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Went to an old house site this morning only one coin but it was a keeper 1868 Indian. I have a hole in the book that it’ll fill nicely. Token of some kind pocket knife and a few other relics. Thanks for looking.

I haven't gotten out much lately due to back problems and weather. The last couple of times I found some interesting things, and a lot of nails, horseshoe nails... I'm not sure what the shoe shaped thing is, an old skate? or possibly a shoeshine support? I got a horse tack buckle, a locket, that seems to be plated, it's corroded a little, and fell apart when I picked it up, and a tiny brass buckle...I'm wondering if the tiny brass buckle was for a baby's shoe maybe? It still has a piece of material in it. The penny was just to show the size of the locket and tiny buckle.

Back over to the area we found the relics at before. Three different spots more stuff. My son got similar to what I’m posting along with an 1859 Indian and half a powder flask.

Does the GPX 6000 signal on small near surface iron? I want to test it at colonial and civil war sites to relic hunt. If it does what sort of signal sound does it produce? Thanks

I attempted to capitalize on my success from our New Years Day hunt where my first coin of 2022 was a beautiful 1825 reale ( https://youtu.be/EFZ5Wf3cy2I). On that trip I removed a large section of brush that low and behold gave up several good targets once cleared. This general area produced several Phoenix buttons, a reale, green copper, flat buttons, relics, etc. This trip I tried removing more brush right in what was previously a hot zone, but I was shocked after busting my hump that the thicket of bushes wasn't hiding a single target. Tom likewise cleared out a large swath of overgrowth and after he went through with his Deus and got nothing (camp lead and shotgun butts perhaps), I went though it with the EQX and I did get what sounded like a good chance to be a deep coin, but it ended up being a deep shotgun shell. I don't recall shotgun shell being punishing on previous hunts there, but they were on this one, and I see that Tom also got an equally larger number of them. Then I moved to the area that I had cleared out on the last trip and thought it made good sense to continue expanding my pocket and aside from a couple pieces of large iron, it was devoid of targets. While I was bushwhacking Tom decided to freestyle it on the deer trails. This would prove to be a good move, as he soon started having success. Finally after Tom had bagged TWO Phoenix buttons and a flat button, I started working my way to where I thought he was, but the bottom line is I spent the majority of the hunt either bushwhacking dud areas, or exploring an entirely different area from where Tom was that ended up being practically devoid of targets. Tom kept texting me, hey I got another flat button, hey another phoenix button, hey a small birdcage button. Geesh he was killing it. I ended up with a single flat button way out in the bush, and when I finally returned closer to the "zone", BAM I landed a neat button! How it got there is completely beyond me?? I researched it and it's what's commonly referred to as a War of 1812 Royal Navy Officer 15mm gilt brass flat button. This Royal Navy Officers one piece button was manufactured between 1798-1812. What's that doing in Alta California?? Anyone in California ever find one of these? I know when Spain wasn't looking the British were trading there, and when Alta California was under Mexican authority, the British could trade there. On our way out we wanted to check an area that I sampled last trip and it produced a flat button or two. We were more thorough this time and hit an interesting little patch. Tom pulled a flat button and some big bronze foot to a candlestick or chalice or? Not far from him I got these two little silver buckles. Funky signal, silver screamer with other signals mixed in, pulled several targets out of this little area mixed in with junk. Got the little silver D buckle first, then the larger silver buckle second. Then I waded through some (gasp) clad and got a screaming flutey silver tone, and saw a little silver disc fly out of the hole!! Ended up being a seated half dime, a nice early one too from 1838. To bad it wasn't an Orleans mint mark, it'd be a high dollar little coin then, but it's still a killer find from early Alta California. Nothing else too exciting to be honest, Tom was on fire! I believe he ended up with something like nine period flat buttons, and 2 Phoenix buttons, and a bunch of period green copper. Hopefully he'll post his finds here. This was the maiden voyage for my new Coiltek 10x5 on the EQX800. My overall impressions: I was concerned about depth, but now I think without an A/B stock 11" vs the 10x5, I think it would be hard to notice in the field. I don't think it was any easier maneuvering through the brush, maybe it was, but in reality it seemed like the coil was getting hung up just as much haha When I got the seated half dime, the area was junky and it did really well separating each target in the mix when going slow , the 11" coil probably would've smeared some of the targets together. I didn't find the balance to be any different, it didn't feel lighter, I guess I'm used to slogging the stock 11" around. Thanks for looking! GL&HH, Cal

Got out today to a permission that’s close by. There’s an old house on this property and from what I’ve read the house was built in either the late 1800s or early 1900s. I’ve hit this place seven or eight times already and have gotten 6 silver coins. All dimes: two barbers and four mercs. The guy that bought the place is slowly tearing down the house and I noticed he finally got the roof rafters off of it. I’ve been wanting to detect the dirt under the floor system that he tore out a few weeks ago but I was leery of going in there with the weight of the roof on those old walls. So today I got in there with the nox and six inch coil. First thing I noticed was a LOT of bottle caps. That and lots and lots of iron. I had the nox running in both park 1 and park two with custom five tones, recovery on 7, iron bias at 0 and then 6, sense anywhere from 16-21. I got two ‘45 wheats, three buffs a ‘15, ‘18 and the other is too corroded to get a date off of. Highlight of the day was a ‘36 merc, my first silver of the new year.

A few weeks back forum member and friend abenson posted the results of an amazing hunt he had in Virginia at the latest week long "Diggin' in Virginia" organized group relic hunt. DIV is the gold standard of group hunts, a well organized, well oiled machine that enables folks regardless of equipment, skill, or experience to have access to sites in and around Culpeper, Virginia known to have Civil War activity through battle or long-term winter encampment. The CW history around Culpeper is immense. Several major engagements were fought within a 50 mile radius of the town including the Battle of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Battle of the Wilderness, and the battles of Cedar Mountain and the Battle of Brandy Station (the largest Cavalry engagement of the Civil War), the latter two being fought on Culpeper County land, and many other major and minor skirmishes. In addition, Culpeper was a popular site for winter encampments for both Armies. The result is simply a high density of CW related relics remaining in the ground on the various, numerous private farm properties in the area. DIV contracts with landowners to give the DIV participants access to the land to search for these coveted relics. The main catch is that relic hunting has been going on for multiple decades and although advances in technology and technique have enabled relic hunters to get access to deeply buried relics, those relics are disappearing and not being replenished. Those "surface finds" are actually pretty deep on average and the to complicate matters further, the soil is extremely mineralized due to the local geology which also happens to be home to some fairly significant natural gold deposits. Finally, several organized hunts and individual relic detectorists have repeatedly pounded the major "hot spot" sites. That doesn't mean the sites are devoid of relics but it does mean a little bit of research, detective work, and luck go a long way to getting you into an area of high relic concentration. Anyway, this DIV was number "50". No, it hasn't been held for 50 years, there have been 50+ organized DIV events held since around 2004. This event featured 4 separate sites that participants could visit as they pleased over a period of 5 days. If you read Andy's post that I linked above, you can see that he had a pretty good hunt, he had a plan, stuck to it, focused on one specific area, and was rewarded, indeed, with the find of a lifetime, a CS tongue. Part of a two-piece Confederate buckle (see pic below). This is my DIV 50 story. We started at a "new site" that was not hunted by DIV previously. As you might imagine, it was highly popular on day 1. Me and my two buds hit the site for awhile came up with a few bullets and not much else and then decided to hit another site where we previously had some luck. There too, the finds were few and far between but we were not skunked. We decided to hit a different site on day 2 where we had also had some previous luck with very little success. Lead is great but we were really craving brass. We visited a fourth site on day 3. This site was a site we previously had sworn off based on previous poor luck and you can now see how desperate our crew was becoming. We found a couple more CW bullets there and then proceeded to go back to a different section of the site we visited on Day 2. On the way there we noticed that a field that had been previously occupied with a fresh crop of soybeans had just been harvested that day. As far as that DIV is concerned, that would be considered virgin hunting ground and we were going to be one of the first crews exploiting it. We hit the field spread out and started surveying it for possible hot spots. I found a couple of tiny brass percussion caps and some non-descript brass, but it was starting to look like another wild goose chase. I hit another strong signal, that sounded good in the GPX headphones, nice high tone that did not break and started digging. As I remove more and more dirt and rechecked the hole the signal remained loud and clear and unbreaking (I was using a moderate iron reject setting). Finally, I located the target but to my dismay it was in the side wall of the hole. Not a good sign. That typically happens with ferrous targets because they tend to pinpoint off-center. I pursued it anyway and a beautiful green, brass something fell out of the sidewall and into the bottom of the hole. It was a heavy brass object that resembled a section of wreath. I knew what I just dug and I was simultaneously filled with feelings of joy and disappointment. I too had recovered part of a two piece tongue and wreath Confederate Army buckle. Andy had recovered his "find of a lifetime" CS tongue. I recovered part of the wreath that encircles the tongue when the two-piece buckle is fastened together. But unfortunately, under circumstances unknown (perhaps under the plow, perhaps in battle) it was only a broken off partial section of the Wreath and not fully intact. Hey a partial wreath is better than no wreath, and believe me I opened up that hole and also super searched the entire vicinity for an intact tongue or any other matching fragments to the partial wreath, but was unsuccessful. Similar feelings occur when you recover military two-piece button backs with the faces missing. On one hand you know what you got and you are happy to have recovered some brass, but he feeling is bittersweet knowing what might have been if the button (buckle) was recovered intact. That day and the next day I recovered five button backs. Ha. But the good news is that I also recovered 5 intact Eagle buttons including an Eagle "I" coat button that still had some gilt. A pretty good DIV haul for me and the rest of the crew as that field contained a number of brass button, minie ball, and brass relic hot spots. We also dodged the tractor a few times and it even forced me to abandon a sweet signal as it "ran over" my target. I let the tractor pass, reacquired the target and pulled a nice Eagle button. Anyway enjoy the pics of my finds from DIV 50. I managed to recover a relic from each site, just missed a spectacular find, and kidded Andy by saying that I found the part of the wreath for his CS Tongue that he was unable to recover....

It's been a while since I posted some finds. It has been a productive fall relic season for me, so that isn't the reason. Perhaps too much focus on the new machines that are about to make a splash in the detecting community and other distractions big and small. Anyway - on Friday Bob (F350Platinum) again graciously let me invite myself down his way again for some last minute 2021 detecting at a new permission he has been surveying. He wrote about it here. I got a late start so Bob had already had a chance to snag some finds in another part of the farm. After Bob kept me from driving my SUV into the local pond and then a short chat with the landowner, we were off swinging. We moved into the direction of the farmhouse, reckoning that the Colonial finds would concentrate towards the house. We crossed a couple of promising spots that were giving up telltale older relics (buttons, brass buckles) but they dried up as we crossed into a greener, muddier portion of the field. So we circled back the the "hot" spots and focused in those areas. Was swinging the Nox with the 11" coil, which was a change up from my recent hunts sticking with the Nox 5x10 that I have really bonded with. Anyway, was looking for a little more coverage and depth and with the targets few and far between. After recovering a few buttons and a nice D Buckle and a some modern trash (shotgun shells, can slaw), I got a nice solid, borderline 20/21 hit. Thinking IHP or some heavy brass, I flipped the plug, and the pinpointer zeroed in on a non-descript small, dark, flat, oval-shaped target. Perhaps a medal or pendant of some sort. Definitely, not a coin, so I thought. As I cleaned it off, it started to look like silver. Ok, cool a silver pendant/medal. I flipped it over, saw the off-center Jerusalem Cross, and immediately realized I had just dug my first Spanish Cob. 1/2 Reale weight. Bob and I researched and it appears to be a Mexico City Cob minted during the reign of King Charles II 1663-1699. My first Cob about 30 miles south of where Bob fount his first Cob when we last hunted together. Some nice colonial buttons and other odds and ends (including 2 unidentifiable copper or brass disks that are not old coppers or tokens) from the 12/31 hunt and our previous get together a few weeks ago. Thanks for letting me enjoy a little of your detecting paradise, Bob. See you again in 2022. I think more great finds in store as you've just scratched the surface on your new sites. Happy New Year Everyone!

Had a blast today using the new XP Deus II on a site that had been pounded. The XP Deus II did not disappoint and picked out some targets in the thickest of iron. Was great seeing this new machine perform at such a high level. Needless to say I had only used it a few times before today. This was my first official hunt with it. I think this machine will definitely be a winner for XP. Happy hunting everyone ! 🎉😀

In an earlier post I stated how I almost hit the Apple Trifecta today. What are the other Trifecta or cycles should we strive for in 2022. Example: Apple trifecta: iPhone, AirPods and an Apple Watch. Coin Cycle: Quarter, dime, nickle and a penny Ring Cycle: Gold ring, Silver ring, Tungsten ring and a Platinum ring. What would be the Relic Cycle? What would be the Gold nugget Cycle? Silver coin cycle?......etc. Basketball has it's doubles and baseball has it's cycles, maybe for 2022 we should have beach, field and gold awards for the rest of us. Happy Hunting and have a safe and healthy 2022.

Went out to some old homestead cabin sites and came up with a few interesting relics. The navy anchor belt buckle front plate is possibly 1800’s, guessing at this since everything else found there was from this era. The cartridge casing is a rim fire with H stamp for Henry’s.

Got out with TomCA yesterday for some relic hunting at some early western frontier sites. I ended up going sasquach through super heavy brush in search of the goods and it didn't disappoint! It may have been an all time record for me for buttons, not only in quantity but I also ended up digging some rarities! Although not the best find of the trip, I dug a super old 1600's-1700's SILVER decorative button! I've seen these found at Colonial cellar hole sites on the east coast and over seas, but never seen one dug out here. I absolutely LOVE IT!! This heavy cast suspender buckle was a fun find as well. No idea what the back story is on it, but it appears to have an iron cross (?) on it. The prize of the trip is this No. 28 large Phoenix button, and it turns out that of the 94 various types of Phoenix buttons this particular one is one of the rarest! Tom recently did a research project to ascertain the rarity of the 94 different types of Phoenix buttons, I've linked his excellent article here: Phoenix Button Rarity All told I ended up digging at least eight period buttons, and possibly another large Phoenix button dug that's in a coin or button cookie soaking in WD40 to loosen up the crud. I dug this octagon shaped "dodad" depicting a person kneeling, possibly holding a rifle. No idea what it is, it's 3cm wide. Here's the period scrapies, green blacksmith'd copper bits, the obligatory rim-fire, etc. Any idea what the item on the far left is? I'm thinking perhaps part of a Chinese lock or something? I added another photo showing another view of it. Tom thinks it's a gun part, I still think it's some kind of Chinese lock or something similar. I haven't cleaned anything yet really, was thinking it would be fun to order a set of Andre's cleaning pencils to restore some of these items and see how they work. Hopefully TomCA will chime in with his finds. 2021 isn't over yet!! GL&HH, Cal

Got to use the Deus 2 ! Super excited about finding some cannister shot and friction primers ! Happy hunting ! 👍🎉

Local parks with the Equinox 15" coil running in Park 1. The Panama coin was on the surface right below the grass. The car was in the outfield of a ballfield, and the Firestone nozzle was in an area of a park that is now used for equine related endeavors. Any ideas about the other item that has rusting iron with the center piece that is decorative? Love being in FL this time of year vs. being in a colder climate and knowing there is a coin under the frozen layer of soil that will have to wait for the spring to extract!

Got an invite to go relic hunting and it turned into a really fun day! Using the Deus with the big coil that I was going to sell. Not after today. I swung it all day from nine to five with only a few short breaks. I really enjoyed using it.

Last week I spent the whole week in Virginia at the Diggin in Virginia Event. DIV 50 was spread over 4 different farms which comprised of thousands of acres. 5 days 10 hours a day metal detecting, what a dream. I don't attend too many metal detecting events, it's just not me. But DIV is different and offers sites you just can't get on otherwise. Now although some of these farms have been hit by DIV upwards of 10 times, they are still giving up relics. Most of the DIV digs take place in Culpeper County Virginia and is known for it's very hot dirt. VLF detectors struggle in this environment so a PI like the GPX, TDI or ATX are preferred. But you always get the person that can't afford or is unwilling to spend the money to rent or buy a PI and will take a go at it with a VLF. DIV 50 was no exception. I saw many people metal detecting with VLF's I even had a gent check a target for me in the woods that was using a White 6000 DI. I had just dug part of a Shako hat pin and got another signal under a tree root and couldn't tell if it was big iron or big brass (the rest of the hat pin) so had him check it for me, it turned out to be iron. So VLF's will do ok in the woods or in thick iron patches, but out in the fields it's GPX all the way. Right tool for the right job, so come prepared. I always take the GPX and either the Deus or Equinox as backup. If you decide to go, make sure you know your metal detector well. We talked to a group that all had GPX's and didn't find a single relic. They spent their time digging nails. It doesn't matter if you have the best metal detector in the world, if you don't know how to use it, chances are you aren't going to find good stuff. That goes for VLF detectors as well. If you know your machine you can find stuff in the hot Culpeper dirt. Knowing your machine and how to make changes for the soil can mean the difference between success and failure. On this particular DIV, it being 50, some of us figured it may be the last. So my group decided to concentrate on the fields where we knew the Confederates camped prior to the Union Army moving in for the Winter of 1863-64. Other than going to a Union Camp for a day where you have a chance at digging some nice bottles of finding a whole Shako hat pin. We spent our time on a strip of land that boarders a creek where the Confederates camped. On day 2 we went to a part of the farm we hunted last Fall and was finding Gardner, ring tail sharps and 69 caliber round balls. These are all considered bullets used by the Confederates. the camp was located on a hillside that sloped toward a wash that ran into the creek. Last year I hunted that wash and was finding numerous 69 caliber round balls in and amongst the modern fencing and wire pieces. So I decided to hunt my way down the hill towards the bottom of the wash. As I approached the bottom of the wash I started hearing all the wire signals on my GPX and slowed down to investigate each one. I finally got a good solid signal and dug a ring tail sharps. Next signal not more than than 2 feet from the sharps bullet I got a signal that sounded like wire but wouldn't break up so I decided to dig it. When I got down about 12 inches I got my pin pointer out and got a signal in the bottom corner of the hole. I though due to it's orientation in the hole it was most likely a piece of wire. But got my hand digger out anyway to complete the recovery of the target. To my surprise it was a CS tongue, I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would find one. To make things even better I got the excavation of it on video. Some other highlights of the trip were finding fuses for artillery shells, artillery shell fragments and one of the other guys in my group found a pewter CS saddle shield which is also a very rare find. I had a great time and have made some good friends at DIV over the years. There are a great bunch of people that put together DIV and an even greater bunch of people that attend them. Some of these people have been attending since the very first one and are willing to share their knowledge with anyone who asks.

One of the places I have permission to hunt will soon be developed and under hundreds of new homes. It's a darn shame because the property sits in a beautiful valley where there once was an old town site dating back to the late 1800's. There are also several old home sites that are nothing more then just dots on the old as maps there are no structures left...all you might find is some bits of pottery and the iron grunt of your detector telling you are in the right spot. I've detected these areas off and on for several years as it's close and I can easily put in a hour or two after work. Recently I was told that I had till Jan 1st and then the land movers will be coming in so I've been going over the place hitting one spot then another...I've made some good silver coin finds over the years but I've had to work for every one of them as the place is no secret and it's been hit hard for many years before I was into this hobby. My main goal was to try and find a $1 gold coin...I just know there has to be one out there around the old town site. The place is littered with head stamps and 22 casings and other low to mid conductors. Yesterday I had had enough of digging junk for mostly nothing at the old town site and decided to hit one of the old home sites...I have detected this area before and found a really nice engraved silver buckle...that time I was with my friend Merton and we had went over the area pretty good but we were mostly cherry picking high conductors. Yesterday I was in a dig it all kind of mood. I was getting lots of brass rivets and some other mid/high conductors and fully expected the next target to be more of the same when out of the hole pops a token..cool the day is saved I think to myself...then just a foot away same signal same reading on the detector and out pops another of the same style token...so now it's game on. For the next hour I stayed in a circle no more than 15 feet in diameter and plucked token after token out of the ground. And for desert I got a very old gold ring with two hearts on it and one gold cuff link...plus a smashed barber dime... today i went back and got another token and found the mate to the gold cuff link. All the finds were with the CTX 3030 all of them were at least 6 inches deep or deeper. Some were faint signals...I went back over it again today with the Nox but no dice. The strange shaped tokens are from a place called "The Palace Beer and Billiards Market St San Francisco" the round ones vary...one says cigar on it the others are hard to read. I figured this was worth posting so I broke out my ole trusty rock from Rye patch and did a photo op. The gold ring is hard to see upper left it's in good shape but has lots of staining from sitting in cow piss for over a hundred years..got it soaking in CLR right now. One of the pictures explains everything...Happy Hunting and Happy Thanks giving. strick

Trusting His Gut, a Metal Detector Enthusiast Makes a Discovery That Dreams are Made of | Page 33 of 34 | Housecoast | Page 33

Went up to the racetrack again yesterday, thought these finds deserve a post of their own. There is a small plot of land next to where the house stood. It had a barn and the cemetery behind it. It's about a half acre. Lots of corn stalks 😵 At first the going was kinda risky, the wind was blowing about 20 mph, big low off the coast. I had to search under trees in the background and these were falling everywhere. If any of you have ever been hit in the head by one of these Black Walnuts, you know what the fun part is. They were coming down like rain. I suppose I could have waited a few more days but hunting season starts soon. The trees are about 50' or more, and they get a bit of velocity. 😀 I really didn't expect to find much at all, a scout search last spring gave no indication there was anything good here, but I was determined to grid something out of it after my finds from previous days. This is another example of "persistence pays off". All of these relics are very old. A pistol ball, an as yet unidentified fired ~45 cal bullet (the sharp end is throwing me off). The first button says "Gilt Colour" and something else on the back and still has some thread. Second has a triangle on the front and possibly some other marks, and says "Plated" on the back. The third is my favorite, an ancient convex Tombac with some off-center engraving. It has a square shank boss on the back. By afternoon someone was shooting a handgun in my direction, must have fired about 100 rounds. I didn't hear any "snaps" so I presumed the shooter was on a lower elevation and hoped there was a backstop. 🙄 Guess I'm gonna have to get a boat horn. 😵 Another bit of excitement was coming across two of these "little" guys building webs across the corn stalks in front of me. The Yellow Garden Spider can grow to 1 1/2 inches in body length. They rarely bite but if they do you know it, those fangs flip out. I'm glad that metal detectors are out in front. 😀 I let them both carry on... 😬

Well, today I was having a bit of a go with my CTX 3030 and come across a target that seemed odd, it was a big target I knew that with the abundance of Target information the CTX gives and the Target Trace pinpoint is cool. I dug it out of interest more than anything, I'd never normally dig something like this but it was rather deep and weird, and I think I found Batman's Binoculars? Does anyone have any idea what this is, it's heavy, solid metal...

Ok, so I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the GPX 6000. It got delivered lightning fast and I was really pumped up in getting it so fast. I called and booked some time at the Native American village I hunt at a lot, for this Thursday. The machine was supposed to get here on Tuesday but arrived on Saturday. I was like a little kid in a candy factory!!!! So I charge the battery a while up to 8 volts, and assemble the machine which is a breeze. What a nice looking, nice feeling unit. Even the packaging is thought out well. Here we go. Pop that battery in, hit the power button, watch the circle spin and then it happened. I get the dreaded devil symbol - 😈 "!" Exclamation point. Not the one with the coil pictured too, just a single, flashing "!" The worst symbol on the machine. Yes, I tried both coils with the same results, and I tried to do a factory reset, but you can't do it. You can't even shut the machine off with that symbol flashing, you have to remove the battery. So I think you know where this is heading... unless there is some miracle fix that they can come up with, it looks like I will be shipping this machine back to the dealer or to a Minelab repair center. It didn't even make a sound while I turned it on....silent from the beginning. I'm thinking this machine knows how hard it's going to get used during my hunts and decided to bail on me 😆 So needless to say I will be pulling out that old outdated (but EXTREMELY durable) GPX 5000 for a general hunt at the Native village. Really bummed out about this. I would think that the machine should have been tested before it got shipped. but with high demand come these types of problems. When I do get it working I'm going to run a post about how it does beach hunting in the fall and small relic hunting at the village site. With no discrimination, I may not use it anywhere else, unless I'm in the mood to dig.

it finally happened- Someone granted me permission to hunt a piece of property that dates back 1840's as build date. My 2 detectors are the XP ORX and Teknetics T2SE with a small Cors Shrew coil. I imagine this place will be littered with iron objects as it was used as a farm site after 1870-ish. All the original buildings are intact, except a chicken coop or two. The place is mostly untouched and this coming spring there will be restoration performed on the main house and other buildings. Real slim window here and wouldn't you know in the coldest months here. So what I'm asking from the experienced people here, and especially those with Tekentics T2 experience or XP ORX experience what things would you suggest when tackling an older place like this? While I've had decent luck finding coins and such in more modern areas have not hunted a site this old before. There is no idea if this property has been metal detected before so I don't know about that. Will the finds be deeper and out of reach of my equipment or masked by oodles of iron? Any guidance is appreciated and any tweaks to settings that may help find interesting things.

Mowed the top of The hill over the river I call Mason Jar Hill because of all the Mason jars I have dug there. I beat the heck out of this area with my 11" standard Equinox coil. Today I went back to see if the 10x5 would make a fool of me. It sure did 😀 1932 female dog tag, lucky watch fob from GRIT Family Newspaper in the 1930s, thimble made of aluminum, B&O railroad button, I think a grommet ring, .32 ACP live round, harmonica reed fragment, belt buckle lock. The ring was a solid 13 and pretty much right on top of the ground. It was gold colored when I picked it up, and cleaning it just made it more and more gold. It's probably not pure (10k) as a bit of tarnish came off when I tried silver polish, but it just got even brighter. The inside is highly polished and smooth and the outside appears to have a casting seam surrounding it. I thought it might be a pipe cutoff but it is smooth and waxy feeling. No purity marks, the story of my life so far. 😵 It is small, according to my wife about a size 5. Here's a pic of how the GRIT good luck charm was used: Here is a pic of the reverse: Like I wrote in another post, I may not take this coil off. 😀

Second day on the small flat but this time with the DEUS.. It pulled a few good targets using Fast with the XY screen. The Mexican Real and the pistol tool were maybe an inch apart and the DEUS heard them both. The more I use the Deus the more I like it. Cool two piece button in 3 pieces was just under the grass. I am having trouble reading the date on the coin so maybe somebody can see better than me?

Spent 4 days in Nevada last week and hit 4 different places that consisted of a Military Fort and 3 ghost towns all on private property. Found a nice assortment of stuff. Coins are pretty crusty but should clean up OK. The holed looking coin turn out to be a ration token that has been counter stamped a bunch of time. It reads U.S, Subsistence Department on the one side and had One ration on the other.