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I heard some bad news that my Dad had died so I took some bereavement time and headed home to take care of things. I needed some alone time so I went out for an hour and found the 2 Reale and an old copper. Dad must have been smiling as well when I pulled the coins out.

Hit an old field that got picked clean pretty much. Some of it is still frozen and there is tons of trash. Managed to find a 60-70's remnants of a cub scout pocket knife and 2 coins, ones a 1926 wheatie in poor shape other is the 43 quarter.

First hunt in a LONG time; I was happy that I was able to prove to myself that I haven't totally forgotten how to run the Equinox! Oh -- the 1916 Merc? The mint mark -- if there was one -- was worn off... ? LOL! Steve

I was in Spokane Washington recently and the weather was finally nice and some of the snow had melted and l had a couple hrs. to kill so I grabbed the xterra 705 with a CORS strike multi freq. coil and went to work in a vacant lot in a old neighborhood the city had cleared of houses. about 20 min. into it this barber dime popped out of the ground. The lot was extremely trashy , l ran the 705 in 7.5 khz, discriminate all metal with 99 tones. I was getting iron tones every couple inches but still managed to pull this coin with the big coil. My first silver coin of 2019. Just wanted to share . Best of luck this year to everyone on the forum !

Groundscanner and I stumbled upon a spot and I pulled these three 1850 era half dimes out. I’m guessing the flat piece of lead with the “X” scratched in it is some type of game piece. Pretty good day. I was running the Nox on field 2. Thanks for looking!

Went to a park in a nearby town for the first time. I’ve been told it’s totally hunted out. Well, someone missed this 1907 V nickel. It was positioned a couple inches from a piece of trash metal. The 6-inch coil on my Nox 600 sniffed it out, no problem.

Between work and projects I've managed to get out on a few hunts. I bought my buddy an equinox 800 since he has been kind enough to let me run all around his ranches as if I own them myself. He has showed some interest in detecting...he thinks he's going to find a 1 pound gold nugget . After spending some time showing him how it works...I'd mark a target and then have him go over it and then dig it...he started to get the hang of it. So on our second outing he goes and finds a 1855 seated quarter (like Deathrays) but not in nearly as good condition. He was stoked and I wish i had brought my camera with me so I could get a pic of him smiling and holding the coin. Been hitting some other locations near where I live. Old homesites and street tear outs. Day before yesterday was a quick but pleasant hunt. Dug the standing liberty and put it in my pocket so it would not get banged up in the pouch. I never look at items much in the field but wait till I get home. I was glad I put this coin in my pocket. I'm going to have to get it looked at just to make sure but I think it's the real deal. If anyone knows what the sun god thing was? kinda cool digging it and have that smiling back. HH to you all strick

Well, after reading about the high number war nickels I finally got one at an old fairground in Kansas. Hits a solid 21.I was sure surprised to see a nickel in the hole. It's a 1943 s.

I recently got carried away and added some off topic info and photos to a post when I asked about Where are all the Beach Finds. TMox & GB_Amateur shared info that was good. Sorry for adding some off topic stuff, so I edited and am starting a new post. Is the true value of a find, what someone is willing to pay or is it what you feel it is worth? I think it is a little of both and here is my spin. I was chasing big gold nuggets at a well known Big Gold Mining camp in AK 10+ years ago. In fact, it was Steve who talked me into going there as he knew I was pretty good with a detector. Back in the day when he and I were both Minelab Dealers (when he worked for a living), we used to bump stories and detector knowledge off each other. Anyway, I found a beauty of a coin in the old original part of the camp which is upstream from the current camp. It was an 1882 Morgan Silver Dollar. I was so excited to recover this piece of history and it was only my 3rd or 4th silver dollar find in my carrier, at that time. Well when I got back camp and showed the other nugget hunters and the families who owned the mine, I could tell they really wanted it, especially Mrs. Wiltz. She even offered to buy it from me for $100. Now this is when the value comes in. At the time and current, the 1882 Morgan Dollar in that condition would probably sell for $20 to $30. But yet I have one of the Mine owners offering me 3 to 5X is book value? My heart wanted to keep her happy, but I could not let it go so easy. Finding a Morgan silver dollar is extremely rare (even though there are millions, YES- millions) with a metal detector at an old site. $100 is a great offer and I would never get that same from a coin store. But when you don't need the money, it doesn't mean as much. I declined, as I told her I wanted to take it home and share with my dad, the same guy who helped me learn detectors as a young kid back in the early 70's, my mentor. I also wanted to enter it into the Metal Detecting Club - Finds of the Month Contest. Fast forward to the following Summer of 2006. I took it back up there and to this day (I think anyway) it is still hanging on the wall up for everyone to see. The memories, shakes, natural high I was going though when dug was priceless. Letting my father flip that coin a few times (amongst the much more valuable gold nuggets) while I told the story and watching him light up as he was so proud of me, was worth it. Getting to tell the story over again at the metal detecting meeting and of course winning the "Best Coin of the Month" category, was worth it. Seeing the smile on Mrs Wiltz face when I handed the plaque to her, was worth it. Heck, I spent close to $300 for the custom matting and framing....and it was worth every penny of it. A $20 coin worth Memories of a lifetime is the true value in my mind. 1st 3 pics are of the Frame, the silver dollar, with certificate and photos of find. Last 2 shots are actual pics of the moment I dug it up. I'll never forget that day. What's your thoughts of true value?

No matter how careful I try to be, seem to mess up the best ones. Hit a hammered gold camp with my son. I run the Deus with full tones, and can call silver with certainty. Knew I had a deep coin, but somehow managed to Nick the back. Turned a high dollar coin into?. Anyways, only chance I get to detect or fish lately, is when it's raining...like it is now...so heading out. Cheers!

1st silver with my Equinox600! I had a few minutes so I hit a curb strip dating to late 1880’s+. I have detected here several times and have found some clad, a 1916 Barber dime and a TON of Aluminum screw caps—really difficult hunting. Today I hit it for the first time since getting a little more time on the nox. Park1, 23 sensitivity, 50 tones, ground balanced and noise cancelled. I found a 1941D merc at 7-8 inches. At 5 inches, there was a flattened aluminum cap directly above it and a large nail was just below the dime. Detector was giving a solid 23 with a quick 31 that just kept ringing from all angles. It just sounded “right?” A few feet later I found a 1951 wheatie. This is fun! Anyway, here it is:

Was nice enough in the high 30s to look for a spot to dig that wasn’t snow covered, and I wound up at a creek side cellar hole that was pretty clear of snow. I decided to work the side wall to a bridge that used to cross the creek years ago. Not long into it I got a choppy high signal reached into the high 20s. As it was the same from every direction I New I had a high conductor mixed with iron. I had been over this ground many times with several detectors but until I used the equinox with the 6” coil I never hit on this. The pictures reveal a really fine condition 1817 large cent with a nice green patina on it and lots of fine details. One of the nicest large cents I’ve ever found for sure. Went home with a smile on my face

Hi Folks I hope everyone is doing well over here. Ground conditions have been tough with the weather being so cold but things warmed up just enough to allow some detecting here in the mid Hudson valley. Unfortunately it's going to turn colder again over the coming week or so which will probably shut me down again. Anyhow, I went back to a site where I have discovered quite a few Connecticut coppers over the years and decided to hit a little bit further out from the center of the site. I came upon a 18-20 signal and ended up recovering a nice 1773 half reale. Shortly afterwards I discovered another copper believe it is a KG III. It sure was nice to get out. Recovering both coins.. I was using the 15-inch coil field 2, sensitivity at 25, ground balance of zero, iron bias was at 2 and recovery speed of 7. HH Everyone..

I took my brother-in-law out detecting for his first time ever today. I had him set up with a Teknetics G2 with the ultimate coil. (That coil is a beast. It literally found a staple that he was looking for for a long time with the pinpointer.) Anyway, he found only a few coins However, he did have a unique find for a soccer field in FL. I am attaching some pics hoping someone can shed some light on the find. It looked like, from a quick glance, that there was a goldish color covering a base metal. On my Equinox, it was a solid 17. It seems strange that someone would reproduce a coin that is so heavily worn. Here are some pics he sent me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last Sunday was pretty mild, though windy; so I decided to take a hike up a mountain path that goes back all the way to colonial times. I had a lot of fun, and mostly was finding ammo until I got a good dime signal I expected a dime but was surprised to see this 1906 Barber dome. After a rinse-off at home I was astounded by the exceptional quality of this coin- just beautiful. I later found this colonial button which is the smallest button I’ve ever found. This button was 6” deep found using field 2. The equinox really hits on the tiny little items.

We have all had the dream of huge silver appearing in the hole. In my dreams it was always a Morgan. Today it actually happened!! I love my eTrac but left it in the Jeep. I wanted to get some more hours on the Nox 800. This was actually a backup location as there were to many people at my intended location. I got a sketchy high tone with the depth gauge pegged. I dug down about 9 inches and realized I had missed the target. After a scoop into the sidewall a huge silver lay in the bottom of the hole. The coin must have been on edge or very close. I stared at it saying "No Way!". I Also dug a silver Washington 3 ft. away. I have been over this area before with the eTrac and missed these coins. Truly a day to remember!

Seated is fun to find.

Since I keep records of all my hunts I've gotten into the habit of summarizing the years' finds. First the raw numbers (with 2017 numbers in parentheses): Hours in the field: 263.5 (228). Number of hunts: 80 (65). Common coin (clad, Memorial) face value: $78.68 ($20.65). Different sites searched: 15 (11). [Note: 6 of this years' sites were permissions compared to just 2 last year.] Pulltabs (all types): 382 (524). "Old" US coins (see photo): 22 (8). Wheat cents: 90 (61). By "old US coins" I mean any silver coin, Buffalo nickels or earlier, Indian Head cents or earlier. About 2/3 of my old coin finds have already been reported on this website. The photo (below) shows six silver dimes and six silver nickels ("Warnicks") for a total of 12 silvers. Also shown is one V-nickel (next to the dimes), seven Buffies, and two Indian Heads (bottom row). Also shown on the bottom row are a 1917 Canadian large cent, my first ever (and only, to date) dollar (modern ?) and half dollar (clad ?). The nickels are the big surprise since I hadn't found a Warnick since 1972(!) and back in the spring when a thread was begun (paraphrased) "what are you hoping to find first with your Equinox" I responded "my first ever Buffalo nickel". As you can see I found seven, the first two without dates and then a run of five with dates. None of the coins shown has any value over metal content (silver) or face (the rest) since they are all common dates. My best Wheatie find of the year was a 1924-D which I reported on in detail earlier this year. Although I don't hunt jewelry as many do, I sometimes find some anyway. My second photo shows my better jewelry finds and my best relic of the year, a Civil War cartridge box plate size and front face are quite similar to belt buckels but the backside is different. (I wrote this up earlier in the year -- found on 4th of July!) Just found the pocket watch on my last hunt of the year (Sunday 30 Dec). It's in very bad shape as you can see. I think it's gold plated -- you can see one very shiny spot. Probably never was a valuable piece.... The only piece of jewerly which has more than a few dollars value is the amethyst crystal in the gold bezel. Interestingly that is the only jewelry find my wife has ever wanted -- I happily gave it to her after I photo'ed it. ? So why the change in production (both clad coins and old coins)? There are several small reasons but I think the big one is the use of an 11 inch coil (on the Equinox). Another thing I wrote up previously is that I was 'forced' to use a coil larger than my previous habit of 5 inch to 6 inch diameter and I was able to cover a lot more ground as a result.

It has been a few weeks since I went out on a gold trip. Today was the day and the weather was ideal. I went to a location I've been to many times before and people are still getting little pickers out of the area, but not me! My tool of choice was the 6" Equinox set on Gold 1 or Gold 2. It was set up for the hunt. I'm always amazed by the size of stuff this combination will find. None of it was very deep. I know GB2s, Monsters, 7000s, 2300s and others have been over these slopes but there is still trash. There are pellets, half pellets, split, shavings, etc, etc. Do you see any gold there? (The dime was found with my eyes at a parking area!) I don't either. I tried 3 different places with a combination of open and raked slopes and tailing piles. Nada, so it was time to do something else after 5 hours. On the way back to Los Angeles there was an old train stop. We've been there before and gotten coins. The coins I got were buffalo nickels and wheat pennies. The last 3 times I stopped there I didn't find any but I had more time today. Let me see. I put the 6" coin into Park 1 and Park 2 and began the search. I've been here with the 6" coil before. I'd also been there with the 3030 6" coil. I think I have 10 coins from the area. I went back over the areas where I had found the most and about 20 minutes into the search I got a coin signal among all the can slaw. Out pops the wheat. It's a 1945, I can read that even without my glasses. Now I expand my search area a bit but still on the little slop that has held the coins in greatest quantity. I have enough confidence in this coil/detector combo now to not use all metal. That is just too noisy in some places like this. I'm about 20 on sensitivity and everything else is factory on Park 2. I'm hearing another penny sound so I scrape away at the surface and the signal is still there so I take the little hand pick and loosen the area and pull it out of the hole. It's only about 4 inches deep but I get the target. I see the shape is a coin ... the numbers aren't a dime but I think maybe ... then I look and I can't see the wheat ... wait ... I've gotten these from coin hunt tokens ... IT'S AN INDIAN! This is my first Indian from the field. It is a 1905. It's not in very good shape but I think I'll keep it. The 6" coil didn't get me any gold but did get an old Indian. What a detector.

This particular find happened on July of this year. I went out today for few hours just to kill time. I wasn’t expecting much so I was just taking my time digging targets. I was digging lots of thrash as usual along with some pennies. I was using the Equinox 800 and since I wasn’t finding much I started just jumping between park 1 and field 1. After a few hours I came across this iffy target that would jump all over the place with negative numbers and hit 20-21 once in a while. I’m like another penny, I guess I will dig it since it’s my last target. I dug it and I see this weird coin staring back at me. I grab it and I’m a little confused now cause it sure doesn’t look like a Penny at all. After a few seconds go by it finally clicks, OMG this a fracken gold coin. Now I’m shaking And trying to figure out what to do next. After a minute or two I figured I should put it on top of the detector to let it breath and take a picture. Well, here it is and I hope this isn’t a dream. Thank you for looking and remember to dig everything because you just never know. I wish you all a Happy New Year. The last two pictures are after I finished cleaning it with water without any rubbing. The coin looks better in person but my camera phone can’t capture it good. I found the coin in a public place where construction was being done. A lot of old dirt was pulled and spread out, about the size of a football field and 12”+ in depth. A few of us hunted this site for a couple of weeks till they took most of the dirt back and cover the rest with clean dirt. I will make another post later with my othe finds from there. Happy New Year to all.

It's been well over 4 months since I have picked up a metal detector. A house remodel and some landscaping has kept me away from the treasure fields unfortunately. When my buddy Merton called and said he wanted to go on a hunt all I could think of was that I needed to get the house finished before I went goofing around with a metal detector. Reluctantly I told myself that I probably could use a break and so I invited him to come on down. Merton, being the thoughtful guy he is called a couple days before our designated date and gave me the option of cancelling but I told him to come down and lets go for a hunt! I was starting to look forward to it as we always have fun treasure hunting together. I had already decided we were going to the spot where I found the old antique gold ring this past May. I had yet to revisit this spot. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/6528-needle-in-a-haystack/ This area is on private property and has a small area of mining activity. It's not on any map. It's a tough area for the nugget hunter, the dozen or so pieces of gold that I have found here are small and few and far between. To make matters worse the area is loaded with lead from #9 bird shot to old 50 Cal plus round balls. For now I've pretty much written it off for gold hunting and would rather be a lazy relic hunter there instead. Up till now I had never found a old silver US coin there despite having made 7-8 visits to the area. A few old Chinese coins, a couple powder flasks, some gun parts and the surprise gold ring form the last hunt were enough to lure me back. As the saying goes "if you don't use it you loose it" And I had forgotten how to operate the equinox 800. The night before our hunt I broke out the owners manual that I had printed out (my wife made a nice binder for me) and brushed up on how to work the machine. I went outside and played around in the yard a bit with the detector. I'd even forgot how to noise cancel and was beginning to have doubts thinking I was wasting my time. Saturday found us in the foot hills on a bright sunny morning surrounded by herd of 75 very hungry cattle. I told Merton I was going to go on a walk about starting where I had found the gold ring and I'd catch up with him later. Merton with his XP Deus headed for whats left of some old chimneys down in a flat close to some tailing piles. I decided to keep things simple with the equinox so I put it in park 1, 5 tones, ground tracking, recovery speed 5 and Fe 1. The ground here is very noisy and it took me a while before I got back into the hang of things knowing which targets to dig and which to ignore. After about an hour of detecting I had it down and was building confidence. About two or three hours had gone by when I caught up with Merton. Neither of us had found anything really good. The place is not a very target rich environment for the relic hunter. We went back to the truck for a beer and some lunch. After lunch I told Merton that I was going to go up on the hill above the main camp and workings since neither of us had hunted it very hard before. This is where things start to get interesting. I had been gridding the hillside for about an hour or two when I came across a rare high tone. Kinda scratchy...but repeatable. A couple swings of the pick and out pops a seated silver dime in excellent condition. Immediately I call for Merton who is about a hundred yards below me and show him the coin still in the hole. I tell him to start working this area with me. Merton is a very polite detectorist and using good etiquette he heads up hill a little ways from me as to not encroach upon my new spot. Maybe another 20 minutes or so goes by and I'm about 20 yards or less from where I found the seated dime and I get a mid tone on the Equinox..14-15 and repeatable. Thinking it's just another shot gun cap or lead ball I dig a little dirt out with the pick....my Garret carrot says the target is an inch or two behind and to the right of where I originally thought it was. Using the Lesche I start digging out the area and out pops this little gold shiny thing. I could only see part of it but it had a serrated edge and I immediately knew what it was even though I had never dug one before! Gasping and jumping backwards all I could do was call out for Merton to get over here! he could tell by my excitement that It was something good....he's smiling as he walks down..... "What did you get a half dollar?" I shake my head no...."Silver dollar?" again I shake my head no....."A GOLD COIN?" all I was capable of was looking up and smiling as I was still speechless. As I went down to reach for it and Merton says "CAREFUL DON'T RUB IT!" There was a lot of congratulatory back slapping, high fives etc... then without touching the coin I said I got to go to the truck and get my phone so I can take some pictures. The coin is in excellent condition (1853 2.5 dollar) which is hard to believe since it's been in the ground for well over a hundred years. Here are the pictures so you can see what we seen. We went back the day after and then hit another spot a couple days after that. We managed another Seated and a few other trinkets. I'm back to working on my house again and Merton is out at sea. But I'm looking forward to our next hunt together. What a great hobby. strick

Found this 1861 half dollar this week at the farm using my F70 with the sniper coil.

Running out of days (especially decent weather days) in 2018. Yesterday I was hunting my favorite park that I've been searching over the past 4 years. I was basically doing some experimentation with settings and detectors. Going over a grassy slope in the shade of a large tree I got a very strong, irregular signal which turned out to be a recent spill -- 2013-D Quarter, two 2017-D dimes, 2006-D dime, 2005-D nickel, and (only 'old' coin) 1964-D nickel. All coins were on the surface of the ground, under the grass blades. Oh, there was one more coin amongst those -- a shiny penny. I figured 'typical Zincoln' but put it in my 'coins' pocket (Zincolns usually go in the trash pouch but get sorted later). It's gotten to the point where I don't even look at the dates on Zincolns since most of the time I can't discern them, they are eaten up so badly. Just toss them in their own jar. When I got home and was sorting through the finds (1940 Jeffy being the oldest but nothing to get excited about since they made a gazillion of them), I noticed the shiny penny had an -S mintmark (see photo below). The 2005 date had me scratching my head since I thought (and later confirmed) that 2005-S coins were only minted for inclusion in proof sets. Only 3,273,000 made (compare that to over 7.7 billion combined between 2005 plain and 2005-D cents). Second lowest mintage penny I've ever found, either detecting or searching through bank rolls. Phrunt was just talking about the "what was that doing there?!" question we often asks ourselves when identifying unusual finds. Just another one for me.

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