors, coil choices, search rods, gear, hats, finds pouches, swing rates and methods and all the rest of it. 

Two of my detecting goals this year are to turn up a Seated Quarter and a Half-Dime. Neither surfaced for me at the outing.. An 1876 Seated Quarter did make an appearance for DanO. A big congrats. I was fortunate to turn up some early date Wheat Cents, the most notable a 1910-S, an 1880 IHC and a very nice 1864 2¢. An unexpected but appreciated surprise. It is my second deuce. 

Tokens and coins seemed to be coming from under every piece of sage for a while there on Thursday, the 4th.  We kept hearing reports of something else turning up. OregonGregg and I were commenting that the detecting door to Toano and Cobre was open there for a short time. Lots of smiles going around. Then it seemed to close. 

Friday, I was flat out skunked; hard. After I finished in the Toano / Cobre area I even went back out to Metropolis and hunted till dusk trying to find something, even another corroded wheat cent. No go. I guess the universe needed to balance itself after Thursday.   

In summary, I have a couple old coins to add to my finds. And a very cool WTHO shirt that abenson printed up at his business. First Class,  thank you Andrew. And I met some new people, and got to catch up with old friends and acquaintances  with some good meals and time chatting around the table.  And whenever you get detectorists together there are always discussions over brands and models and coils and such. It is fun to listen to the detector banter. 

I have some very old detectors, a couple discontinued detectors and a couple new detectors. I have to admit that I am impressed that OregonGregg hunted the entire time he was there with 1 detector and 1 coil; his Nokta FORS CoRe and the small OOR coil.    Cudos to Gregg. Gregg pulled off a dime trifecta with an 1845 seated, 1916 Barber and 1917 Mercury, as well as a toasty Shield nickel, an IHC and some wheaties. Oh, and he might have found a Nevada trade token. LOL.  And I owe him a steak dinner for losing our bet for oldest coin with a date. 

His 1845 Seated Dime beat out my 1864 2¢. 

This is a good thing. Now I have a good excuse for another road trip. And another opportunity to find that Seated Quarter and elusive Half-Dime. 

And finally, a big thanks to Monte for bringing everyone together. 

There were several Seated coins, IHC's, Shield Nickels, trade tokens, and some stellar military buttons found. Most everybody posts their results on Monte's forum (AHRPS.ORG) for those interested in having a look-see. I hope Steve doesn't mind the off site reference. I beg your pardon if I'm out of line Steve.

These WTHO's move around some and are a great venue for bringing a friend to introduce to the hobby, have a first experience at a Western Ghost Town where you can gather some pointers and see how others do or to test your skills with your detector against some very difficult sites.

And if you're interested, you might even be able to chat up Monte a bit. 

Hope to see all of you out there exploring the Western Frontiers. 

UtahRich -
 

[OregonGregg]

Rich, it was good seeing you again and yep.......that steak dinner is gonna taste good 🙂  Congrats on that really nice 2 cent piece. That one is still on the list.

  It was another fun outing that Monte put together. Met some new people and was good to see some familiar faces from past outings.  

This year I only used the Fors CoRe and 4.7" x 5.2" coil.  Managed to get ( for me) a couple of top bucket listers.  Of the 130 or so trade tokens I have found I could never seem to get a 12 1/2 token. Also I have always wanted a Nevada trade token. Last year I found a 2 1/2 token down there but it was a Utah token. So I guess if your gonna do it, might as well kill two birds with one stone. Got a " Clover Valley Bar"   Tobar Nevada 12 1/2 token. Made me very happy and was my favorite find of the trip. Also got a maverick token that originated out of Wells, NV.  Kinda a strange token. On the front is " Bong Tong" and on the back the number "5".  Other finds for the trip were a 17 merc, 16 barber dime and 1845 seated dime. Nice Eagle button and a large shell casing with bullet and rough shield nickel.

The 12 1/2 token came out of the ground all encrusted with that calcium/lime like build up that is almost impossible to get off. So I had to give it my special formula cleaning. I like to try and clean a coin or token up but yet let it still look old. But in this case in order to get that crap off the token, it comes out looking new ( it will naturally darken up in a year or so). But I was pleased that once cleaned it was in nice condition.

Not a shell casing bullet guy, but the one I found on the trip was the biggest I have found. Notice in pic it is sitting on a penny and almost the same diameter. The other shells were found at other times and used as a comparison. 

All in all it was another fun trip and hope there will be some more in the future.

By the way UtahRich, can I bump that steak dinner up to a prime rib dinner ??   🙂  

[Steve Herschbach]

Sounds like a great time guys. Thanks for sharing!

[Dances With Doves]

That is what the western    USA hunters  have    over us  east folk is there great tokens.One lucky hunter with a whites found a token  from the great mining town of Bodie California. It is worth  thousands.That town is over 8000' in elevation.They also have their gold nuggets, more gold coins,and more abundant s mint coins.I  heard one guy with a  Garrett found a  private  mint gold coin  worth hundreds of  thousands of dollars. Tom will tell you, we have are large cents. 

[Monte]

First, a 'Congratulations' to UtahRich and OregonGregg for their success on the recent 12th WTHO held out of Wells, Nevada.  I will correct Rich's post as I recalled one more attendee I forgot to list and that brought us to 19 participants.  Our 'average' for the first 11 WTHO's was '17' to '25' per outing, so considering the effects of the covid virus and people altering their travel plans, I think we had a good showing.

Only one of the prior '11' Outings was more of an urban Coin Hunting get-together, and the rest have been ghost ton based were we got to enjoy the challenges of tackling some of the nastiest amounts of iron nails and other Ferrous and Non-Ferrous debris.   Two of those 10 ghost town outi9ngs have been based out of Vale, Oregon where we hunted three gold mining era ghost towns and one farm and ranch townsite.  The others have all bee held in Nevada and we've used Wendover, Montello and Wells as out 'base-points.'

The WTHO's are a no-charge, come-at-your-will outings and can challenge those who have mainly been 'city-shooters' who just go after coins and jewelry in parks and schools and yards.  It can be an awakening.  Why, they can even be a challenge for a lot of remote area gold nugget hunters who also enjoy some of the vast Nevada territory.  Why, I even hear tell there are one or two such people on these Forums who kind of hang out in the Reno area .... sure would be nice if they came and joined us on an Outing sometime.  I even own my 2nd Nokta FORS Core that I bought from someone about four years ago that works great!  I'd even be kind enough to loan it to him --- if he's make a future get-together.

As Rich and Gregg mentioned, it's not just fun to try and find a good keeper or two for ourselves, but it is interesting to what others at work.  Note their detector and coil choice, and the way they put them to work in the think sagebrush, dense weeds, open spaces, and around a lot of debris and building rubble.  Educational might be a good term for that, and at times also entertaining.

Due to a health matter I wasn't able to stay for the entire outing so I missed meting up with several of the new-comers and returning regulars, but as a who I am sure most enjoyed the great bunch of people who participate in the WTHO's.  So, I am kicking back here at home in Eastern Oregon, keeping my foot elevated and wishing for a speedy recovery so I can get back out there detecting soon.

It's always interesting to note some of the found targets, such as several coin-purse clasps on this Outing, and some nice early Military Buttons and uniqueries..  If you'd like to join the fun sometime in the future, just shoot me an e-mail and let me know you'd like to be added to the WTHO Contact List.  get to meet some3 of these3 interesting people, like UtahRich and OregonGregg in person.  That, also, can be quite entertaining, too.

Monte

[Tom Slick]

Rich - Great to hear you had a good outing. Wish I could have made it this year. Looking forward to the next WTHO.

[abenson]

This was the first year I have attended a WTHO event. I had a great time and meet a great bunch of guys. I didn't get to the hunt until Thursday and by then Monte had left so I didn't get to meet him, but there's always next time. OregonGregg cleaned up with some great finds and made the rest of use feel inadequate, LOL. The 2 cent piece Rich found was great too and I have yet to find one of those.

Thursday I focused on hunting Cobre with my Deus 9" HF coil and got skunked other than your typical ghost town stuff like lantern parts, clasps, suspender parts,  buttons, etc.

Friday I spent the day hunting Toano with my Deus again and happened to find an 1887 IHP within the first 5 minutes of arriving. With a find so quick I thought it was going to be a productive day. But other than a purse clasp and a rosette i just found your typical ghost town stuff the rest of the day.

Saturday I went with James a friend of mine that came along, to a military camp that was in the area. I used the Equinox 800 with the 11" coil that day. The weather was good until about 11:30 when it started to rain pretty hard for about 2 hours. We got in a little hunting before it hit and then waited it out and ate lunch in the truck. About 1:30 we were able to get back out and and hunting for another few hours. We dug lots of shell casings, 50-70, 45-70, 45-50, and .44 colts. I dug the base of a Military dress cap, 1 GS cuff button, 4 GS coat buttons, Eagle I coat and a bucket lister for me a Eagle C overcoat button.

Sunday on the way home I stopped at Shafter for a few hours, using the Deus I found a few buttons and a Colorado Tax Token.

Overall had a great time and look forward to the next WTHO

[Steve Herschbach]

21 hours ago, Monte said:

The WTHO's are a no-charge, come-at-your-will outings and can challenge those who have mainly been 'city-shooters' who just go after coins and jewelry in parks and schools and yards.  It can be an awakening.  Why, they can even be a challenge for a lot of remote area gold nugget hunters who also enjoy some of the vast Nevada territory.  Why, I even hear tell there are one or two such people on these Forums who kind of hang out in the Reno area .... sure would be nice if they came and joined us on an Outing sometime.  I even own my 2nd Nokta FORS Core that I bought from someone about four years ago that works great!  I'd even be kind enough to loan it to him --- if he's make a future get-together.

Hi Monte,

I have to admit this was not on my radar at all. I do not pay much attention to what other people are doing or outings since I have so many places on my own list where I want to go. There are always some that are next up, just waiting for when I get the time.

Then there is that pesky virus thing. Right now I have zero desire to be hanging out with other people and so any group stuff is just not going to be happening in my world this year.

Due to the above I was not paying attention, but next time you all have something similar coming up I will try to be more mindful and give it a go if at all possible. Thanks for the kind thought. 

[UtahRich]

7 hours ago, Tom Slick said:

Rich - Great to hear you had a good outing. Wish I could have made it this year. Looking forward to the next WTHO.

Thanks Tom, 

We missed you and several others that were hoping to make it.  I felt fortunate to be able to coincide some vacation time at work with the dates that were scheduled.

And  this virus thing going around has made everyday  life / work challenging and difficult for such simple things as trying to get away for some recreation like detecting.

Let's hope a resolution to this virus comes about quickly.

Rich -

 

[Tom Slick]

Abenson -  Next time don't bother digging the coin purse hardware. Just dig the leather pouch with the silver and gold coins still in it. 😁