Kinda Slow Few Days, But Picked Up

[F350Platinum]

11 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Nice couple of finds. Sometimes the thimbles are marked lightly or deep inside the cap part. It looks like silver to me and is a really nice thimble! Your ratio of iron to non iron is actually quite good for your location. I'd be happy with that ratio. Getting skunked is all part of trying new areas. Without trying, how is anyone ever going to find that 1800's picnic spot that would be a dream hunt? It's all about the hunt and the hope of getting on to something good.

If it wasn't for you, Kac, and others on the forum I'd be skunked a lot more. Thanks for all your advice. Hopefully my progress is return enough.

Got a couple of beach adventures coming up, so the future is bright. They're about to clear some land on that hill I find the Mason jar lids on too once the pipeline is flowing again and we can get fuel. Got a couple of coins out of there so far, and a Model T key. It's an old landfill that again has a 50 foot drop to the river. Can't dig to much because it's for sale.

For the most part you don't get fooled too often. When I got the hang of ground balance I improved the quality of my finds, I didn't think it would work in water but it does. What the ID is, it probably is. Shotgun shells and now Mason jar lids are the things that always get me. In the fields it was lead shot, bullets and tacks. Just about every house in my neighborhood has a rifle or pistol range, and hunting is king here. I don't dig a lot of nails or iron because they ID well. Believe me when I say that the Equinox is very noisy everywhere but I don't tune it out. I'm sure there are targets I miss because of the iron so I've been digging more "iffys" lately.

Should I use auto GB tracking in the water?

[kac]

I use Repel permethrin clothing spray on my shoes and on my hat and regular deet based repellent around my waist line and sleeves/arms. Combo works really well against tick and mosquitos. Sounds like you need to do some parks and ball fields. Everything is growing fast here so most my relic hunting is on hold other than the pine forests.

As for trash I think I dig way more than you so got ya beat there 😛

[GB_Amateur]

Excellent non-coin finds.  I still haven't recovered my first thimble of any composition.  Ironically my wife's been a professional seamstress since her teens and now a hand quilter.  She's worn through more than a few.  I'm sure homesites are the best places to find them and I haven't been to too many of those.

An accurate specific gravity test would likely narrow down the composition, and in particular tell you if it's primarily silver or not.  (Sterling silver has an s.g. of 10.5, higher than most competitive metals which are typically 9 or less.)  But I'm with the others -- given its ornate decoration and surviving condition, silver alloy is the front-runner.

Good job id'ing that zeppelin.  Most people today don't even know what Cracker Jack is, let alone a Zeppelin!

Update:  Ha!  Jokes on me -- it's not a Zeppelin (or I maybe I don't know what a zeppelin is, either.  😏)  But you're not off the hook; now you have to go and find one of those.  Meanwhile I'll buy some Cracker Jack and maybe there will be one inside.

[Rick N. MI]

Nice finds. I really like the Zephyr. 

[F350Platinum]

9 hours ago, kac said:

I use Repel permethrin clothing spray on my shoes and on my hat and regular deet based repellent around my waist line and sleeves/arms. Combo works really well against tick and mosquitos. Sounds like you need to do some parks and ball fields. Everything is growing fast here so most my relic hunting is on hold other than the pine forests.

As for trash I think I dig way more than you so got ya beat there 😛

I used repellent today and it worked fine. The deerflies don't care about repellent but I managed to keep them away too.

My county straight up doesn't have parks. I am considering emailing the county administrator to ask him if I can detect on some of the properties they own, and I used to work for the school so I could probably ask my stepson who runs the school maintenance. One of the school properties used to be where the school board was, and it was also a fairground for a while. There are lots of other people I know, real estate agents and the like. With a little effort I could have a lot more places to go. Kinda like being right around my house though. 😀

[F350Platinum]

8 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Excellent non-coin finds.  I still haven't recovered my first thimble of any composition.  Ironically my wife's been a professional seamstress since her teens and now a hand quilter.  She's worn through more than a few.  I'm sure homesites are the best places to find them and I haven't been to too many of those.

An accurate specific gravity test would likely narrow down the composition, and in particular tell you if it's primarily silver or not.  (Sterling silver has an s.g. of 10.5, higher than most competitive metals which are typically 9 or less.)  But I'm with the others -- given its ornate decoration and surviving condition, silver alloy is the front-runner.

Good job id'ing that zeppelin.  Most people today don't even know what Cracker Jack is, let alone a Zeppelin!

Update:  Ha!  Jokes on me -- it's not a Zeppelin (or I maybe I don't know what a zeppelin is, either.  😏)  But you're not off the hook; now you have to go and find one of those.  Meanwhile I'll buy some Cracker Jack and maybe there will be one inside.

Thanks GB!

It was fairly easy to find since it is marked Tootsietoy inside. I did not know that such things came in Cracker Jack in the 30s. I'm curious now as to when the toys got cheaper or non existent. Don't remember much that was great when I was a kid.

I've looked inside the thimble as much as I can in it's mangled state. I don't see anything indicating sterling, so yeah I'm thinking some other alchemy. 😀

Gonna mow some mo' and hunt some mo'.

[GB_Amateur]

26 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

I'm curious now as to when (Cracker Jack) toys got cheaper or non existent. Don't remember much that was great when I was a kid.

Leave it to Wikipedia to clear that up, 2016 was the transition away from inside-box surprises.  I remember Cracker Jack pretty well from when I was a kid in the 60's.  Even though I thought the movie and five-and-dime caramel corn was better tasting, there was something about the universality of Cracker Jack that made it appealing.  (And I didn't care at all for the included peanuts, but that was then...).  My memory of the toys was that they were often plastic, not always metal.  But, yes, the "surprise inside" added to the mystique.

That's another plus of detecting -- bringing back memories of childhood.

[schoolofhardNox]

11 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

If it wasn't for you, Kac, and others on the forum I'd be skunked a lot more. Thanks for all your advice. Hopefully my progress is return enough.

Got a couple of beach adventures coming up, so the future is bright. They're about to clear some land on that hill I find the Mason jar lids on too once the pipeline is flowing again and we can get fuel. Got a couple of coins out of there so far, and a Model T key. It's an old landfill that again has a 50 foot drop to the river. Can't dig to much because it's for sale.

For the most part you don't get fooled too often. When I got the hang of ground balance I improved the quality of my finds, I didn't think it would work in water but it does. What the ID is, it probably is. Shotgun shells and now Mason jar lids are the things that always get me. In the fields it was lead shot, bullets and tacks. Just about every house in my neighborhood has a rifle or pistol range, and hunting is king here. I don't dig a lot of nails or iron because they ID well. Believe me when I say that the Equinox is very noisy everywhere but I don't tune it out. I'm sure there are targets I miss because of the iron so I've been digging more "iffys" lately.

Should I use auto GB tracking in the water?

That's why I like this place. Many different people that can add to a topic. I learn a lot from here.  Good luck on your beach adventure.  Use tracking whenever you can't seem to get the manual balance to stay quiet enough for your liking. In the water I would like to have it the most stable ,so I could concentrate on the quiet ones. If that means tracking on, then yes. If you get a really deep quiet hit, don't dig it and try the other options out. But I'm going to guess it won't gain you enough to worry about it.

[geof_junk]

19 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Should I use auto GB tracking in the water?

Most of the noise is coming from changing distance from the sand. Using Auto can get out of tune and the more it does the more it attempts to correct it, the worst it gets trying to compensate. With manual the variance is less and just go back over the beep more controlled to ensure it is not a target. My view is from using a VLF mono frequency detector and hope this will work with your Detector. 

[kac]

14 hours ago, geof_junk said:

Most of the noise is coming from changing distance from the sand. Using Auto can get out of tune and the more it does the more it attempts to correct it, the worst it gets trying to compensate. With manual the variance is less and just go back over the beep more controlled to ensure it is not a target. My view is from using a VLF mono frequency detector and hope this will work with your Detector. 

I agree Geof. I've used tracking on my MK and if the ground doesn't vary too much it is ok. It will drift off if I run the gain too high. Not sure but thinking a hot machine is a big culprit of drifting gb. Now I run with tracking off majority of the time especially in disc modes and just do ground grabs as a I go. In the brackish and salt I will work along the shoreline rather than up and down the shore so I can keep the machine more stable as I go..