Search the Community

Took my Gold Racer out for just over an hour to an area I had picked up the barber earlier this year. There is a lot of brush and the GR solid coil works well for poking around. Along the shore of the lake I noticed a stretch of bog iron, the lake bottom is usually a light gray. Ran my coil over the area and hit some coin sized objects but numbers bit low which I expect and just under the bog iron was these coins, 1883 IH, trashed IH and an 1873 seated dime. The pond is pretty hard pack gravel so old stuff isn't that deep. Oddly that stupid sinker was about 6" down in the rocks below and tough to dig out and find. Will hit this side of the lake in the spring when it thaws.

I have been trying to locate a school house site in a small farming settlement that was abandoned by the late 1920's. The settlement had a few houses scattered about, a rail stop/ post office and a 1 room rural school house. Everything was razed years ago. Yesterday I located a privy hole that was cased with an iron pipe so I figured that must be the area. Meager finds that are par for the course here where I live with the exception of the Chinese coin. It is the first I have found, so I was pretty happy with that.

Was waiting for a buddy to show up so I hit a small area across from where I parked. Usual tons of trash being so close to the road and first real hit I had I pulled the poor beat up Merc Dime 193?. Not a bad way to start the year off, hope it wasn't the hightlight hahah. Happy new year!

Week after doing so research with historical maps and pictures of old buckeye az buildings I had 3 sites to check. One was an old house from the 30's now it's an empty field, one a 1890's school house also an empty lot, and the last was an old house from the 40's that burned down in the 90's and is still there. My finds included a 1958 franklin half, 3 wheat pennies, and a 1940s boy scout handkerchief clip. Oh and 2 really old marbles.

Got out today for a few hours at an old homestead in downtown buckeye arizona. In the past I have found a silver dime, old pesos, some old buttons and lots of wheat. Well today was the best day yet. As soon as I got it off the truck I got a 29, 30 on the nox 800. I expected trash or a clad but I got a good, old surprise. A 1894 barber half! It's in poor condition and isn't worth much but it's my best silver find yet.

Some finds from several hunts...starting to get out a little more now that the ground has softened up some.. mostly using the Nox but the CTX produced the quarter yesterday...for some reason I usually do well on Christmas Eve so I make it a tradition to hunt in the morning....wishing all my treasure hunting breathen a very happy holidays strick

Quick video of a recent trip that had a long list of sites to check out, and wouldn't you know it an old back pocket site of mine turned out to be the best of all.

Did some relic hunting today with the intention of comparing some detectors (Deus, Tarsacci) but the Deus was on fire and besides keeping me from running a detector comparison test it also made it more difficult for me to proclaim 2020 a complete and total dumpster fire, but there is still another month to go.... Anyway, about a hour into the hunt, with the Deus connected to the 11" X35 coil and set at 12 khz with pitch tones and reactivity at about 2.5, I had found some keeper lead and brass. Then I happened upon a strong, 45- 47 signal. Thought it was likely can slaw but I was digging any repeatable non-ferrous signal. My handheld pinpointer indicated it was not deep, and I used my digger to come at it from a safe angle, just in case, and low and behold, out popped my first ever gold coin find - 1849 Open Wreath $1 Gold Piece. It was surreal. My digging partner thought I was kidding, but there it sat glimmering in daylight. Sent a text over to prove it since we were appropriately social distancing (something that comes naturally with this hobby). What a great initiation into the GC club. Needless to say, I kept swinging the Deus for the rest of the day except for a brief half-hearted attempted to see if I could get the Tarsacci going, but save for one so-so brass target, it was a Deus day. I swapped to my 9" round HF coil after the Tarsacci run and finshed up strong with some button, buckle, and bullet finds. One of my best detector single day outings ever in terms of both quantity and quality of relic finds. Only missing silver on this trip, but not complaining. Hopefully, this was a just a preview of what might be in store for 2021, as 2020 has been pretty much a lost year for many of us as far as detecting and other life pursuits go. The Tarsacci/Deus bake off will just have to wait for another day. Stay safe out there and happy hunting. CG

Hitting the area that has been picked through by just about everyone with a detector and managed to find a v-nickel nicely hidden with a chunk of iron bar about 7" down. Got a fairly short signal in one direction and long iron signal in another, the short had a spot on nickel ID but thought it might have been a piece of aluminum. As you notice in my mix of trash there is a bunch of small aluminum. You can blame Chase for that as it forces me to look for gold $1 coins in the area :( Bunch of memorial nickels were in one hole with a penny about 4" away from a can on the surface. The brass bits look like its from a hurricane lamp? Found a few of those in the area. Anyways the Gold Racer does really well in trashy areas and surprisingly has descent depth for such a small coil. Finding that I needed to drop the iSat down to 3 from default 6 as the ground didn't vary too much and the gb would drift too much. Ground averaged 40's-mid 60's which is mild for most the area.

I have been detecting for over 40 years and the last two days gave up two bucket listers. I have been hunting a farm field for the last 6 years that at one time was a picnic grove. The grove was cut down about 100 years ago and has been tilled ever since. Yesterday I hit the Morgan dollar. It gave a whisper 39 40 and negative -9 numbers. I about gave up on it thinking a large iron item very deep. This was at no less than 12 inches. I run Park 1 will full sensitivity, five tones, no discrimination, speed 4, little or no iron bias. And then today the Seated Half with my Deus. I use the deep program and just doctor it up a bit. In my 11th window I run x-y 12kHz, in my 12th window horseshoe at 8kHz. I was running the x-y pattern when I received the very weak signal. The x-y line was broken so I switched to my 12th window. 93-95 with never a left hand horseshoe. Only right hand. This was about 8 inches down. The field is freshly combined and then shallow disked. We had a drought here this year so the ground is like concrete. The Equinox 800 and the Deus complement each other well. About all I have left on my bucket list is a gold coin. Still hopeing.

Yes I’m so green that this 1977 nickel is special to me since it’s my first non-trash find! Nuggets here I come! Only a matter of time. and no, I’m not willing to sell the Batman keychain I dug. I’ve got to post it in the paper so I don’t get popped for theft.

Hello to all, Sunday and Monday i hit the coast in search of long lost treasure,still with my mate Fred and his nox and big coil Sunday night not much a copper ring for him,and a deep old copper penny for me.On Monday we hit another beach as we are still testing in real condition Nox Vs MDT. I was using my work in progress sand trolley(golf trolley which i will mod) a scoop and a spade were mounted on it. 4.30 hours didn't bring much luck to both of us my tally for the day was 0.70 pence 😆😆😆😆.We were leaving and really pushing hard to get something good when i had a whisper signal ALL POSITIVE numbers ,after god knows how many spadeful came out this beast of a coin,the largest and heaviest coin i ever found and.......on a beach!!!!! It is a 5 kopecks from Catherine the Great Empress of Russia . Fred say i won the trophy find of the day very very unusual find on the beach,by the way my 50cal cases story is going around and they are now very very scarce on that spot and 3 in a row is a record finds in more than a decade...... So far the MDT is growing on me my nox may need to go soon... Have a nice week RR

Hit a new spot for about 30 minutes and these showed up...

A short window of luck has given me another gold coin . Eleven days ago while on an organized field day with many prospectors i came across an old miners camp site . Being a relic focused detectorist i worked the site hard . The other coins from the site point to occupation between 1870 - 1890 so finding a 1798 gold Spade Guinea created quite a stir ! Minting of this coin stopped in 1799 . In 1798 my state was not populated by the English and was only just being found to be a separate land mass from mainland Australia . I still get a smile on my face when i think of finding this coin ! 25mm diameter , 8.4 grams . Solid 18 on the Nox in ground [5 inches] and out .

Got out for some mind clearing routine dry and wet sand beach hunting, hoping some late season gold drops would grace my scoop. Was using the Deus in full tones, 9" round HF coil, 14khz full tones as that combo really helps ID aluminum trash well. Was digging the requisite clad and junk jewelry and other odds and ends and scooped "called" pull tabs and crown caps, just to be sure. I've found that being able to call the target on sand doesn't mean I won't scoop it. It just sets the proper expectation when you pull that crown cap or pull tab out of the scoop. Got an odd high 70's hit and saw a round quarter sized target on the sand caked in sand and corrosion. I thought that target sure didn't ring up like a coin much less a quarter, and I was right. It wasn't a quarter...a closer look revealed a shield and a date - "1864" through the pale green crud which must have been affecting the signal. Sure enough, I dug my first 2 cent piece in a very unlikely place. Wish it could talk and tell me how it got there. But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth and just thank the detecting gods for my weird but good fortune.

The wet beach sand didn't produce much early this morning so I took a few swings around the dry sand on my way back to my parking place. I was using Park 1 at 20-21 and switching between multi and 4khz to know what I might be digging. I do think the multi is deeper and I found some clad in the same location with maximum depth of 8" I think. What is the little heart/star piece? I put the coins in my pouch and didn't know I had a silver until I checked them at home. I don't know exactly which hole I dug that resulted in the quarter (1946). The nickel is a 1936 Buffalo and the penny is 1952. I'll go back.

Did a quick run over at the river bank and was able to pick out a couple Indian heads, 1903 and 1892. Also found a small musketball. Numbers are all but useless on any machine due to the iron. Usually hunt by hear a target, take a scoop then re-sweep to see what you have because of the high iron in the ground. Some areas are pretty clean but of course there are rarely targets there.

Did a late run at the local park, was dark so I was just picking some obvious targets. One area had some very old trees that had been taken down leaving some deep roots and for some reason there is a good amount of iron where the old oaks were so I tossed the Gold Racer into disc 2, kicked the sensitivity to 85 and upped the id to 25 trimming much of the chatter out. Knew I had a dime but didn't realize it was a silver until I got home and dumped my pouch out. Few months ago I did pick out an 1906 IH that was in fair shape.

Bit of low water at the town water supply, can't wade there but had some shorline to poke around. Tough with all the rocks they added to combat the erosion taking my time payed off. Should be more to pick out amongst the sinkers, miserable 22 casings etc. Used the Makro Gold Racer for this hunt. I like the stable id's and smooth threshold, ground is all over the place from 20's-80's and lots of natural iron.

I'm exaggerating a bit of course but this little patch has yielded a few silver coins each time i search there.. this morning's haul..

Had some luck during the week finding my 3rd gold coin in 9 years of detecting , so i am feeling the buzz again . This one is an 1853 Half Sovereign , 22ct , 19mm diameter . Came from a well hunted spot where virtually every target over 20 on the Nox has been cleaned up by the high tone hunters . This was 15 in all directions at around the 5 inch mark . Found a nice brooch and pendant as well . The hunt area is a well known gold mining town dating back to the 1870's .

Nicest wheat penny I've found so far. Found it in my cousin's yard, which used to be my uncle's yard, and has been a residence going back to at least 1874. Farm country in southeast Minnesota. The soil at this place is definitely more friendly to copper than other places I've found wheats that are so green you have to nearly destroy them just to read the year. I found a 1919 Wheatie here a few weeks ago. That one cleaned up easily too, but wasn't quite as pretty as this one. Minimal cleanup, and I present it for your viewing pleasure. Just don't touch it.

Went to the water with my buddy flagman to look for relics....Turned out to be a great day! https://youtu.be/vqjFJofhOq8

I have been digging a 1930,s out house and before i left for the day i scanned my sniper coil thru the dirt i had trown out , finding sevral shot shells and then what i thought was a token , and this is just on top of the pile well i got it home and cleaned off the dirt , It is an 1899 V nickle , and i suppose when the out house user pulled down his pants this coin fell out , Now I am asking myself , How many other coins have fallen out ? so my plan is to take a board and put a few scoops on the board , spread it out , have a magnet handy and scan the whole pile going back in I bet it has more coins