Ne Nevada 1st Time Ghost Town Detecting (long)

[GB_Amateur]

22 minutes ago, Tom Slick said:

Tom from Arizona AKA

Tom Slick

Ah, so another member here whose site name I recognize but hadn't put the face with the name until now.  Good having discussions at dinner with you and your wife and I enjoyed the interactions when you came out on Saturday to the GT we were camped at and detecting.  I hope we meet up again at another hunt (and that goes for all the others, too).

[Tom_in_CA]

23 hours ago, Monte said:

Now if we could just figure some way to convince Tom in California come join us an Outing, we'd have one more skilled and interesting person to join a great bunch of people who attend.

Besides, we've had 13 WTHO's without a gold coin being found yet so maybe Tom can bring his good fortune make a change in that.

Monte

Ha !   Yes, the reason you haven't pulled a gold coin on the organized safaris, is that you don't have Tom_in_CA there.  Who is (ahem ahem) over due for gold coin #17

 

Over the decades since the 1960s, You've made SO MANY friends via your experiences, tallies, know-how, and generosity.  So many that you had to organize these outings.  JUST to fit in all the friends that have pressured you to get a piece of your mind, eh ?  There's no price that anyone can put on friendship & friendliness.  No amount of seated and gold coins kept-for-oneself, can ever substitute for friendships and good times.  You are the legend !

I know that some successful md'rs opt to associate only with a couple of close friend hunters.   That's fine.  To each his own.   But you have never said "no" to anyone's request for advice, friendship, etc....    And to have been @ both virgin sites (with the nostalgic tales of "easy pickens") up to the present (worked out sites where you need creative arsenals and hard work), is the type evolution that newbies will rarely ever experience.   

Some day I should do the same thing as you are doing.  Although you have 10 yrs. on me (I didn't start till 1976 -ish, and was only 14-ish at the time), yet ..... that would be a lot of fun to do what you've done.   You've inspired me Monte !  Now if I could just get carte-blanche for a ghost town, haha

[Monte]

2 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Ha !   Yes, the reason you haven't pulled a gold coin on the organized safaris, is that you don't have Tom_in_CA there.  Who is (ahem ahem) over due for gold coin #17

Tom, knowing the types of sites you hunt, and the opportunities than come with those being from California's early-era, there's no doubt #17 just might be on your next journey afield.  As for me and my dry spell, with over 56 years of very avid detecting, and concentrating on ghost towns and similar old-use locations since July of '83, I still only have one gold coin accounted for.

1912 $2.50 (One near newer would have been nice!)

Summer of 1978

The small town I lived in, and found behind the old general store.

Detector I was using at the time was a Garrett GroundHog, 15 kHz, w/7" Coil

 

2 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Over the decades since the 1960s, You've made SO MANY friends via your experiences, tallies, know-how, and generosity.  So many that you had to organize these outings.  JUST to fit in all the friends that have pressured you to get a piece of your mind, eh ?  There's no price that anyone can put on friendship & friendliness.  No amount of seated and gold coins kept-for-oneself, can ever substitute for friendships and good times.  You are the legend !

I am fortunate that I have made a lot of friends in over half-a-century of metal detecting activity.  Sadly, many of hem were older than I was and as time has passed, so have many of them.  There have been a lot of newcomers to this great sport as well, and I still hear from or get to meet up with some who were around when we got a couple of clubs started in '81 and another in '85.

Then there have been those who have already put in some good hunt time, but getting to know them and learn from them has also been part of my rewards.  I'm not stingy and as much as I try to do what I can to help others with questions and 'How-To' understanding, I am also ways ready to learn more since we never know-it-all.

Outings?  I have coordinated, or helped put together, small group gatherings dating back to about 1976, partly for the fun of finding stuff at potential sites, but mainly for the benefits of meeting up with others to enjoy their company and share their success afield.  I had held about a half-dozen Outings with a local group of gatherers in the Portland, Orgon metro area that started about a dozen years ago.

Then I decided I ought to put out an open-door opportunity for anyone from anywhere to come join a group of adventurers for some ghost town hunting.  All but one of the WTHO's have involved ghost towns in both Oregon and Nevada, and we've averaged 15 to 25 attendees per Outing.  They were not initially down just to involve friends or people I already knew, but to open the opportunities for all of us to meet up with others who share an interest in this great sport, and doing so we meet and make new friends.  With the opportunity to maybe make a nice find or two, it is a win-win event.

 

2 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

I know that some successful md'rs opt to associate only with a couple of close friend hunters.   That's fine.  To each his own.   But you have never said "no" to anyone's request for advice, friendship, etc....    And to have been @ both virgin sites (with the nostalgic tales of "easy pickens") up to the present (worked out sites where you need creative arsenals and hard work), is the type evolution that newbies will rarely ever experience. 

I seldom turn down an opportunity to try nd share a bit of what I have learned, that's true.  nd I do have a little fun when I do my day-long classroom seminars, since 1981, when I get to share some personal experiences in 'story-form' that, in the end, convey an educational message to help get a point across.

 

3 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

Some day I should do the same thing as you are doing.  Although you have 10 yrs. on me (I didn't start till 1976 -ish, and was only 14-ish at the time), yet ..... that would be a lot of fun to do what you've done.   You've inspired me Monte !  Now if I could just get carte-blanche for a ghost town, haha

Hosting Outings is a lot of fun.  Finding new and exciting places that provide an assortment of locations for folks to spread out to, now that's the challenge.  You were fortunate to still get started early-on when we had a good variety of detectors and went through the fast 'growing-process' in detector design.

Yes, about 10 years or so.  I was 15 when I built my first Metal / Mineral Locator in march of '65, but I turned 16 two months later and that provided me with the opportunity to have my license and drive which was better than toting that home-built contraption around on my bicycle.

So far I have only had success once getting owner's permission to hunt a ghost town they owned ... at least sort of.  They didn't want to give anyone permission, and definitely nothing in writing, because if someone stepped on a nail or otherwise got hurt they didn't want to be sued.  When asked, their reply was No, except I had approached them a couple of times, going back to when I wanted to buy the barren townsite from them, and they simply said:

"We aren't going to say 'Yes', and we don't want to know when you visit the place or what kind of junk you might find ... But we will simply say "Good Luck!"

The gal had inherited the townsite out in the desert, but had never seen the place.  Her husband drove out there one time and when I talked to them the first and second time all he told e was that there's nothing there.  Just a bunch of sagebrush, weeds, holes, scattered rusty old car parts, and broken glass and junk.

I agreed, it was very trashy with a lot of Iron nails and other assorts debris.  I let them know that I had been out that way rabbit hunting a lot dating back to about 1967 so I know there are a lot of spent .22 LR cases and bullets in the mix.  They didn't now much about the metal detecting hobby, and both were a good bit older than me at the time.  I told them I have been enjoying this great sport since the summer of '65 and liked to look around any old sites that might have a lot coin or two.  I did tell them when asked it I ever found a coin out there that I did find a 1927 Wheat-Penny back in May of '69.  That didn't seem to excite them much.

I didn't. however. expand on my success rate or that I had been working the location since the summer of '83, very often, and that it was, and still is, the most productive hunt site I have ever hunted.  Since the early '70s I have usually assigned a name to different places I like to hunt just so others don't catch on to where I am reaping my rewards, and that goes for my favorite ghost town (or any site) that I named 'Twin Flats'.  By the turn of this century I had recovered enough coins from there to put in 2X2 cards and fill four binders with a small bunch left to be cleaned and carded.  One old townsite, hundreds of coins, and many interesting experiences as I shared a lot of detecting trips with good friends.

And I know, first-hand and by reported tales, that it produced at least one $2.50, $5, $10 and $20 gold coin.  The $5 coin find is one of the 'educational' stories I relate in my seminars.  It was a very choice-condition 1880 CC variety recovered at about 2", by a good friend and detecting buddy, in October of '86 after I sold her a Tesoro Silver Sabre w/7" Concentric coil in May.  A good way to get started in this great sport.

Sorry to ramble, but I guess that's nothing new for me.  I hope you can make a future WTHO and meet a wonderful group of participants.

Monte

[Tom Slick]

Both my Wife and my sister have traveled with me to past Monte's W.T.H.O's. My sister had asked me for some of my Ghost Town found items and yesterday she presented me with a shadow box full of items found on these past outings. Now to figure out where to hang it. I'm thinking my gold mining / detecting themed office will be just the place. Just thought I'd share.   

[Monte]

Tom in Arizona, your sister did a beautiful job on that shadow box. I really like the way she did the backdrop in each of the little books.

In preparing for this move I made to Texas, I was cleaning out a lot of stuff and we had a couple of yard sales where I sold off most of the old nick nack stuff I had collected the last several years. I guess collected isn't the best term cuz that sounds like a specific intent to hang on to something that was really cool where in the long run he was really just all that stuff sitting around that I had gathered from outings.

I think I'm going to start hanging on to more what I find gather up some of what I have left around just to have some shadow boxes made. They would look great in my new den which is going to be the remodeled original living room.  Now, if I could find some way to twist her arm and use her talents to make them for me (at a cost, of course) that would be great.

Monte

[Cal_Cobra]

Thanks for the report, those are the kind of trips that you'll always remember.  Great group of folks and fun sites to explore!

A friend and I did the second (IIRC) WTHO trip that Monte and Greg hosted and we had a great time.   Coins, tokens, and relics were dug.  Between everyone on that trip some really nice finds were made.