Tom_in_CA

Hey Brian, great to get out and put a few more feathers in our caps. We knew that we were primarily hunting "old news" spots. But that too has its own set of "sport". To add to our site-specific trays, add to the stories, etc.... Like I Got to try out my new Deus (aka "french poodle") @ some iron zones. And we Got to put a "fork" into another site or two. 🤪 Fun trip ! The only correction I would add, is that at 10:26, my reale is said to be 1797. It is 1796. Don't be trying to rob me of 1 yr. bro ! 🤣

Awesome write-up. Awesome pictures. Awesome video. Thanx for bringing us along. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy !

This just goes to show : People can loose the DARNDEST things.

For a mere $100 (I accept PayPal), I can be persuaded not to tell her 😉

Ancient coins that show up in the oddest of places, does NOT mean that it was necessarily lost in-that-period. For example : I know a guy from Monterey, CA, who found an ancient coin, in an oldtown demolition site, which he got ID'd as something like AD 100 (an ancient Roman coin). At no point did he think "Gee, the Romans were here in AD 100 ! ". Instead he assumed it was probably a curiosity pocket piece brought back by a returning soldier after WWI or WWII from Europe. Because coin collecting is not a new phenomenon. There has been ancient coins bought/sold/traded since forever. For example: When Egyptology became "all the rage" in the 1920s, then it wasn't unusual for street vendors in the holy land to hawk ancient coins to tourists, as souvenirs . And while it might seem unusual for someone in modern times to be carrying such an item and lose it via casual fumble fingers, yet : As we know from our hobby : PEOPLE LOSE THE DURNDEST THINGS ! For example: When I was a kid with my first detector in the mid 1970s, I went up and down the parking strips in my 1950s neighborhood, angling for silver coins. Imagine my surprise when I got an 1870s foreign silver coin !! Woohoo ! But never for a moment did I think "Someone was here in the 1870s". Instead I assumed it was a modern loss. How did I know ? Easy : It was still in the bezel ! Doh ! But what if it had fallen out of the bezel ? I knew a guy who found a seated half on the dry sand of a beach here. How did he know it was a modern loss ? Easy : It was still in the plastic sleeve, from the coin-store with the price tag on it. Doh ! So while it is unusual, it is possible that ancient coins do get lost in modern times, for a variety of reasons.

This has been debunked. Those anchor stones, that you speak of, that have been found off the west coast, have been shown to have still been in-use by the Chinese, even up to American period times here (gold rush, when, yes, Chinese came here on ships). Thus they need not point to anything "ancient". Yet for some strange reason, this story continues to circulate. As if .... no one can resist a salacious story about how the Chinese were supposedly here 500 or 1000 yrs. before the Europeans, blah blah.

good pix !

I like the landscape shots, and the gilt button. Nice job .

Great photography.

Nice job. A silver dime at 10" deep, with a fair enough TID to cause you to suspect it, is good turf depth !

sweet !

GB-Amateur, I agree that numb-nuts like this don't help our cause. But on the other hand : I assure you that purist archie types will hate md'rs NO MATTER HOW SQUEAKY CLEAN we are. To simply be seen detecting by purist archies (even at entirely legal spots), will cause them to have kittens. They do not think that ANY private sector digging , for old cool things, is appropriate ANYWHERE.

The soil was very kind to that IH. Nice job.

Thanx PimentoUK . Now I understand.

Persons in England and Europe detect "Stone Age sites" all the time. It's just that *some* are sensitive protected historical sites, and others aren't. And I got a chuckle out of the idea that he'd just be getting tourist junk anyhow. Haha. Because, yes : There's lots of tourists that visit this particular site, right ? Hence bottle caps & pulltabs. But if you talk to the hardcore guys that hit the farmer's fields of England and Europe (where stone age to Roman era villas once stood) they will tell you that they can some times go ALL DAY and not find any modern object Ie.: no pulltabs or bottle caps or modern coins. Thus , yes, this guy is a Rookie for his ability to choose which sites to hit ! 🤣

Wait, hold on ........ Am I understanding this correctly ? He "posted on-line" ? (I presume show & tell ?). Ok, then pray-tell, did he put "found at Stonehenge " ? WTF ? 🤪

This is how us guys did, back in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, when discriminators were new, and motion disc. was new: We were SO happy to FINALLY be able to reject foil and tabs, that we did JUST THAT . Doh ! Oh sure : Kiss gold rings and nickels goodbye. 🙄 Sure. But it was fun to get silver coins, at a time when silver melt value was reaching all-time highs back then. And sure, we had enough brains to lower our disc. control setting for the beach. But for junky inner city parks, no one was being a hero in relic-dig-all mindset. I can think of a certain park in San Francisco, where I can dig a couple of silvers, and 10 or 12 wheaties, any time I'm passing through there. And I'm using the settings you describe. Some other might gasp : "Oh no, you're loosing depth or might miss a gold ring !". But guaranteed, if they thought they were going to be a hero and strip-mine there, they wouldn't last 30 minutes, before reality hits them upside the head. Doh !

Do a google images search for "Compass 77b" and "Compass 94b" These are circa 1972 to 1975 -ish, all-metal TR machines.

When you say "valuable objects hidden within walls" , I assume you're talking about larger sized objects, right ? (caches, and things like box and jar sized stuff). Right ? Not individual coins, right ? Then if you're talking about cache hunting in walls, then ironically, the less sensitive the machine is, THE BETTER. Doh ! So for example, and old school 77b auto or 94b auto, would be perfect. They do not see individual nails. And are wimpy (depthwise) on coin sized targets. Or simply get a 2-box machine (although that would be difficult to man-handle sideways on walls and ceilings). A 2-box machine will simply not hear anything smaller than a soda can. Thus the perfect discriminator for nails, single coins, wires-in-walls, chicken screen (for reinforced plaster/lathe walls), etc...

Although the Chinese cashe coin might not be worth anything, yet I still love finding them. Because like your post shows : They are indicative that old key-date stuff is close behind 🙂

Great play-by-play. You have an excellent ear for turf-cherry-picking !

Good question. Some of the hardcore guys hunting the Placerville to Grass Valley corridor told me they were in the $50 to $100 melt value range, per day, on average. That was when gold was hovering at $2k per ounce several months ago. And these guys are hardcore. So ... probably not going to be replicated easily , nor worth long drives to "fish for $50" if you're not in a local scene where good spots are known to be. But if their claims are even remotely true (even if you could say only $25 on average, after taking out fish-stories), it seems like better prospects than angling for gold rings. But that depends on where you're hunting. Some southern CA & Hawaii beach guys (where there's lots of warm-water swimming) have higher gold ring ratios than cold water beach guys. And also depends on if it's beach hunters that *strictly* wait for mother nature's storms to erode. Then, sure, gold ring ratios rise. But those time frames might only come a few weeks in an entire year. But if the question is just about dudes that ply the sand boxes and dry sand beaches, then I'd say that nugget hunters will average more, in-the-end, assuming they're hard-core nugget guys in right-spots.

Oh my gosh, that is absolutely beautiful ! Drips with history ! Strange how many French coins were showing up here in CA during that super early American period. Was France one of the countries where Gold rush fever struck, and thus French folks were joining the rush to CA ? We've found a few French coins of that era (whatever date would have been in circulation @ the early 1850s) at coastal sites of the same G.R. date range. Good job and great pix !

It was only a memorial penny now. But within a few weeks, it will be wheat pennies. Then in a few months, it'll be Indian head cents. By the end of the year, it will be large cents. BUCKET LISTERS WILL FLY PAST ! And within a few years : Any gold coin *newer* than 1850 will bore you to tears ! 🤩

31 silver, in a single hunt, from a normal routine turfed park ? I think I heard from your buddy about that, who was with you that day. But as I keep trying to tell you : It's not fair for you to compare your tallies with ours. Since we've determined that you're not human. You're a robot. Tsk tsk 😬