Cal_Cobra

Good Manticore backup machine 😏

Thanks for the useful help on leveraging the Lidar site/tools, I’m looking forward to checking it out.

You can't beat that 👍 Validation of your research paid off! Please tell me about the Lidar maps? I've seen that there's some sources for govt. produced Lidar maps, but you have to use some special mapping software to use them. After seeing Josh Gates and others show the results of using Lidar to map out the history we cannot see on the ground, it's intrigued me that this could be the "next" research tool to use out west to locate old forgotten stage stops relegated to footnotes in the history books, and other similarly "lost" sites. I'd love to learn how to leverage publicly available Lidar data to use for our research. We've developed "methods" to deal with overgrowth (small bushes, small sucker trees, etc) 🙂 I'm with you on snakes. TomCA has no snake caution, but having grown up in rattlesnake country, I certainly do.

TomCA and I decided to test out our new fat tire ebikes integrated into some detecting earlier this week. The bikes are awesome, I can see these really being useful in the future for some of our adventures where you simply cannot drive, and may have several miles of ground to traverse before getting to your detecting objectives. So we have a Fur Trading site and a Gold Rush era encampment that aren't too far apart from each other that we were able to get to. No doubt that TomCA made the find of the day, but I was (fairly) happy with my take as well. The Gold Rush era encampment we call the Buckle Village because we're found several Gold Rush era tongue and wreath style buckles that were prevalent to the Gold Rush 49'ers flooding into the west coast to make their fame and fortune. They simply don't seem to be found at sites from different eras (I'm sure there's exceptions as always). This encampment has produced several for us, as well as a beautifully decorated powder flask, buttons, TomCA got a nice reale, I got what's considered the first trade token minted in California from 1850, a stunning 1820 United States Militia one piece button, and plenty of other period relics. At this site, Tom bested me with his prize and I'll let him have the honors of sharing that when he shares his finds. My best find from this site was an 1840s and 1850s early United States Marines two piece button backmarked "SCOVILLS & CO / [dot] WATERBURY [dot]". A few buckles, and what appears to be a knife or dagger hilt. This site has really dried up since our first few visits, but there's still finds there if you work your a$$ off 🤠 The next site has been a fun one, early California fur trading post site that digs deep into early California history. At this site you just never know what you'll find. It was my day for green copper, I dug a butt load of it, possibly more then I've ever dug there before. The larger pieces sound so good, beautiful high tones with high 20's to low 30's TID's on the EQX800, so you dig each and everyone anticipating a reale or bust coin, only to be let down with a green copper whatsit. Still fun history BUT it's getting stingy with non green copper items. This trip I managed to get a small, thin copper coin of some sort. I'm sure it's not a button or whatnot, but it's so corroded it's unlikely to ever be ID'd. I also dug a period bronze wedding ring, which while not as showy as a gold or silver ring, is still fun to me as it was likely a very personal effect that someone wore from the old world to the new world in their great adventure only to leave it behind to be found centuries later. Also got the obligatory black powder round ball drops and a few fired ones (I actually like finding those) and some later period rim-fire shells. Dug a bunch of bronze nails/spikes. I don't mind digging these, their not like square nails that litter most of our relic sites out west, these are hand forged bronze nails/spikes with old world forged rose heads. Also a couple of interesting bits they made for some special purpose use. I'm sure Tom will proudly display his buffalo and war nickles 🤣 so I'll show my wheat cents and fluke clad too 😁

LOVE your Colonial buckle! I've NEVER seen one dug on the west coast. Given our earliest European contact period influence goes back to the Spanish in the 1700's, I suppose it's theoretically possible, although those buckles seem to be more of an English influenced item then Spanish (I could be wrong).

Thanks Ron! Have you been tearing up the beach? Not sure if that big storm that rolled through here Monday night worked to your advantage 🤔

I'm surprised at so many negative ML80 headphone critiques, but I get that everyone's different. On wired headphones I always though the Sunray Golds had the best audio, tried other headphones and they just didn't have comparable audio. I really gelled with the ML80 audio, but the build quality could be a bit better. I had to use some black electrical tape wrapped around the plastic bits where the metal extensions protrude as the black plastic bits have cracked. Aside from that they've worked great. I did try some ear buds that were suggested here a few years ago. I didn't like the audio, and ear buds just aren't my bag. Like longbow I've definitely heard some very deep/faint signals with the ML80 headphones that other machines walked right over, so aside form the plastic bits that cracked, I'm good with the ML80's, if the stock headphones on the Manticore sound as good, I'll be a happy camper.

I do the same with the newbie juice. My hunt partner is always rubbing his coins, drives me crazy! My first gold coin I dug was caked with dirt and I had to keep pulling it away from him as he tried to rub the dirt off to see the date. I'm glad I did as it turned out to be quite a rare date/mint haha

No need to be embarrassed with that find, that's in great shape! Funny thing, a few years ago we had a killer scrape at a very old San Francisco park. It was an amazing event that lasted for months and a lot of great finds came from that site. One trip out I had dug a couple of mercs in one hunt, plus a bunch of other finds. I didn't even look at the mercs as why waste valuable hunt time (the competition was fierce at this demo) when you can examine them at home, besides when do you ever dig valuable mercs 🤔 The next day I dump out my finds pouch to look at my finds, and as I was looking at the dates, I noticed that one merc was a 1916. I've dug dozens of 1916 mercs over the years, but they've always turned out to be San Francisco or Philadelphia minted, and I remember thinking to myself before the flip to see the mint mark "come on, for once be a Denver mint mark!" and low and behold it was. Here's the digs from that days demo hunt with the 1916-D merc: The other merc in great condition was a 1943, too bad the condition on the mercs wasn't reversed, but we take what we get and I was just grateful to finally dig a 16D 👍

Thanks, that's an interesting read. Given that the example I found online as well as the one I dug are both holed (square holes) I'd assume that they weren't fans of the King or Queen, or the union of them and/or the implications that their union created.

Thanks! Nothing wrong with mercs! TomCA just bagged a 1921-D, I've not dug a 1921-D but did get the 1916-D key date merc at a San Francisco park scrape a few years ago.

Thanks Brian! Congrats on your gold coin and largie. I'm sure I'll dig a largie one of these days, but I'll gladly take gold coins as a consolation prize in the mean time 🙂

Natural electrolysis on the coin stack eh? Was it in salt water? If the Mary Queen of Scotland coin is a fake, and the original was gold, perhaps it was originally gold plated to pass as the real McCoy?

I'll take a pass on that trade 🤣 If you ever hunt with Tom, heed this warning - when Tom says " Almost like you could bend it if you wanted." never ever let him bend your finds...trust me on this one 🧐

Thanks, appreciate it 👍

Thanks. I figured they'd be common in Europe, but to find any token/coin in California from the early 1700's is quite rare. I see these are sometimes called Jetsons, is that just another term for a token? It's kind of like large cents in the U.S. They're practically jumping out of everywhere in the Eastern U.S., but in the Western U.S. you have better odds of finding a gold coin. Heck I've dug two gold coins out here, but never dug a large cent (which personally I'm okay with 🙂

Thanks Bill! My trusty EQX800. To be honest, that darned machine has done so well for me at the kind of sites I enjoy hunting, it's been tough to use anything else. I used the Legend earlier this year at some of our sites and beach detecting, but most of our sites are shut down during the summer due to overgrowth, cement hard ground, and/or excessive temps, so the fall and winter are our peak detecting times, provided the weather doesn't blow us out.

Thanks, and hopefully there will be more as we're planning another excursion soon to another site that's been productive in the past 👍

Thanks! Super unexpected, heck at first Tom thought it was kids play money, but after I cleaned it up, I could tell it was old but still had no idea what it was until I hit google haha You have to love this hobby, you just never know what will turn up!

Thanks! Kaiser sent me in for a Covid PCR test and a chest X-ray and both were negative, but they didn't give me anything until I was a bit more forceful and told them I'd really like to enjoy Halloween festivities with my four year old daughter, please give me antibiotics 😣 As expected that took care of things

Thanks El, hope you're doing well and getting out!

Thanks! Yep those are Henry rim-fire cartridges. Except for rim-fire and pin-fires, I really despise digging bullet shells, but rim-fire and pin-fires are great age indicators.

This is one of those sites I just don't know if the Manticore would open up from what I've read from Tom Dankowski and Mark Lawrie have discussed, but after I've learned the machine, I'd try it there after a good rain, I think that opens this site up a bit.

Oddly on past trips to this site we've found quite a few buttons and some really good ones at times, but aside from eyeballing the mother of pearl button on the surface, the only other button was a tiny ball button. Thanks, and HH!

Chuck what's interesting is that the ID'd example of the token I found on a French website is also holed, and in a lot worse condition. Kind of amazing the one I dug traveled by ship all the way to the west and is in far better condition. @palzynski given you're in a country I'd almost expect a token like this to be dug, can you tell us if these are collectable over there? Would this be considered a good find over there, or something common?