F350Platinum

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. ?

Haha, at least he has to drive a long way then. I used to stop in Smithfield on the way South camping, it's smack in the middle of... Nothing. ? They have a really nice campground there off 95.

No need to make it but I did buy this and modified it with ballistic nylon screen cloth: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0749P51QM I bought this stuff to replace the way too wide wire screen: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06Y3QK95Y Fun project. Don't want to lose those diamond earrings. ? These are great but kind of a PITA, they always seem to drift in front of you. Shorten the tether with a couple loop knots, one for making a shoulder sling. I saw it in a in Hoover Boys video a couple years ago, they do a lot of chest deep river hunting up in Maryland. I knew I was going to be doing it, found out since I dislike river hunting because in the warm months here the rivers are full of Jellyfish, and technically if you want to river hunt in Virginia you have to get a permit from DCR to hunt anything more than 10' out at low tide. ? I've written them for one but I get the law thrown at me instead of a permit, as if I didn't know the law existed. ? Bureaucrats. The nice thing is that here you step off the beach in the Potomac you're in another state that doesn't have that law. ? Don't try it in a State Park tho. I dug all the big iron and squashed beer cans that were insanely deep on this beach, it's only about 100 yards long and maybe 30 feet wide. Anything that even peeped. I am using a modified Beach sensitive program, 0 Disc, full tones square because I use the BH-01 bone phones, sensitivity about 95, salt sense 1 because it's brackish, audio level 8, recovery 1.5, iron volume 3, magnetic reject on. I didn't modify notch. I'll edit if there's anything I forgot so you might have to revisit ? or I'll just send you a list. ? For those of you who hate the bone phones, try putting the damn wire behind your head rather than in front. ? I love the situational awareness and the tones in the center of my brain. Even when the waves got noisy I could still hear the tones. Of course if the waves get higher than a foot, you should probably get out. With this program I've hit dimes and pennies at a foot or more, I'm sure it will whack larger coins more easily that deep. ? Hot Wheels sound great, and yes, them too. For some reason kids like to really bury them. I get high tones tho... ? Maybe mine haven't been that deep.

Been there done that! ? It isn't Florida, but it's milder than New England. Sorry man. ?

Thanks RVP. ? I've been eyeing this place for a while, knowing who owned it. I had a feeling he might let me, he didn't remember me as a customer but I think he is almost 90, and he's seen a lot of people. A great vet. I knocked on the front door a couple times, noticed the back door was open to the screen. Walked around the house and met him on a path to a really nice Victorian garden. The property was a huge plantation but he only owns a couple acres of it. He also told me to call his son and ask if I could hunt a 100 acre property they own near the beach. ? Hope he lets me!

If you're not interested in Deus 2 stuff, and not interested in beach scoops, I'll give you a pass ? Yesterday I saw it was going to be 80 today here in VA, not the best for field hunting, but great for river hunting. The water is cold, but I have 1600 Thinsulate waders. Love them, I've had them for a few years now and no leaks. I also did not feel the cold water at all. Packed up the D2 and WS6 Master, grabbed my new Titanium beach scoop and other water hunting gear, and drove to my small beach where I found 2 gold rings last year. The beach was really sanded in but I thought the water might have less sand and I might find some older stuff. Used the Deus 2 with the 13" coil for most of the hunt, got out to waist deep (the tide was .5' lower than normal), it performed flawlessly. Most targets were retrieved in 1-3 scoops, the new scoop is light and easy to lift. Well worth the ~$400 I paid for it. I'm totally confident with it. I've cleaned this place out so anything new jumps out. I dug junk as deep as 2' here in an effort to have this result. Got two fishing rigs that I left behind conspicuously for fishermen that might want them, and this is all the trash I got otherwise: Apparently someone had a pocket full of pennies, and seeded the upper beach with them. Got 11, including a 1954D wheat, I doubt that one was in the pocket, it may have been on edge for years. It was the deepest object I dug today. When I got tired (water detecting is slow and difficult) I put my D2 away and got out the WS6 Master that I modified with a piece of coax, I wanted to see how deep I could go with it without dunking it. The wind had come up and I was getting waves over a foot so I was careful. It worked great in depths almost all the way to the grip handle. I was pleased. On the way home I picked up a new permission: This beautiful Greek Revival mansion that used to be a plantation house circa 1850. It so happens the owner was my old veterinarian now retired. He said the place has been heavily detected, but I was welcome to try and I can dig anywhere. I'm hoping they just cherry picked the place and I get some cool relics. ?

Nice hunt Cap'n! Does the ring have any marks inside? Looks like plated brass. I've found lots of those airline liquor bottle caps myself ? annoying. One field had lots of 82's (I always react to the tone and then look at the ID anyway) and they all turn out to be bullets. Another has 85's that are all bullets. Just one of those things... No harm no foul. If you didn't keep digging them you would not have got the ring! High trash count but I don't seem much iron in there, great job ?

I stand corrected, I just like it 'cos it's wireless, and works in perfect harmony with all the other XP toys I have ? I also like my Quest XPointer Max now that @palzynskihas set me on the road to righteousness... ? Matter of fact I have two of them.

Excellent site! I'm in the green. The most amusing fact is most of the light pollution comes from a local penitentiary. ? Haha, I'm always thinking about detecting, so the thoughts of what detecting/prospecting opportunities exist on other celestial bodies are as much of a certainty as some of the properties I pass driving around. ? It would definitely be more difficult to get a Manticore on the moon. ?

Ha, at first I didn't see any but left it that way as a clever trap to see who would notice ? I can make out the word "colour" on it. You win! ? Thanks for playing. ? That I did not know. ? I have some cameras I could use for astrophotography, and the right lenses, but I'm too lazy to do it, and it's usually too damn cold to get out there this time of the year when the sky is clearest. The Milky Way is visible many times here, no light pollution.

Thanks! I probably have hundreds of them now, but never tire of digging them. ? I found a super small one once with fancy decoration, and sadly lost it. What I really hope to find are "staff tags". Anything that identifies the previous owners of the place. Those I will probably turn over to the current owner, would have given him the silver button if there was a name on it. A GW button wouldn't hurt... ? I'm really glad my silver count has gone up this year.

Thanks! I mis-posted the size of the place and corrected it. It's 490 acres, some of that woods. Because this peninsula is a mid-Atlantic jungle, it will come back quickly and the scrub gets impenetrable but for deer trails. More important and a bit risky is the constant erosion. ? One wrong step... I'm sure with some exhaustive scouting I'll come across a spot where gatherings occurred that the cherry pickers didn't discover, as in other farms under my purview. That is the cherry I want to pick! Almost a third to a half of the farm is covered with winter wheat so much of it will be unexplored until next winter. It's coming up fast now. This farmer will let me dig, but discretion is the better part of valor. ? Spanish silver, very old coins like that 1694 Twopence I dug a while back, and buckles of all types are very possible here, but sadly at random. It's as old a place or even older than the farms out in front of my house. I get a kick out of backmarks especially, the buttons that have "London" and "Gilt Colour" are especially old.

Thanks NC, I thought it might be a Reale at first, but it was even more exciting to find one of these. I only know of one other detectorist pal that has found one, but he has hunted since he was 8. Buttons are as interesting as coins to me, thankfully the cherry pickers leave enough of them behind to keep me coming back! ?

Thanks Joe D! I was really hoping the button would have marks that might identify the landowner. He passed away in 1697 and was buried on the site, reportedly about 100 feet from the house. I'm thinking bird pecks, animal scratching and maybe a chew or two, luckily they didn't bite it like they do lead. It also was scratched by farm machinery, all I did to clean it was spray it with distilled water like I would do with a silver coin. Recorded history also states that the owners' gravestone was made of imported English marble, they moved it to a local church but left his remains behind somewhere. ? Hope we never dig him up. ? I'll have to stop by the church to verify and pay my respects.

Thanks VL, When Chase told me he thought it would be interesting to go over our detected areas with the Equinox, I jumped at the chance knowing you would approve. Seriously! ? I love both detectors, the Equinox has been my right arm from almost the beginning. I've gone over places hunted with it using the Deus and found very little too. In my opinion they are equals, but the Deus 2 is far more versatile, as probably an 800 or 900 would be. There are upcoming adventures with it, Chase loaned me his 15" coil and I plan to run it alternately with the D2 13" coil in a few weeks on the beach. So far it got me 4 of the 5 gold rings my wife has confiscated. ?

Thanks Kac! Yeah I figured they were too far away to call a fire mission on. ? Got a phone app called Sky Map, I always have to take my phone out of its case to use it but it tells you accurately what is out there after calibrating the compass. Here's a screen shot: Neptune was on the horizon but polluted out by the sun going down. I have to research my finds!

Thanks! Honestly the Equinox does just as good as the Deus 2 in my area, but as I've mentioned before the lightest Equinox configuration (CF shaft, 10x5) is still heavier than the heaviest Deus 2 configuration (CF shaft, 11x13). My arm knows the difference, but I love the 600 for its simplicity. ?

? Yes, especially when I looked it up and saw it was low mintage. Found it looking for the landowner's gold ring, there was an old road that ran through the place according to an 1891 topo map. ? going to hunt the rest of the property that road ran through, been finding these old roads to be very productive. Thanks GB. ? I was sad it came up toasted.

Yet another beautiful day here in sunny VA, it got up to about 67 again. I had been talking to Chase about some new mapping Intel I got on the farm we've been hunting, located some roads and a large field way out back that was used for something and seemed to have a cellar hole and some foundations. I got there first and found some newer relics at a site where a "staff" house was. Interesting point, this farm is the oldest of my permissions, found out that it dates back to the mid 1600s. The possibilities here are as enormous as the farm. There were indentured "staff" here until Emancipation. Here's the gratuitous big picture, the farm is huge, and today I had my trusty Equinox 600 with the Coiltek 10x5. Chase thought we should hit this place with the Equinox to see if we were missing stuff with our Deus 2s. I haven't used mine in months so I was up for that! He brought his new Equinox 900. (We both had Deus 2s with us in our backpack vests, can't get too far away from totally wireless ?) Absolutely monster hunt today, we walked almost 6 miles over nearly 8 hours. This is a 400 acre farm so it's huge! We went to the farmhouse location, checked over where we detected, and found literally nothing. Tells us both the Equinox isn't going to do any better than the Deus 2 here. After that rather disappointing event we decided to cross the winter wheat to where the entrance to the field was, the last time it was visible was in the 60s, it has overgrown completely. It's also 80 feet lower than this field, so the paths to it are steep. We decided to save it for another time. There's Chase digging something or other. ? I had 3 stages of finds today, the trash was horrendous, but even with the Equinox I don't get much iron. All the usual suspects. Next the larger finds that won't fit in a display case: Some pretty cool brass, rein guides and other stuff, including an octagonal shaker top that you have to twist to open by lining up the holes. Finally the finds : A 51 caliber 3 ring bullet, dog tag, a stamped piece of something, a small button that says "PREMIER", a plain 2 piece button, two really old buttons with no backmarks, and two 4 hole overall buttons I found at the "staff" site. Not over yet though. I mentioned that at the end of a hunt you sometimes get a "Thank You for saving history" find, and today was the coolest one ever: A solid silver button. Drop it on a table and it rings like a quarter and it's just about as big. At first I thought it was engraved, but I think it's just really scratched from hundreds of years in the field. From what I hear these are pretty rare finds, so it made my day, and I bought dinner for my wife. ? Chase also treated me to a demo of the Axiom, that detector is incredible. I can't thank him enough for sharing his knowledge with me personally. When I got home I was treated to this rare sight, the crescent moon, Venus, and Jupiter in a row in front of my house. They aren't very clear but it was cool.