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Zincoln Vdi Results In A Surprise Find


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Excellent detail and insights into the Nox as well as great finds! Thanks for taking us along on your journey and making us part of the process, great story!

 

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Well, you managed to turn it into a good hunt considering all the drawbacks. The Merc looks like it was dropped early on based on it's condition, same goes for the other two. You hit a decent layer for the probability of more silver coins.

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Nice hunt and great detail, GB. 👍

Here id'a mowed the darn place myself, and called the county supervisor asking him why the heck there were signs like that. 🤬

Glad you got a silver coin, I would have used my Quest pinpointer to casually leave the big nail behind, if I can't see it, I don't feel obligated to take it with me 🙄 😀

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Nice merc, sometimes silvers and even clad can have off numbers or different phase. Finding that in a soccer field that is very iron rich as it is near some wet lands. Grass roots are deeper than 6" to give you an idea how rich the soil is. Other day dug a bunch of nickels that were above pull tab mark which totally screwed me up, was thinking they were war nicks at first.

You said that the ground has been re-worked, is there signs of any of the dirt being pushed to the sides of the part or did they do a good ole turn it over and cover it up? I say that because the soccer field I been hunting has 8" top soil on top of gravel and well below that is fill. It was once a farm so anything old is long gone. Most the targets are 70's or newer and only found one 54 rosie and a merc in a dirt pile off the side from when they redid the field.

I am doing well sniping out dime and quarters and copper pennies with my Tejon and concentric coil as I am discing out zincs and lower. Got 2nd disc to break on screw caps so not digging any trash really. Something you might want to try. Figured I can always go back and work the below nickel range later. Much easier than getting blasted with tons of junk target hits.

BTW nickels are usually below the square flip tabs, should be easy to pick out at most depths. That is a cool trick you do to identify them though.

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Congrats on the nice finds! Earlier in the year I was hunting a late 1800's or early 1900's house and despite high hopes was not finding much when I got a classic IHP signal on my Nox 18-19. Yep it was a 1900 IHP. Not two steps away I get another classic IHP beep and dig out a 1907 Barber dime! Not a worn one either. It was dropped with very little wear. I swung back over the hole checking for another coin, but got nothing. I honestly don't remember if I heard iron or not. Another time this year I passed on a Merc I thought was a penny, and my buddy dug it. It was heavily worn and rang low out of the hole too. Man that always smarts when that happens! I was kicking myself the rest of the day. 

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Great write-up as usual on your hunting.

Glad to see the saves you got, but I am sure that you had a lot of trash also.

Good luck on your next hunt.

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15 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

The Merc looks like it was dropped early on based on it's condition, same goes for the other two. You hit a decent layer for the probability of more silver coins.

12 hours ago, kac said:

You said that the ground has been re-worked, is there signs of any of the dirt being pushed to the sides of the part or did they do a good ole turn it over and cover it up?

This particular park is good practice for site reading.  Interestingly the aerial photos seem to help as they show different shades of color for the grass.  Here are a few things I think I've figured out:

1) Anything around modern structures (including streetside sidewalks) is bad news unless it's pre-60's.  They always use forms and rework the grassy area within several feet of the finished concrete afterward.

2) Soil type is a give-away.  Organic matter accumulates with time so deep organic matter is good.  Backfilling around here is usually done with thick, sticky clay.  That's inexpensive whereas topsoil brings top dollar.  I think they even sometimes strip off the topsoil (to sell on the side...) and replace with clay.  I've dug a few deep targets under clay layers but it's time consuming and messy getting through the clay and since deep good targets are more difficult to distinguish from deep (conductive) iron trash, it's a bad tradeoff for me.

3) The kind of grass also tells a tale.  Old grass around here is stouter but also not as thick/plush.  When they reseed after backfilling the grass is soft and tends to be thicker.  And the color of the grass is different, too.

4) Contours (which relic hunters take advantage of) are always good indicators.  Modern reworking tries to make everything smooth and uniform.  Old areas can be raised (or low).  But, kac, I don't see any stripped off layers in piles.

5) A gravel layer can be bad or good, depending upon how deep and how thick.  Here (and other sites) I've found coins right on the top of gravel (when that surface was the finished surface in the past) but also under the gravel layer (particularly when it was put down as a base layer to aid in water runoff).  I've also found items in the gravel which were brought in with the gravel (e.g. bullets that ended up in streams/creeks where the gravel was extracted).

It is true (and I know you've mentioned this, kac) that occasionally the backfilling was done with dirt from an old, inhabited site.  As an example, in the early 60's my uncle was filling a low area of land he had just acquired to build a workshop.  The town he lived in was putting in new sewer lines and he asked them to bring their unwanted dirt to his site.  A few years later he found a sunbaker Morgan Dollar (in bad shape...) staring up at him.

Interesting thing about this park is that all of the above apply in one place or another.  I've just about finished all the promising (un-backfilled) part but as I showed this week there are a few places that remain.

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Nice work there GB...I always get excited when I see a street tear out and the dirt is jet black is that what you are referring to when you say organic matter? 

strick 

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10 hours ago, strick said:

I always get excited when I see a street tear out and the dirt is jet black is that what you are referring to when you say organic matter?

Yes.  Sometimes its compacted while other times its loose.  But black/dark soil is a good sign, at least here in the Midwest.  Sounds like it's similar there in N. Cal.

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