F350Platinum

It was something I came across in looking, might have been in a PDF. Search for "gold makers mark L&S", or "gold hallmark L&S" If you want to make sure you get a specific thing you would type: gold makers mark "L&S" Good luck. 🙂

Good tips Meister. 👍 I simply shorten the SteveG shaft I have until the 13" "floats". You know it when it happens. Maybe his shaft is longer tho, so it might not be possible with the stock shaft.

Yeah, that's the other metals corroding and showing through. Still 41% gold tho 👍 damn good start. Research your finds! Don't chuck anything until you do. Look for hallmarks, I couldn't find "L&S" other than it's a Birmingham England Hallmark.

Welcome ukk9, I'm in Virginia, one of the oldest colonies. I also have a Deus 2 and enough other parts to create the WS6 Master. The first parts of coins I found were with a Garrett Ace 400, Spanish cut silver pistareens, and I dug a lot more with my Equinox 600. I bought the Deus 2 early on and really like the ergonomics and light weight. I too like the wireless and the way all the accessories work together. 👍 I'm 63, retired, and find the Deus to allow me to stay out longer searching than my other detectors, the long walks (usually a few miles) are tiring on field stubble, but my arm thanks me. 😀 Wish you luck, hope you can find some undetected private property, and look forward to your experiences. 🙂

Must be a Cu/Ni composition, the mint weight is 3.25g 👍 your park was kind to it. 😀

Yep, Schoolofhardnox is right. A 10k gold bracelet, you're a gold-finding detectorist now for sure. 👍 Congratulations! It's not engraved so you could put your name on it. 🤔

Nice coin! You're killing it with the 10x5. 👍 Odd that it's silver tho, it's supposed to be copper. There's an 1876 silver one selling on eBay for $1400... 🤔 How much does it weigh?

Thank you! I made little effort to clean it, that's pretty much how it came out. I think I'd look that bad if I was in the ground for over 400 years 🤣 Sadly these coins were cut for "change", most likely the other half is somewhere else now. Also it's probably why it was lost, those sharp corners would cut a hole in a colonial purse 🙄

Thanks NC, hope there's more there. 😀 Now I probably won't top my finds this year. 🤣 Kac thought my last one would make the rest of the year suck.

Coming soon, Matt. 👍 I'll just take some random field and draw lines and stuff, write about things to look for. I've never been to California but I'm sure farmers do stuff the same way, you may well be in for finding some Spanish coins. 🥳 What do they plant there? Here they rotate corn, soybeans, winter wheat and barley. This year they just spread cover crop (some kind of cheap grass) so it's been great, but ominous for wheat prices. 😡 We've also had the second warmest winter in recorded history according to the klimate kooks. 😏 Farmers are generally really solid, nice people. Make sure you listen more than talk, they may know history you don't. 🙂

Absolutely. The real problem is that if you screw up anywhere here, word will travel fast and you're toast. 😵 As with any dealing with people in general, it's a minefield, you never know if you're going to do or say the wrong thing. 😬 My wife keeps me on the straight and narrow, she is particularly honest and thankfully also knows where everyone buried the bones. 😁 She reminds me constantly to keep it straight, and is an excellent reference for who not to talk to. 🤣 I'm lucky in that respect. I may be preaching to the choir to you man, no offense. 🙂

Thanks RVP! Find a private farm or place nearby, best time to look around is spring or fall when the owners are out harvesting or planting, or just raking leaves. 🙂 Stop and talk, ask about the history, compliment the place, and then ask if you can hunt. Last ditch is getting them curious about what you might find, offer to share. 😅 Protected areas are often surrounded by private property, and were normally much larger than what ended up being protected. That's the way it is here. Use the research tutorials I posted, at least most of the tools are free. I'm doing a lot more of that these days, so it may look easy but it requires research to find spots with high potential. In this case, even more amusing is that this farm was completely innocuous. 🤔 All that aside, nothing beats long walks with a detector finding nothing for a while. The bigger the field the higher the potential. That persistence pays off.

Thanks! It is not something I ever thought I would find, especially in a field that produced 19th century relics first. In one little spot it jumped back 2 centuries! It's about as old a coin as you will get here, Jamestown Virginia was first discovered in 1606 by Captain John Smith. Jamestown is 86 miles away from me, on the third lowest eastern peninsula. My coin is the year it was founded. My peninsula was settled between 1635 and 1640 by John Mottrom, who crossed the Potomac river from Maryland. He was paid to bring settlers here. The county was incorporated in 1645. The Spanish first found Virginia in the 1500s but did not settle. They make it look so easy in the UK, don't they? 😀

Thanks Strick, glad I'm inspiring yet again, part of why I post. 🙂 This one got me when I put it together in my head, this place must be loaded with that stuff, you just have to get out there, ask people if you can hunt their land, do some research (did some quick stuff in the field), and be persistent and get your coil over something. 👍 In 6 hours of hunting I only dug 6 good things and very little trash, so that's one per hour of swinging a detector. I hope that's not lost on the inexperienced reader. I've had "adrenaline" hunts where I find lots of stuff, but this one kept me going only sporadically. I've been considering posting another detailed "tutorial" on field hunting with an invitation to more experienced detectorists add their knowledge. I'm doing pretty good, so it would be a fun rainy day project. Another might be how to get permissions 🤔 but that's a little more tricky than how to hunt a farm. 😁

You couldn't be more right. 👍 Enduring the hardships of sea travel, hacking your way through a Mid-Atlantic jungle not knowing what your fate is, and then trying to survive on the unknown is completely beyond our grasp. Comparing my risk of hunting while being hunted merely scratches the surface. I am humbled and grateful to have had the chance to save a small bit of history. 🙂 Thanks for that comment.

Thanks! I'll admit getting permissions does take a smidgen of "chutzpah", but you just have to follow your emotions and only ask when you feel the time is right. Not before, and don't second guess. You're going to get turned down sometimes, make sure you don't project that it would be a problem, but always make them say no twice, maybe even 3 times. 😁 I've turned no into yes a couple of times. The only time I've been turned down completely was a "cold call" when I saw someone at a farm. Usually telling the owner it's a beautiful place first wins the day. The place was not all that great, so it probably didn't register. Part of my career was making "deals" to save my county taxpayers money, so perhaps that is where it comes from. Glad I don't have to do that anymore! 😀

Haha, I think I might too. For all we know Captain John Smith himself probably crapped there, got scared by some natives or a wolf, and broke his belt running away. 🤣

Thanks Rick! As I've stated, the Deus 2 is "king" in Virginia. 😀 Most of the day I was just swinging the detector, then bam, then back to walking and swinging. Walking on corn stalks is an extra element of difficulty. 😵 The back two fields are pretty devoid of can slaw and junk, but it's a lot of quiet time, and without the lightest detector there is it would be a chore. It's not that I wouldn't find this with any SMF, or any other detector really, but less trash, more finds, and not wearing myself out is a bonus. 👍

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I try to arrange my trash sometimes but nobody does it better than you. 👍 Also, no one is more honest about just how rigorous beach hunting can be, anyone thinking they are going to go out and find great stuff without digging all that junk well... No. 🤣 And you consistently pull silver and gold out of places that are beaten to death! I consider my finds "lucky", but you sir, are an artist. 🏆

Thanks! They are rare, wonder if anyone ever found a solid gold one? 🤔

That's a heckuva ring Compass! Good on ya for trying to find the owner. 👍

So glad you're there to correct me GB, thanks. 👍 🏆 I post before I research sometimes, this was a banner day. 🥳 Per my "contract" with my wife, a dinner in proportion to the find is forthcoming, thankfully she didn't want to go tonight. 😀 Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg are mere peninsulas away. This peninsula was settled in the early 1600s by folks dissatisfied with Lords Baltimore and Calvert, they crossed the Potomac the other way and set up a life here. It's a very quiet and undeveloped area but is home to many famous people, at least their birthplace. It's very un-famous I guess. Can't believe I got a hammered silver coin before I got some of the newer coins. 🤔 But the first coin bits I ever dug here were cut pistareens. 😎

Thanks, this is a small field, a brand new permission I got this morning. As I was leaving someone was shooting nearby so I guess turkey season has started... 😅 I agree though, I do have a lot of acres to go. 🙂

Heh, snazzy title huh? Let's find out... 🤔 Yesterday I got a new permission, an enviable one for sure, but to quote the owner, "it's been detected about 150 times" 😪 I've heard that before from other landowners and still came away with something. I also mentioned the beach I was hunting, and he told me he and his son own some property near there, but I would have to ask him if I could go there. I called him this morning, and he was very nice and told me to go ahead. He said turkey season is about to start so I'd better get in there ASAP. He didn't have to tell me twice. 😀 The farm is about 50 acres, half of it wooded at least. There was a house there, a small one with a cinder block foundation. Very overgrown and difficult to hunt because there is junk everywhere. There must be a dump behind the house, these were right on top of the leaves: Mostly newer bottles, didn't spend a lot of time there. The fields are divided by ditches, so I searched each one, hunting the "Turn Zone" at each end and zig zagging the field to see if I could find a hotspot. It started out nice this morning but went downhill in the afternoon. 63 became 54. 😵 The first field by the road was unproductive but it got better and better. First thing I found was this nice rein guide, at that moment I knew at least I'd find some 19th century stuff: It was as expected in the part of the field where they turn the animals. Next was this D buckle: Not impressive but in keeping with my observations. As I got away from the first 30-50 feet I got a solid 58 on the edge of the field and this came up: 1898 "V" nickel in pretty good shape for this area, they're always trashed but sometimes you get a date. 👍 That was it for that division, next field was much larger. Went to the far turn zone and got another 58, and this came up: 1936(8) Buffalo nickel with a readable date! Yay. Must have been in pretty good shape when it was lost. Began my zigzag of the last field, hoping there might be a silver coin, but I wasn't prepared for this at all. I found this 3 feet away from it, and knew the game had changed. I've found a few of these lately, and before I get to the main event... I have a detecting buddy who makes all kinds of innovative and cool stuff, he's a real genius and I respect him a lot more than he knows. At Christmas last year he sent me and a couple of other guys one of these: A cast 4 leaf clover that we all put on our gear. I'm not a superstitious person, but since I put that thing on my finds bag, my silver count has gone up, I dug a 1694 Scottish Twopence, and I'm not even digging much junk 🤣 It was said the Twopence was the find of a lifetime, but it just got beat today. Got a sweet sounding 75 while at the edge of this last field, and dug this, I got it identified by my other good pal @dogodogwho I really miss on this forum, he's a hell of a person and a great detectorist: Half of a 1607 Hammered King James 1 silver Sixpence. At first I thought it was Spanish, but my buddy jumped on it and got the correct ID: Good Lord, never in my life did I think I'd find something like this! 😅 Well there ya have it, Lady Liberty, a Buffalo, and King James, all in a field. Trash was nothing. I think one of the pull tabs is very old, maybe Mary Queen of Scots... 🤣

It's a tiny one, easy to hunt and manage. 🙂 Gave me some gold last year! The new permission is only one part of the story, I'm about to relate part 2. I haven't hunted there yet but I'm hoping my experience and fancy new detector bag me some goodies there, the doc said it's been hit a lot. Other places I've heard that too, and manage to come away with some great stuff. Hold on to your hat and clutch the pearls, my next post will be a doozy. 😈