Tom_in_CA

We've found mission era rings. But they're just copper rings. With various design, or icon on them. After looking at a google images page of "Jesuit ring", I would say that I/we have not found *exactly* like those. But if I change the image search to "Jesuit fur trade ring", then yes: We find those type varieties. I just always assumed they were Indian trade trinkets. But sure: Since the missions, and their outposts, were the first European toe-hold here, then naturally a lot of the items we found have a connection to the church. Since, at the time, the crown and the church were co-mingled, and the churches (the missions) administered the lands on-behalf of the crown. So go figure, we'll find super early crude crucifixes and medallions, from time to time, at sites that pre-date CA statehood.

Well, at the risk of further angering Chris, for us hi-jacking his thread : That area west of Cooper Rd, was exactly the where the El Tucho rancho was located. Unless you mean the northern stretch of Cooper Rd, up closer to Hwy. 183. Then that's different. Although I've wandered the fields up there too, because of hints at old diseno maps. And found midden in the field of locations (ceramic shards, tile, etc...). And then we break out the detectors 🙂 El Tucho is shown on certain topo maps . Since rancho boundaries system was the infancy of the current mapping system of CA land, after all. And you can google "El Tucho" aka "Las Salinas", to get more info. And as for Old stage Rd, we've pinned down multiple adobe sites along there, and bagged reales and early seateds, buttons, etc.... Stop by next time you're down this way on "urgent business", and we'll pour over maps, names, dates, etc.... I grew up here. And hunt with a guy who knows all the old-time names as well (his family is multi-generational ranching/construction).

This was a barn (long story about why anyone would have been detecting there, TO BEGIN WITH, so I'll have to leave out that part of the story). But suffice it to say, the location of the barn had something historical that goes back to the 1830s, so a few people, as early as the late 1970s, had gone around it, and in it, to try their luck. Imagine their surprise , that instead of finding coins/targets from the mid 1800s, as they were looking for, that they instead started finding lots of silver coins. Just common date roosies, mercs, silver washingtons, franklin halves, walkers, etc..... Needless to say, they were a bit confused, but ... on the other hand .... weren't complaining. I recall that the original guys mused "must have been barn dances going on here" . Yet that theory didn't quite fit, because they NEVER found pennies. Only dimes, quarters, and halves. Hmmm I joined in on the story, in the very early 1990s, because I too read the same historical citations. And then I went and hit it, I too was met with lots of scattered silver coins . So I then realized "this must be the barn that the other guys I talked to, had mentioned a decade or so earlier". I have since pieced the story together (aided by talking to the owner .... long story), that these were the result of broken-open jars of silver coins, that had been inadvertently spread out all over the barn floor, and out-the-door and into the immediate environs, of the barn. D/t every year or so, the farmer would take a Bobcat tractor to scoop out all the cow manure . And had been inadvertently hitting these jars, and scattering their contents. This explained why some of the coins were coming out in clumps (all-end-to-end stacked, etc....). Does that answer your question ?

What part of CA are you located in now ? When you get down this direction, drop me a line and we can join up to go over some maps. And I'll show you what I know, where I've hunted, etc.... Is your family familiar with the late Gary Breschini ? He was a local archaeologist and historian, who traced his roots back to the Blanco district ranching area. Which is the area you alluded to, between Salinas to Marina. We used to pick his brain continuously about places to detect at ! Anyhow, drop me a line when you get down to my area.

Matt, There were/are several recorded recurring Salinas River picnic spots, that past md'rs here have sleuthed out. Ie.: Where the townsfolk would go out in their wagons or Model T's,and spend a day @ picnic, swim, etc..... But all of the are utterly worthless to md'ing. Because prior to the mid 1960s (heck, even later, till-the '90s, as you say), the Salinas river has periodically flooded out, as you know. Such that any "beach" you can point to NOW, is NOT the same beach that was there even 10 yrs. ago. Sand is washed out, and new sand-fills in, blah blah. And any grove of trees along the banks of the river has been silted out, and jungle-like terrain. And then the govt. has gone in and made levees along each side, for vast lengths. Such that all the terra-firma near-to-the-river has been utterly altered over all the decades. Yes I've detected several of the "Blanco district" settlers-era homesteads, if/when I can substantiate that they've been gone since early on. Because, naturally, if they're still just the location of modern ag. farm commercial centers, then they're just going to be a giant junk heap. So we've tried to isolate a few spots that had structures on them, yet were *gone* by the 1910s/20s. And are nothing but row-crop land now. We found one location in the vicinity of East Garrison / Reservation Rd. area (south side of Salinas River), that gave up multiple seateds, a few reales, and a $5 gold. All dated 1830s-'60s. The one location that has always eluded me, was "El Tucho". That was several square miles of land, that was a Spanish , then Mexican land grant rancho area. And historical citations hint that there was a community of people living there at various mission-era times. But as for exactly WHERE, on the vast acreage, that this location was, we've never been able to pin down. You can see the boundaries of El Tucho on maps, no problems (topo maps, etc....). But that doesn't tell us where the actual homestead/habitation (adobes, or whatever) were. It was somewhere out @ what is now the Blanco store/ Cooper Rd. area. Do you have any clues ?

I was 14-ish, in about 1975- ish. Had been following around a fellow school chum (7th grade ? 8th grade ?), who had a Compass 94b or 77b auto. He ran the detector while I dug the holes for him. We'd find clad, and an occasional wheatie or buffalo nickel. I was hooked on the concept ! I rushed out and found my own machine to buy. With all the money I had saved from my previous summer job picking apples ($100, which was a lot of $ to a kid back in those days), I bought a used Whites 66TR. That's a circa early 1970s all-metal TR machine (similar to the 77b, but not quite as good). All I did, for several years, was just elementary school yards, and the yards of old homes in our town. Never had enough brains to use headphones, etc.... The depth for coin-sized targets was 3" or 4" tops. Maybe 5" on a quarter if I really pushed it. It had no discrimination (other than innately passing small iron). So I dug a lot of foil & tabs. I was limited on where I could take it on my bicycle around town. Never had the concept or knowledge to do anything more exotic that turf. So it was merc. & silver roosies, and teens/20s wheaties at the absolute oldest. I remember finding a high percentage of silver washington quarters in those days. But go figure: In the mid to late 1970s, silver had only been out of circulation for 12 or 13 yrs. And the 66TR was better at bigger objects (quarters), than small objects (dimes). Then in 1980 or so, while in High school, I got a Garrett Groundhog. I don't know why I didn't have enough brains to get a 6000D. Since those were FAR AND AWAY better, in that era. Doh ! But news didn't travel as fast in those days (not like now, with immediate access to pro/con discussions of machines). So the VLF/TR era was "slow to die" in the late 1970s to early 1980s.

Well if you want some company, then your "best long time friend Tom_in_CA" is less than 2 hrs. from you 🤣 We were just hunting a spot in the Gustine area @ over the weekend ! Regret to say we just got age-indicators , but no quality period coins or buckles.

Welcome to the elite and exclusive seated coin club. And my friends and I are green with envy on the buckles. Those are the sought-after badge of merit in CA G.R. hunter circles. What part of the central Valley are you in ? I'm @ the Salinas/Monterey area. So it takes me a few hours to reach the Sierra foothills G.R. sections. Envious of you guys that are a tad closer !

If any of you wants more of this type stuff, I'll sell you "genuine California beach trash" at HALF what that guy is asking. But it's only because I'm a nice guy, and just trying to help you fellow forumites out. Friends and family discount, if you order before the end of next week ! 🤣

As a long-time wet-salt-beach hunter (hunting after storm erosion on our beaches): It looks like a copper penny (pre 1982) that has gone in-&-out on the surf many many times. And yes, they can have smaller dimensions than a normal penny, d/t the erosion/wear. We find HUNDREDS of those type coins , and just toss them in the garbage. That's what yours looks like anyhow. And how that got to a fresh-water still-water-spot, I dunno. 😳

Good to see a CA report action. I was passing through So. CAL (on my way to some land-hunting objectives), on 1/29. I hit Santa Monica and Manhattan beach. The storms/swells had *just* gone by the day or two before, and I was hoping that some residual action was maybe still there. But it was as you said: Rather disappointing. And other So. CA guys reported the same thing: Not as good as they'd have hoped. We had some action up in my part of CA (Monterey Bay beaches) during that event. But nothing earth-shattering.

Tell your mate "Thank you". I love old-times detector nostalgia, so that was a great video. He was swinging a mid 1960s vintage Fisher in those clips. I'll bet the depth on coins was only 3", eh ? Question: In that fellow's career, how many gold coins (individual fumble fingers losses) did he find ?

I've been at it since I was in 8th grade, which was about 1976. I wish I'd kept track of all the silver coins I'd found, so I could chime in on your question 🤪 I would not count caches (yes, even spilled ones) into the total. If you're talking of singular fumble-finger-losses, then a cache or broke-open-cache is not in the same category. Jamflicker & Dan ("Raphis") are finding them one-fumble-finger loss at a time. I too, decades ago, got into a location where jars of silver coins had apparently broken open by a farm plow. And spread out into a field and barn area. Such that sometimes you'd get 5 or 10 silver coins all fused together. That's different than the 1-at-a-time that Dan and Jam do, as you know. Also, there's different niches. Ie.: While that might be the most merc's from turfed So. CA parks (or ANY USA parks in-a-given-year), yet there's other niches. Like notice they find few, if any, seateds. And there's guys that have no desire to knock themselves silly for roosies and mercs in junky turf cherry-picking. And might only end the year with 10 or 12 silver coins. Yet every one of them will be a seated. So as you can see : Different niche categories of skill.

Sweet. Just utterly sweet. Those are the kind of age-indicators that just DRIP that a serious rare coin is right-around-the-corner. And the history of the "westward-ho" movement that they paint is priceless. You're making me and that pesky Cal-cobra fellow wonder why we're not getting our @sses in gear and heading to more hunting eastward your directions ! 🤪 Ok Cobra: You ready for a road trip ? haha 🤣

nice.

ok

GB-amateur, with all-due-respect, look closely at what you're saying. In-lieu of The current discussion of : Ghost-story camp-fire legends, vs something of merit. Your fall-back here essentially hinges on "sorting fact from fiction" . If I have correctly recapped with your quote from above. Right ? But this fails to take into account that NONE of the treasure stories EVER started with : "Once upon a time....". They are ALL built around actual names, dates , and events. Why do you think Oak Island, Yamashita, Lost Dutchman, and Pearl ship are so fun to muse and dream about ? Because they are built , let's say, on 95% "actual real names, dates, and events". So you might say : "All we need to do is sort fact from fiction". Right ? But this fails to realize that if the 5% of the story (the part about treasure) is nothing but embellished telephone game ghost story nonsense, then ... presto : What does it matter that the other 95% is true ? There was a Manila galleon wreck site found along a remote stretch of Baja CA, back, I think, in the 1950s. And , like yours, it had (gasp) wax globs and porcelain that had washed up on the beach. Nothing of value was ever found there. Yes some of the 2x per year @ 250 yrs did go unaccounted for and lost. And even assuming some of those were on the west coast (versus the middle of the ocean), then: A) It's VERY difficult to ground yourself on shallow ground (ie.: the beach, like as in the Atocha story). Since our Pacific coast beaches tend to drop off to insane depths, only a short distance off shore (think "Brother Jonathan", for example, which required a submarine to reach) . So unlike the gulf-of-Mexico beaches, which invited shipwrecks to miscalculate, and wreck right on the beach, the CA shoreline is much different. B) The returning Manila galleons actually spotted land (the Pacific coast) MUCH FURTHER south than Oregon. More like the channel Islands area of So. CA. Yes it's true that a few sighted land as far north as San Francisco or Pt. Reyes, etc.... But by the time the route got established, they knew-enough to "cut off mileage" to start their curve southward, in such a way that they started following the coast MUCH further south along the CA coast. Not Oregon latitude in the slightest. C) As said, they were not laden with any goodies that would be of interest to anyone other than archies. Who might be giddy with joy over crockery shards and wax. They had spent all their $ (gold and silver) in China/philippines , to buy their trade goods.

I could only get a few pages into it, until I began to throw up. It's a typical ghost story camp-fire legend. I can spin the very-same-stuff about beaches in my area of Monterey CA. Eg.: wax globs on the beach, crockery shards that (gasp) show up after storm erosion, etc.... And like any good treasure story yarn, there's always the curses, mysterious disappearances of persons, "he said she said". Shadowy government conspirators, blah blah blah. I couldn't take one more bit of it. All the same hallmarks as the Oak Island and Lost Dutchman sillyness. Besides : The Manila galleons (even if any DID make landfall on the coast that far north) were NOT laden with silver & gold ("treasures", as the fanciful tale goes). Instead, it was trade goods. Eg.: Wax, porcelain, mercury, spices, silk, etc...... The silver & gold they would have carried , from the mother country of Mexico, would have been traded for trade-goods in the Philippines, BEFORE setting sail back to Mexico. Good luck on getting ANY value out of any of those goods. This is NOTHING like the Atocha lore type "treasure", despite where the tone-of-the-article is clearly trying to send the reader. Sorry to be a kill-joy, but I'm not buying any of it.

I have been fascinated with beach erosion hunting since 1980. And perpetually trying to figure out when and where the beaches will erode. By factoring in the surfer/mariner reports of swells, waves, on-shore winds & tide heights. And the coinciding timing of all the ingredients. In this modern age of computers, I have often thought that there MUST be a way to computerize it all into methods that can predict. But I tend to agree with you that mother nature just has a mind of her own at times 😞

I never get tired of seeing those gunpowder steel-grey looking silver salt-kissed coins jangling around in my sand scoop 😍

The odd part was, about Brian's 1914 s quarter, was that our entire trip was fueled by a desire to get seateds, and hopefully a gold coin or whatever. Like, the sites we hit were predominantly sites that dated back to the mid to late 1800s. Oh sure, this one particular site had some usage up till the 1930s. Yet our goal was to get coins from the earlier usage (1880s founding). And although his barber quarter was on the later usage of the time-line, it turned out to be the money-coin. Anyone care to venture a grade ? I'm guessing an easy $700 ? Nice going Brian !

I have heard that There were certain states, like Montana, Idaho, and Nevada, where silver dollars (albeit common date morgans and peace dollars, etc...) circulated up till the early 1960s. Something to do with the reluctance to accept paper dollars. Or that these were silver mining states, which sought to bolster the silver mining industry. Or that the slot machines still accepted silver dollars. Or something like that. Hence Cal-Cobra's silver dollar is nothing but a 1940s/50s loss, and thus .... We can all take back the high -5's and atteboys. Ok ? 😉

Great video Brian. Your quarter is worth a good deal. You paid for the trip with that coin alone. Congratz. I got utterly spanked on this trek, but had a lot of fun !

Stunning ! That's the type site that dreams are made of !

Nice photo spread ! I attended one of those relic shootout hunts a few years ago. Where hundreds of guys descend on 1000 acres or whatever. And As for the discussion of the pulse versus the VLF on those type hunts : I talked to a fellow who was intending to use a pulse machine. And his & his co-hunter's rationale was exactly as you say : That they get "significantly more depth", and the VLF gets "significantly less depth". However, on this particular site, was a few zones where some CW era homesites had been. Which, as you can imagine, were a giant spread of iron, nails, etc.... Lo & behold, not a single one of the pulse users could hack this area. They would get driven bonkers by the iron, and "leave for greener grounds". Yet those of us with standard discriminator machines could wade into this, and pick out conductive targets. So there's much more to the discussion of simply "depth", as you can see.