F350Platinum

Got this small permission last year, I've hunted it a few times and while I've found quite a few 1900s relics in it, I have only found one silver coin, I think it was a mangled and melted Mercury dime. There should be more, it's never been hunted. I've found lots of wheats and one or two IHPs, maybe a few nickels. It's an incredibly trashy spot where a house was a long time ago.

Historic Aerials has recently put up some new sharp aerial photos of the area dating back to 1961, today I had a pretty good idea of exactly where the house stood and faced, and where the driveway was.

It was a cold start, but ended up being a great detecting day. I randomly walked around, found a few wheats, and dug some other interesting stuff. I used the D2 with 9" coil and Tekkna, I wanted to try it yet again in a tough place.

The afternoon picked up, all of a sudden I got a 91 and dug my first great coin. I stayed in that spot for a long time, it reminded me of my last hunt where I found a lot of stuff in a 5 foot circle.

Tekkna has really opened up my difficult hunting places, I have many. The only downside is that I end up digging a lot of non ferrous junk too, but very little aluminum and nearly no iron.

Here's the trash, really bad today.

Lots of bits and weird brass stuff, wire and shredded things.

Here are my finds, I think I found the clothesline, because I kept finding wheats and nickels, ended up with quite a few, and a lot of other cool stuff like bits of jewelry:

And I didn't expect to, but came home with 3 silver coins:

Using Tekkna really paid off today! 🥳 Nickel, dime, and quarter, all silver.

I "juiced" the USMC 6-point coat button, and got another surprise:

There's still quite a bit of gold on it, it's a nice two piece. 

13 minutes ago, Geologyhound said:

Unfortunately not. It appears to be a small emblem off of a Sterling truck. That company was in business from the late 90s to the early 2000s.

FYI, the unidentifiable mass next to the rimfire casing appears to be an old bullet, or at least a lead mass.

Heh, I call that "ABC" lead, Already Been Chewed. 😁 I find a lot of it, mostly musket balls chewed by farm animals.

Nordic Gold is a name that will probably go the way of German Silver, which is Nickel. There is no gold in Nordic Gold.

Cool, Those coins can give you quite a start, Last one I dug was a token. 😵 

Looked them up and they are made of an alloy called "Nordic Gold".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Gold

Is the object marked "Sterling" actually sterling?

18 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Wow, that's a nice surprise.😄 Sterling turning up everywhere (including that spoon 😉) Sure it's nice to find 1600's coins, but sometimes silver jewelry can be a lot of fun as well. That would make a nice small display. Great hunt.

Thanks, we might be missing the gold because of the junk. 🤔 I should probably bring my Nox with the 10x5, nothing is especially deep as usual.

I'm thinking now the jewelry box may have been under the house or something, or stashed somehow. However, silver has always been cheaper than gold, so this may be it.

If the badge is indeed one of a kind other than the solid gold version I found on the Internet, it may bring great interest. 🙂 The gold one was made especially for the Chairman, representing his interest in railroads and shipping.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hanna

He was quite an individual, but I will find the name of the person who owned this one 😏

On 2/24/2024 at 2:13 PM, NCtoad said:

 I also got a really well made stand for the new stem on ebay.

Mine came today NC, thanks again for posting these. Very well made stuff, I got the tallest one to accommodate the 11" and 13", I hope it holds up as well as yours looks like it will.

Finally... 🙄

3 minutes ago, Lodge Scent said:

Wow! Heck of a hunt there F350! That must have been really enjoyable. Tough to pick a favorite find but I am leaning toward the FAA pin. It's a cool find...as are half the other targets you dug!

Thanks Lodge,

Been using Tekkna (my version) in trashy places a lot, dare I say it may outperform Relic (my version). I tried Relic in this spot also, and noticed that it falsed far more on iron than Tekkna did. While you do find you're digging more non-ferrous junk, lifting works better, and of course the audio filter comes in handy identifying some aluminum and poor metal stuff.

I think if we dig some of the iron next time we will get still more surprises. 🙂

2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

You guys are wondering why only two (m/l) modern silver coins?  Why not put this place on the back burner until I can come visit later this year and help you clear more of that aluminum and iron trash?  😀

Thanks GB,

You'd have to come out now though, this place will be planted by April. 😅

The next time we go we're going to bring some buckets to throw the iron and junk in, we'll probably dig it all. 🤔

I've only researched the one other badge created solely for the Chairman, and that one was specifically made for him out of 14k, I'm not a member of the website so I have no idea what it sold for, but 64g of 14k is a starting point. 😳 This one may have been for the successor, or it may have been a souvenir. Either way it's pretty unique! Delegate and other staff badges were much smaller.

I'll look into a museum, that's an interesting thought. 👍 I want to see if I can find any of the other parts first.

2 minutes ago, JCR said:

Mine is still on my High School Ag jacket hanging in the closet.  Solid Brass pin.

There are others that you earn or buy that are silver and gold, most have the brass one like the one I found. Looking it up I see there are degrees, the now-named "American" degree being the highest. Sounds pretty complicated. 🤪

This pin was the "National" Degree pin only issued in the first 10 years of FFA.

When I first moved here there were FFA classes in the high schools.

1 hour ago, Geologyhound said:

It says FFA above the plow and owl. The Future Farmers of America was founded in 1928.  Almost every pin I found online also had an eagle perched on top.  I only found one without the eagle like yours.  That seller at Worthpoint thought it might be a greenhorn pin.

 

Yep, it's a "national degree" pin, made and used between 1928 and 1938 👍

https://thekeynotepresenter.com/?p=955

Pins were made in silver and gold, there might be one at that site.

Great run Chase, it's nice to still have seasonable weather to go to these places. Above average is even better.

This was an especially odd assortment of stuff, and it turns out now the buildings were marked on the old maps, Guess I didn't recall it. 🤪 No matter, once we got digging it was hard to stop. I probably spent a half hour in a 5 foot circle.

Historic Aerials is apparently updating their site all the time with declassified aerial photos, they just added them from 1960 and 1961 and they are frighteningly crisp. What a guide to where the good stuff is! The 1960s version looks more like infrared.

Looking forward to a return to this spot, but we will have to bring buckets to haul away some of the iron 🤔

Fun day! Great post and photos. I believe the jewelry we found had glass stones, but still that Art Deco stuff is a real diversion from the "same old colonial" stuff 🤣

40 minutes ago, Geologyhound said:

That is one cool badge!  Days like that really whet your whistle for more.

What is the little button/pin on the right side of the picture below the rings? I can see there is some sort of pattern on it but I can’t make out what.

Hey, thanks for asking!

It's a "Vocational Agriculture" pin. Still has the pin! I have no idea why. 🤔

51 minutes ago, strick said:

Nice work 350..those old medallions are fun to find...looks like you have one of the other pieces there next to it in the first photo...It would be worth it to go back and look for the other pieces....

strick 

Thanks strick,

The badge/medal cleaned up really nice after "juicing" it, learned that trick here. 🙂 It's bronze with gold plate, the original was made to represent Senator Hanna's industries. This might be for the person who replaced him at the convention, I'm going to have to find out.

2 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

Great hunting and it looks like you found where an old house used to be located. Was there any burned pieces of wood when you dug up some of the items?

Good luck on your next outing and stay safe out there.

Thanks VL,

We believe there were 2 houses on this small lot, one in the Victorian era (1820-1914) , and another later. There are relics and coins from the 1940s to 1960s on the top of the hill and along the remains of the driveway, further back it gets much older.

We can see some concrete and cinder block in the woods on the edge of a ravine. The older remains are probably long gone. We've found some molten metal in some spots, and there was evidence of fire as well.

What struck us both was the lack of silver coins despite the abundance of pennies and nickels, so far only a silver 1964 dime and a 1944 nickel have been found The pennies are all wheats .

The fact that we found so many silver items on this hunt tells us that the field has probably not been detected. If it was, it was done by people with much older machines that would have been overwhelmed by all the other metal debris.

There are also historical periods of coin hoarding which could be another reason, for sure this is a traditionally frugal area despite wealth, and people may have been very careful with their silver (and gold?) coins.

I'll have to talk to the owner who may know the history here, he knows the land he owns well, his family has farmed these spots for well over 100 years.

2 minutes ago, JCR said:

Very good hunting to find a spot like that. Makes you wonder if the house was suddenly destroyed somehow to find that kind of concentration of targets. Perhaps a tornado?   No signs of fire damage.

That is a really interesting thought, I'll go back over weather for that area, might be a clue. 👍

The other more obvious one is that the people that own the land pushed the house in to the ravine nearby, a common practice. Not a lot of crime in this area, and the farmers really don't seem to care what they move off the land, which has made for some very fortunate discoveries where you'd think there was nothing.

The top of the hill has much more modern trash as does the driveway, but things get old on the sides and farther back. 🙂

9 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

What a day.  Nice finds .  Again, you live in a great area for this hobby.   👍🏻

Thanks Colonel,

I have another field like this that may well be worth exploring in the same way, all I found in that field so far was a Civil War eagle "I" button. I just crossed it a few times, I need to get back there too. 🤔 Maybe there's a "honey hole" there as well! 

Tekkna and modded Relic, both with reactivity at 2 (my preference) or 3 seem to really pull stuff out of trashy spots, personally I find Tekkna to be a little better with iron falsing. I tried both today. 

11 minutes ago, Joe D. said:

   Wasn't that long Bob, and I love the pics!👍

   Nice job "stumbling" into a very productive spot! Had to laugh at the small field reference! Remember, good things come in small packages, and apparently, small fields to!🍀👍👍

Heh thanks Joe,

I'm just talking here about finding almost 30 things, heck some of them came from the same spot. You'd dig one target and find another right next to it, or not find one in the hole (falsing iron) you just dug and find one two inches away. 🤣 It was insane, probably the most difficult hunt I've ever done.

2024 is still rolling! 🥳

I'm posting this in Coins and Relics because all the pieces of jewelry are relics. 😎 This isn't a beach hunt, I've done much worse there 😅

What seemed to be a "let's check this place out a little more and go somewhere else" hunt turned out to be a whole day in this little field, I invited Chase down for the day because it was going to be warm and I thought it might be worth the trip for him.

It's a small field, only a few acres, totally nondescript.

I got there a bit before Chase, walked back and forth along this part of the field, there is another huge farm next door. We think there was a house here, but nothing exists on any Topographic maps. By the end of the day we were sure of it.

First find was what may be a gold plated metal ring, no marks inside. Might have been a replacement or bargain wedding band:

It only weighs 2.6 grams, but it does ring when dropped. A 91 on the Deus 2. I'll probably take it to my jeweler who has an XRF gun to make sure, because it does weigh more than a similar size 14k band.

Next find was a 1944 war nickel:

Chase arrived , we walked all over and found some wheats and lots of junk. The place is stupid with crap, aluminum, bits of old brass and tons of iron everywhere. I was running Tekkna, and it did well for me.

We didn't find much more for quite a while, we were thinking of leaving, and then I found this mangled silver spoon:

Almost 16 grams of coin silver.

I then found this trunk plate, a Civil War era plate from a Washington DC trunk maker used until 1880.

I joked that I just found the jewelry box plate... 🙄 Who knew I would sorta be right...

Chase went off to check out the back of the field, he had been on top of a hill finding nothing but large pieces of aluminum and concertina reeds, and I walked back from where I found the spoon, and got one of my best finds of the day:

This massive 8.4g Sterling ring with probably a glass stone, it's purple and seems shattered.

I motioned for Chase to come over to this spot, and we just kept finding jewelry. He will probably add his finds later, it was an insane day. 🤪 Very difficult to find stuff in all that iron and trash, we both were using  D2s with the 9", anything bigger wouldn't have done as well.

Next I dug this Sterling pin:

It was taco'ed but I got it straight.

Here's the trash, lots of large brass, lead and aluminum. I didn't get much iron at all, Tekkna is great for this kind of challenge.

Here's the total haul, the best is yet to come:

Obviously finding a really old ring is a thrill but nothing could have prepared me for the last big find:

Apparently this is quite rare, researching it only found one other like it. It's a 1904 Republican National Committee badge for the Chicago Convention, where Theodore Roosevelt was selected. The Chairman had this 14k version made for him, but sadly passed away before the Convention:

His was 60 some odd grams, my piece is 35:

It may at least be plated. It's unbelievable it held up this good for 120 years. 🤔

I haven't had as productive a hunt as this in quite a while, we hope to go back and find more. It's very difficult going.

6 hours ago, DWerk said:

I have not checked the pinpoint vol. as I seldom use it. But the time keeping is really bad and I have a real need for that to work. I don't wear any jewelry when detecting, (one would wonder why) 🫤

There is something that blows the clock up, some procedure or menu selection. I can have it go for a long time with no problem, and suddenly it's wrong. It's got to be a programming glitch and will be hard to "pinpoint" 😏

Hey Ghound,

Since you can't charge multiple things with that little block, you might want to look into one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08HN6JK7N

They're only around 30 bucks and they do "smart" charging so you're not always disconnecting stuff if you don't get out a lot.

There is also this configuration, just plug in on a different face:

https://www.amazon.com/Multiple-Charger-Desktop-Charging-Station/dp/B075V1HYFS

Wish I could post photos but on Amazon everything is .webp now 🤬

I doubt anyone will "borrow" it 😀

32 minutes ago, canslawhero said:

I'm interested in the WS6 master also due to the light weight (I'd go with the 9" coil for that reason). I noticed on the official XP site 'blog' it states that 'all' Deus II are shipping with the new Carbon Fibre lower shaft and new 'better' screen protectors. This is from a December 15 post stating this had already been happening for a couple months. So, knowing this I won't be buying till I'm assured that I'd receive the CF lower shaft in the box. Let us know if you get the updated 'new' version. cheers...

I recently bought a second WS6 to back up my original one, and it came with the screen protector, as did the RC I bought. They both came from Serious Detecting who sells through Amazon.

As for the 9" coil, I've used the original one from the start and it's never been a problem for me. I could switch to the CF one that came with my 13" coil last year.

When you're buying your WS6 Master, get it from someone who can tell you what's in the box. 🙂

5 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

Another good job.  Good report on Tekkna.  I’ll be experimenting with that program at some point even though I don’t do a lot of land hunting. 
Soldier on Bob….👍🏻😊

Thanks Colonel, below are my settings for Tekkna, apologies to Mr Blackwell:

Disc 42

93 sensitivity

Frequency Max 40

Iron volume 10

Reactivity 3 or 4 depending on trash, don't go lower than 2 but you will lose depth at 4, it's noticeable.

Audio Response 5

Frequency offset 10

Bottle Caps 0, but if you find one crank it to 3, and if you still dig them go to 5. You won't miss nickels in mild soil.

Notch off

Silencer 0

That's it, everything else as posted before.

9 minutes ago, NCtoad said:

Here you go.  He has different sizes (heights). 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364647856679?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=VpW7kC_7SF6&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=aM-gh_K9QNO&var=634169620629&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

That's for the "Lite" rig, ordered the highest one for the regular D2. 👍

Thanks man! Somebody finally stepped up with a good one. 🙂

32 minutes ago, Lead Detector said:

Japanese yen? 

 

Looks like a Japanese 5 Yen, maybe 1972.

https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/japan-5-yen-y-72a-yr.341959-yr.641989-cuid-1131920-duid-1443472

Cool coin! 👍

13 minutes ago, Alberto Montano said:

Greetings all! I'm purchasing the WS6 Master and was wondering what coils is preferred for coins and Jewlry in fresh water river and parks. I have the Nokta legend and really like the 6 inch coil for trashy areas and was thinking the 9in coil because that is the smallest! Any impute would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Alberto,

The 9" is great for the water and trashy spots like parks. If you get into field hunting at all, the 13" is the most bang for the same buck as the 11". It's really not that much heavier and you get used to it fast. I wouldn't recommend it for the water though.

Really the 9 and 13" are all you need.

Ok here's my second update, I have a spot in front of my house that was where a farmhouse stood since the 1870s, it was removed about 20 years ago.

It's a spot loaded with every kind of junk you can imagine, I grid searched it a couple years ago when I was new, didn't find a heck of a lot.

Since then I've been scoring all kinds of stuff, even found a 1773 Virginia half cent out here, but no silver.

Enter Tekkna, it's set up to find small stuff in trash, well mainly iron like British fields. I set reactivity to 3 today, yesterday there was so much iron I didn't care about depth so I ran it at 4.

Once in a while I would back it off to 2 as well, depending upon how much junk I heard on every sweep, here there are lots of high tones mixed in because of roof steel, cans, aluminum can slaw, pull tabs. It's like detecting a trashy park.

I wrote early in this post that no program is magic, and while Tekkna is great and finds small stuff in trash, if there is non-ferrous trash where you are looking it will find it all, crisp and cleanly for the most part, unless you really listen and lift.

Here's what I dug for crap:

A lot of it, but NO iron. Lead, steel, aluminum, everything. 🤪

Here's the good stuff:

A very old small brass ring size 5, and a 1958 wheat. I only looked around for about two hours, just at random. It's a lot to process, if you turn down reactivity to 2 you're going to hear a lot more. The ring was about 5" deep surrounded by iron.

I am going to find silver here eventually, probably after I dug some of this junk out.