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Found on the beach in Jersey, Channel Islands, a British island that read occupied by German forces during WW2, this is a Kpf Z Zerl P fuze for a 3.7cm Flak HE projectile.

Big Culpeper hunt today. Liberty Hall Plantation. Chase was nice enough to invite me to go along, it was a 2.5 hour drive but well worth the trip. About 70 detectorists were there, it was a seeded/natural Civil war camp for both armies at one time or another. 200+ acres of rolling farm. Here's some genealogical history: http://signup.libertyhallva.com/ I was first to get something in the bag, but Chase maintained his mentor status overall. 😀 There were 3 large spots that were "seeded" with some great relics, and places you could dig some serious stuff from the civil war. We put in a few miles today, a morning and afternoon hike. This place is really well maintained and run, the hunt was fair and fun. At one point we hit on a plan to find more seeded stuff and it paid off. We both started out with Deus 2's, later Chase switched to his GPX to find more bullets. We couldn't go in the paddock areas, but there were a lot of great photo ops. 😀 Here's my take for the day: I got possibly 4 "seeded" bullets, two Sharps bullets on the right, a .69 caliber Minie on the left, a Williams cleaner center, and a .52 Three ringer. Anything white was probably seeded. On top is a ~60 caliber round ball, possibly colonial. The brass ring was the only non-lead Item I dug that was worth keeping. Here's the trash, the place was loaded with nails, staples, and wire. 😀 Really not bad! I dug an ancient cowbell with the clapper still inside. It's the large item on the bottom left. There was a building there, we searched around it for a bit but moved on. So, how did the Deus 2 do in this soil? 🤔 Great. Sometimes there were mineralization bars across the screen, sometimes nothing. I didn't notice any lack of depth although I'm sure there was, and the ground was pretty hard due to the slight drought we've had this year. I ran the detector in pretty much vanilla Relic program, except Reactivity at 2, and 00 notched out with a little bit of threshold. (Thanks Chase) Sensitivity was 93 default, but I bumped it to 96. It was basically a "go/no go" day. Some stuff, particularly the wire and nails managed to get past me, but I used my Quest pinpointer to leave a few behind. 😁 We both won prizes, I was first to win the raffle, and got a book. This was my first organized hunt, and I had a blast. 🙂

Using the GPX6000 for prospecting, 14” DD and found these bits buried rather deep- over 1-foot each. I thought the star is a Matoushek barbed fence star, but a buddy ID’d it as a drawstring holder from a Star Tobacco bag. Also found (and lost 😞 ) this bit that looks like a Stubbe type of plate barb, redrawn only from memory. It had a #7 stamped on it and was about 1/2” wide. Does anyone recognize it?

I have a pretty sizable lawn to detect on, on slow days. It sits right on top of what was the Upper Fort during the revolutionary war. I’ve pretty much cherry picked all the high tones out of this lawn, so I’m now at mid tones. I got one today at a TID of 57, and singing. At 8” I found this little badge with my Simplex Im not entirely sure what it is, but this lawn is good for producing military relics, like a WW1 military dog tag, WW2 Airmen visor pin and numerous musket balls.

Well k said I'd be back in a bit with a story(experience) and success was had! Thicket hunting along a creek were johnny rebel once crossed 20-30k troopers,artillery and such! Over the railroad bridge alone! No maps exist of troops closer than a mile or three,no written detail exist in stating anything but retreat was made across a railroad bridge! Reason I spelled this out I found a fort of some kind, circle-ish 4ft banks up from ground level 15-20ft across with what looks to me like a dirt platform against one side(back side if rebs did it. Doesnt make sense now that I'm thinking about it,maybe union thought rebs were coming back then platform area would be in front. Or then again rebs occupied the area for 3+ years and bridges were protected so platform would work in front across the board reb/union. Maybe one of you fellers can identify the bullets!? My caliber,t&t are at the house, they are sude cast(I think that's what its called,line down the sides from making em). I dont know alot about bullets but I feel like they are reb(idc which they are) from looking through that book many hours measuring,wieghing and looking more! Lol Pistol bullets is modern!? I didnt think so thought .36 cal colt or sage in field the wierd dirt is tricky/red concrete I worked the brush overtime scrubbing these things! Never encountered such dirty dirt. Wierd flat lead is odd,any ideas? Darn spikes loud 91 I couldn't help thinking PLAAAATE, excitement all around and NOPE damn spikes! Never seen any like these though( in earthworks). Dsmn good evening,dropped bulliets are most fun to me! Hope to get more time this week for thicket busting! D2 is superior in the bush to the nox,detect-ed,non broken anything nox800 if I may! I'm really starting to like this machine and to be quite honest first day I had to talk myself outta discounting it! Heads up yard test against nox wasn't seeing it, audio response up one,reactivity can go to 1.5-2 and be deep while plenty fast for most sites and understanding it has soft real soft whispers on deep sound when nox is beep beep beep and dig imo compared. At first though I can see people discounting it over such things for sure,btw square tones as yall know remedies this also but I didnt buy this machine for nox imitation so only run pwm! I did chase a handful of signals but not many but still wasted a hour of a 3 hr hunt, thick stuff,roots galor just tough going so any non desirable chasing adds up! I was happy though 2nd hole was one of these exquisite relics! Happy enough to mostly forget the mosquitoes were attempting to pack me off! Damn eat up! Lol Thanks for comments,input,knowledge in advance! Happy hunting,be safe

This morning I decided to hit a park the next town over. I’ve been there twice before, but never got much. Today was no different. $1.94 in clad and lots of junk. On my way home I stopped at my old house permission to see if I could eek out anything good. First up was part of a silver bracelet. It’s nice and chunky weighing in at 16.5 grams. No marks on the piece I got but it’s silver. Shortly afterwards I got a big signal going up into the low 90s with some iron grunt. About six inches down I pull out what looked like a lock but it didn’t have a key hole. After getting home and cleaning it off it’s an old Edwards Mfg Co No Key lock! What I thought were rivets around the perimeter are little buttons you can still push to one side or the other to set the combination. I lubed it up and the buttons work. I’m still reading up on this thing and did find a youtube video of how to figure out the combination, but I’ll have to watch it again as I didn’t follow everything the guy was saying. Apparently the buttons also rotate and have three equally spaced, very small hash marks that line up with a hash mark on the lock body. If anyone is familiar with how to open one of these please, by all means let me know. Lol.

Cold, nasty windy day today. March still isn't over. 😵 I've been getting the RV and truck ready for a beach trip, but my wife wanted to rest a bit this afternoon, so she suggested I do some metal detecting. 😀 Happy wife, happy life. I decided to stick around and just hunt the yard for my tungsten ring that I have now lost for the third time, found it the last two times with my Equinox, it's a solid 12. It's really too big for my finger. It was only about a 3 hour hunt. Today I used the Deus 2, I originally went over my yard with my Ace 400, it's what got me into metal detecting. I poked around the front yard, only found some .223/5.56 shells from when a deputy friend of mine came over to zero. Also dug a .45 shell under one of my trees, and a few aluminum bits from when the house was built that sounded too good. I thought maybe I might have lost the ring in the driveway. I was surprised at how quiet the Deus is on gravel, the Equinox is pretty rough to use in a gravel driveway. It sounds off quite a bit. Managed to find two dimes, a nickel, and a penny in the gravel! Now I'm getting a sense of why others have found stuff in places they already detected, but I don't think I bothered to use the Equinox on the driveway. 😁 Didn't find the ring, so I went out in a field behind my house that was recently cleared. I've searched here before and dug nothing of interest, but was surprised. It's tough to swing a detector here, there is a lot of woody stubble left after the bush hog. I switched to Relic, as it will find large masses if held high off the ground. Instead I kept it at just above the stubble. Relic excels at beep/dig, there is only iron junk and the good stuff here, that's it. Here's the take: All modern coins and one 1700s Tombac button. I found a few of these Tombac buttons with the Ace which is what got me into this hobby. I've found a lot of them with the Equinox. There's something really cool about Tombacs, the waxy feel and knowing they are old as old can be in colonized America. With the Equinox you'll get a 4-9 with a bit of an iron tone, as usually the shanks were iron. On the Deus this was a solid 54 both ways, I was using Relic so the tone was of no use. Iron is 00 to 6. I dug no iron today except what I wanted to, I think I'm getting better at this. There were a few nails left in the driveway. I definitely like the Deus 2, I taught it to stand up today, going to try and teach it some more tricks. 🙄

Been hitting a property near me for a year now. Started off mainly looking for gold rush relics, but started hitting nuggets, and now, that's been my focus. Took the monster there last week, and got couple surprises. Nice heel plate ( only my third, one other heart, and a club) and a tool for cleaning opium pipes. There's a proper name for it, but my memory is crap, lol. Was probably silver plated at one time, as they are usually pure silver...never seen a brass one before.

I don't usually find any relics worth posting since I'm usually just after nuggets, but this was a fun find for me. I was doing some scatter shot style prospecting with the 6000 around the base of a mountain searching for new gold zones and got a screamer in an area with very few targets of any kind at all so I dug a target I'd normally ignore, just to see what was there. Turned out to be this guy. Been arrowhead hunting since I was a kid and never found an iron point before.

Promised I would take the D2 out and try Relic mode, did just that today. Went to a place I have only half heartedly hit and only found some newer relics and 3 war nickels. The place is full of trash, some rather notorious folks live too close to it, and there is a guy who lets his aggressive dogs out. All in all not a great place. Half of it contains an older farmhouse I don't have permission to, and it's pretty much 95 acres of nothing. 🤬 I like Relic a lot, the go/no go way it works especially. You get pretty much the same tones for everything, but if you watch the screen for the TID, it's very informative. It has what I consider bugs, the ID doesn't stay long enough, and the audio goes from pretty quiet to full on 85db+ (you do get a warning) from 7 to 8. It will rip your head off. It also seems to go deeper than Deep HC, thanks @palzynski. 👍I have strong eardrums but 8 hours of pounding from this program would be a lot worse than a Styx concert, the loudest band I ever saw. 😀 Twice. 😬 I decided after about 3 hours to leave and go to another field, the last one I got a few really great buttons in. Well, and I've said this before, the D2 is a great machine but I've been there and done that with the Equinox. I had to go where I hadn't been in this field to find anything at all. 😵 I can't be that good, we will see next year when the field is turned. The take today: Not much. 🤣 Got a pistol ball, a dog collar tag that I can't show because my wife is remotely related to the owner, a really nice fat British button, and an IHP that is 188 something. 😀 So far I've run Deep HC, General, and now Relic. I dug much less trash today (not worth showing) because of the display, please don't tell me I'm missing stuff that 00 TIDs because I only dug one or two and they were iron. 🤗 Everything that didn't generate an ID near the 80s was junk. It's a pretty clean field, but general and Deep HC would have falsed on the iron. Relic rarely did. Anyway, my point here is to talk about the Relic program, not spectacular finds, and for sure I've wiped this place out for this year anyway. Good thing I made a little stop on the way to the last field, I visited the guy who catered my wedding about 15 years ago, a really nice guy who all his young life cared for a woman that owned two or 3 fabulous houses and almost 100 acres in a town nearby, definitely an 1800s vintage Southern mansion. The woman was a silent film star, and not only adopted him, she left him the whole thing and enough $$ to turn him into a "country gentleman". I was shocked to have him offer the entire yards and fields of all his houses with a challenge that I hope soon to write about succeeding in. He only wants that one thing, I can keep everything else. 🥳 Ya just gotta ask! 😀

6hrs roughly of deep Bush hunting for cw relics (my favorite). The barber was a nice 91 banger of a signal! Thought it was a plate(never dug one) was so excited and pleasantly excited seeing it wasn't a plate! Mostly fired bullets,if not all fired but hey I'll take em! The one looks flayed open is wild! This was a few hours 2 over 2 rained out days in hamilton county tn. The 1st day I dug several nails chasing broken,1 way signals running modified general program but once i got my head together and stopped chasing zero nails but a few modern bullets not shown (although i think 2 are modernish). 2nd day zero iron dug I didnt chase,only dug 2 way slammers! I sometimes get in a habit of chasing iffy stuff same on the nox because I've dug bullets 8-10" that beep iffy,iron,1way and it's a time consuming frustrating bad habit! 2nd day( pic with dime and bullets) ran mostly modified sensitive ft and enjoyed it alot although had to fight myself to not chase those iffy iron nails that sound good once every few wiggles one way I did chase 2/3 times but opened the hole to even worse signal,covered and moved on! These 2 days made me feel great about buying the D2! Deep Bush hunting nothing I've swung compared to ease of use and the signals when over something good were loud,clear and strong! Confidence building strong! I guess I didnt take with dime so 1st day pic with brush,second dime+bullets on towel(small batch) then combined on towel. I did dig 2-4 shotgun 12th Georgia's as well not in photos. Feeling happy to have something to share! Goodluck fellas

I’ve hammered this homestead for over twenty years with my dfx with every kind of coil made with it how did I miss this! Deus 2 is amazing I found that buckle a mans copper wedding ring and a Crotal bell in about an hour of being there. Deus 2 is no joke

Today I took the Deus 2 to one of my more difficult fields. It has a huge cell tower that absolutely obliterates the Equinox in certain places so I have to switch to single frequency. Chase brought his D2 here, noticed he wasn't complaining about interference from the tower. It's a lot closer than it looks. I only got a regular chirp from the tower rather than the crazy stuff, and a quick noise cancel (frequency shift) took care of that. It ran silent until I found a target. Walked along this road about a mile to the far tree line, there was a house here long ago. I've dug a lot of stuff here, all mid 1800s to early 1900s. Coins, relics were everywhere. Now not so much 😀 First things I found were two IHPs, one right after the other about 10' apart. One is 1899 and the other is kinda toasted. Can't get a year. About 3/4 of a mile later I got a tiny colonial button, a heavy finger size brass ring and a musket ball. Here is the haul for the day: Ended up with two musket balls, a pistol ball, and a 3-ring bullet of a caliber slightly smaller than the musket balls with rifling marks on it. Not sure what rifle would have fired this, it may be new but the lead says old. Got another non ferrous small ring, two keyhole pieces, a large trunk lock hinge, plated D buckle, and a watch winding knob. Dug an overall button, I think it says "Blue Bell", and my favorite find today, the best service button I've found so far. Did the flashlight trick on the back to highlight the complete shank and text. Sad these get bronze disease so bad. I learned to properly use the MI-6 pinpointer today. Almost didn't have to use my Carrot or the Quest pinpointer, but I had them both with me. Honestly I would have found all this with my Equinox, but the weight of the Deus 2 and the peripherals make it a big deal for me. Ran it in the General program today almost all day. The coil battery lasted much longer. Only setting I changed was Reactivity to 1.5 instead of 2. The last place I went over I ran the Deus in DeepHC, and found nothing new. Dug a ton of trash, I wanted to see if any of it was consistent. Not so much, but I didn't get much iron, getting better at that.

I got out Saturday morning to my only permission. Second target was a buffalo nickel on the far end of the property. I then worked my way up near the old house in an area where I had been over before with both the nox and deus 2. This time I was in sensitive, program 2, but in full tones. I slowed down and just dug decent signals. I got an old junk pocket watch, a military pin with an eagle, another large pin that looks to be navy and a small broken pin or broach that looks to be silver, but has no markings. I also got another wheatie. On Sunday I hit some curbstrips in town and got in a hot spot where I pulled 10 wheaties. This wasn’t actually a curbstrip, but was a grassy area in front of a commercial gravel parking lot. There used to be two houses there and the grassy area was the front yards of those two houses. I thought for sure I’d hit a silver coin there, but no luck 😥

Took a 2 hour one way drive to the nearest detector store in my state this morning to pick up my Deus 2 with the 9" coil. He had 10 yesterday, looks like they have been flying out the door. While they were going through it with me (and why I strongly recommend going to a dedicated retailer) another guy came in and walked out with one. To give it a true run for my money, I went to the hill behind my house that I have pretty much beaten to death with my Equinox. Wasn't too bad a day, almost 60. Comfortable for detecting. There's a concept called the "30 minute curse", you find great stuff in the first 30 minutes and then - nothing. 😵 That's what happened today. I really didn't expect to find much especially because it's my first outing with a new detector, but I came away happy, I don't regret buying it at all. This is all I got in about 3.5 hours, but one of the targets was kind of a shock. This is what they looked like fresh out of the ground: got another old spoon like I dug last time, a 1923 Rogers "Manchester" and a tiny pin. It looked like it was plated but the more I cleaned it the golder it got! It has no hallmarks but neither did the 10k ring I dug here. This does appear to be well plated, maybe it's solid. Do I like the Deus 2? Very much. 🙂 It's light, ergonomic, solid as a rock with the 9" coil. I don't even mind the WS6 backphones, they are comfortable enough. Best stuff about it is it's as stable as everyone has written, it's not subject to much EMI. I went over a buried power line and heard it thankfully, but as soon as I was past it it went silent again. The dealer put 3 custom programs in it adapted from the Deus 1, I tried their "Sifter" program, which was designed for Colonial digs. The demo showed it finding a brass object with 4 metal screws on top. They have a special "Deep" program, and one called "Sonar", that makes the 9" act like a 15". Weird. These guys in the shop are all hardcore relic hunters. I mostly used "Deep HC" or deep high conductor. I liked the tones and that's how I found both my targets. All I did was crank sensitivity to 95 from 90. It was quiet and stable but did false on big iron. Far less noise than the Equinox. Going to hit the river with it Friday, we're supposed to get an extraordinary low tide. There is a lot to learn! Whole new concept for me.

Got a full day in on the Deus 2 in two places, river shore and landing. Chase and I have hunted this place pretty thoroughly, like my first time out I didn't expect to find much. What I was hoping for was one of those "deep silvers" I'm always hearing about, but silver being such a high conductor, I can't imagine missing much with this machine. It's a great place to detect although there is a lot of poison ivy. Ticks are coming out now too, plucked 2 tiny ones so far. There was supposed to be a lower tide today but it didn't happen. Wind kept the water in the river. I hunted along the shore first, only got a couple of copper screws. No more toasted coins. 😵 Used Beach Sensitive, I found when I got to the sand I kept getting 24/26, switching out of DeepHC got rid of the false signal. The water here is brackish, part sea water. Went through the landing area where my golf cart was, nothing but trash. As a matter of fact I've never dug this much trash with my past two detectors in one day. I was using Deep HC, and General for a while. Gotta get used to the sounds the detector makes in big iron. It falsed big time. I did get another Model T hubcap, my avatar. 😀 Only dug 3 good things today: An interesting old button, a faucet handle, and most of some sort of fancy but broken brass plate. The button is very different: never seen one like it. Some observations: Deep HC eats coil battery fast. Almost didn't make a full 8 hour hunt. There was 1 bar left. The remote and headphones were fine. Used my new MI6 pinpointer today, I could only get sensitivity to 45. It works good with the Deus but in my estimation it's no Garrett. The real star of the day was my Quest Xpointer Max, I would have dug a lot more iron without it. It's quirky but serves its role in the hole. 😁 I really like the WS6 backphones, they fit well, are loud enough, give me plenty of situational awareness, and I like how the detector turns them on and off along with the MI6. In the future I plan to use an APTX-LL transceiver and any headphones I want. 🙂 When I bought the Deus I also got the bone phones because he only had two left. I really like the Deus. I do think I would have done better with my Equinox, but this seems par for the course learning a new machine. I was surprised not to dig any aluminum save for one pull tab.

After lighting my charcoal grill, I knew I had about 20 minutes to swing the Deus II in my back yard. I have pounded every square inch of it with my Nokta Impact in every program and every frequency and with my AtMax. I always start in the same spot and the first pass is along a fence line. On the return pass I move over about 3 feet and head back to the driveway. About halfway in the return pass I got a real good signal at 84 VDI on the screen in DeepHC. I dug down a good 12" and found this medallion from Italy. It is a Pope Pius Xii Medallion made of brass. When I got it in the house it was encrusted with dirt. I gave it a quick rinse to get the dirt off. The back of the medallion came loose and out popped 2 communion wafers. I have no idea of it's age but he became pope in 1939.

It's been a few days since I've had a chance to get out, it's been windy and rainy here. I'm glad @strick kept y'all amused. 😁 The hill behind my house is being cleared again in order to make it more attractive to buyers, they finished clearing it last week. It's hard to tell in the photo but that hill drops away about 60 feet down to the river. I have hunted the heck out of the top of this hill, but rarely have I got a chance to hunt the slope as it gets overgrown very quickly. Maybe not so much now. The slope is basically a dump and why I call this Mason Jar Hill. There are a lot of Mason Jar covers buried here, and they ID from 19-31. 🤬 You just have to dig them all. Here's half of the trash I dug today, nails, bullets, shotgun shells and just plain junk. I had already dumped my trash bag once. Still got some pretty cool stuff, and ended with a coin in an area I have hit pretty hard in the past. I love the smell of this place, it smells like some kinda exotic spice when you dig, and there are spring flowers everywhere along with English ivy, two great indicators that a house was here, not to mention the brick and nails. 😁 Managed to get some complete flatware, the knife is much older than the spoon. It has an "H" monogram. The spoon still has quite a bit of silverplate on it, but I can't read the maker's marks. Got a hosiery clamp, an incredible stamped and clamped together filigree pendant, what I think is a clock flywheel, a small two piece button with a pattern, a two hole button with an anchor, and a 1940s wheat. Can't get a firm date. Here are some detailed pics: just glad it wasn't a "skunk" day, but I did dig up a hibernating toad and a small snake. 🤣 Both are doing fine. Wish I took pics of them.

What a day! Ended up in the low 70s with light wind, perfect metal detecting day. There is a small field near the end of my road and across the highway that I hadn't searched, it's a small part of the thousand or so acres that one of my landowners has. It's a totally non-descript field, nothing there. Some of the other fields in this property have nothing in them so I didn't expect much. Walked around the perimeter looking for those shade Reales and coins, nothing but buckshot, bullets and shotgun shells. Went by this hedgerow, that building is across the highway. I do not have permission to that property but I'm working on it. That's when things got interesting, I kept getting signals from 12 to 25, and dug all these relics: Some kind of pull knob, a clamp, a small piece of silver with hallmarks, a heavy copper funnel shaped thing, a long copper pin with a long shaft, a small brass toy cannon, some sort of cover plate, a really heavy cast knob with a turned circle (going to test it for silver, it's black), a tombac plate that was broken, a buckle and a small bit of shoe buckle. The cannon has a fuse hole, you can probably put a firecracker in it. The silver piece looks to be flatware. Hope I can find the rest of it. I also found some of the best buttons I've found in a long time: Huge dandy button with flowers and a beehive, no back marks: Another highly decorated convex button with "Standard Gilt" on the back: Got a few tiny buttons, one may be a Tombac with a shank. Large button with a square hole. The finds of the day beside the cannon were these two, I believe both are Virginia militia buttons. One definitely is, a two piece from the 1860s: It says "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (thus to tyrants). Some of the gold plate is still on it. the other is convex but looks like it also has the symbol of Virginia. I dug it in about 6 inches of clay, it was really hard to get to, and the bronze disease is heavy. It would be older than the Civil war era. Trash wasn't all that bad for 8 hours of digging. Found some "house parts" that told me there was a building there. Also dug a 1999 clad quarter next to the truck!

Back to good here in VA today, it started a bit chilly but warmed up to 60 with very light wind. I wanted to get another hunt in the bag before working on my RV, Savannah is only a month away. Going to get the yard going soon too. Went back to the farm that is close to my house. Today I walked way out to the back, about 3/4 mile from the road. That cell tower is an EMI radiator, it's tough to use multi with high sensitivity, but I managed to get it to settle down. I had scouted this field and didn't think too much was there, but I did find a spot that people were in a long time ago, and pretty much searched it all day. Didn't do too bad: Got what I think is a watch clip, notice one side of the hook has a clover, the other side is bent over but seems identical. A small drawer knob next to the big dandy button and a thimble. I was surprised the thimble was in great shape for being in the ground so long. Small button with no backmarks. Bottom row is the first spun Tombac button I've found with an intact shank, a stud, and another small button like thing, it's copper and heavy but had no hole in the shank. Could be a rivet, but it's too thick. My favorite find of the day is the whatzit: It looks like a key fob but I don't know if they made them that long ago. The pattern is interesting, some I showed it to say it's a frog, I see a Cicada. It has one small bump on the back. If anyone can tell me what this is it would be appreciated. Not much trash, this is 7 hours worth. Got one coin, a badly corroded Zincoln. You're gonna dig buck balls if you want Tombacs.

Wanted to get out today, not only is there a big storm coming, but we're getting close to the end of the winter season and spring planting. All my fields flip this year, the fields I hunted all fall and winter will be off limits until next year, except in some cases for a short period before they are sown. This is about a 30 acre farm I have hunted before with Chase, it's a very old place where I dug a 1690 Spanish cob and dug lots of 16-1700s relics. It was a beautiful day, but tomorrow we're supposed to get rain, high winds and snow. So much rain that these fields will be muddy, it rained the day before yesterday. I like to get out two days following a rain because for me this ground is just right. I didn't get any coins today, we've gotten a couple IHP's and some wheats here, also clad near the houses and driveways. Aluminum and iron are plentiful close to the roads, but as soon as you get about 30 feet in, the relics start coming. Just about every good signal you get is going to be a good dig. Here's what I dug today: On the left are the buckles and parts, the leftmost might be a newer one. Fragments and a large D. The middle item appears to be a lapped pewter spoon handle: It's much heavier but about the same feel as Tombac. To center are 3 studs, one could be a tack. Two are pretty ornate. Got 5 buttons, no backmarks save for one that has a ring of stars, one is Tombac. My favorite find today was a whole cufflink. As small and delicate as they are, it managed to survive ~200 years of farming and some of the gold is still on them. That's probably it for this year at this field, the house they are building is almost done, and the field is edge sewn. I said goodbye to the cat 😀 He's indoors at night now. Glad to see he is healthy. Before I left I had to photograph these cool clouds. Now for a nasty storm ending with snow. 🤬 Oops, forgot the trash, in 7 hours this is all I got.

I thought today would be a much better day than it was. Invited Chase down to hunt the old 1700s farm in town. The weather was supposed to cooperate, but we ended up with a strong wind all day and it was colder than it should have been. We searched this field for a while, dug some buttons and odd relics, Chase got the only coins of the day, maybe he will post them. We decided to do some scouting of the "Green field" near the house, and really all I dug was a very old watch key. These fields are rather large, but only have small concentrated areas where the good stuff can be found. Chase brought his Deus 2 and I had my Equinox with the 10x5. Our "mission" was to see how the EMI coming from this cell tower would affect the Deus vs. the Equinox. While we were there some people were climbing the tower and hauling stuff up there. Yikes. I don't mind telling you I was impressed, Chase had no problem with the D2, and I was getting totally hammered. I had to go to 15kHz to silence the detector, so I cranked up sensitivity up and lowered recovery speed to compensate for not using multi. I did switch to it from time to time for the iron bias to check some targets. Despite that I dug a ton of trash: Everything from aluminum to bullets and shot, harmonica reeds and even an old spark plug. 😀 Finds for me were scant but worth showing: I'll have to break some of them down. Don't know what the brass fork-looking thing is, or the pewter thing below it. Got 3 buttons, a watch key, and one of my most unusual finds, what I think is a belt buckle. It was totally pretzeled but I was able to make out the lettering on the back. It says England "The Martin" Patented. It has lobes that had rings on them, a couple still do. The front is very ornate. It is stamped and possibly was gilded, I'm thinking late 1800s. It was found in an area where an old house stood. Next is a really fancy two piece button also found in that area: The back had marks but they are obliterated. It's a flatter two piece, possibly older? Got one plain flat button, and one really small one that turned out to have a pattern as well: Last piece is the watch key I found in the green field. Sure could have used the Deus today to find this stuff, but you can tweak the Equinox to withstand most bad environments. 🙂 It was good to have company and some guidance!

Warmed up nicely here in VA, they're calling it "meteorological spring", yeah right. Sure as you're born were gonna get one more snowstorm, hopefully I'll be in Savannah when it comes. 🙄 Working on getting the RV ready for its shakedown trip next month, but I managed to get out twice this week. First outing was Tuesday at the colonial farm I've been hunting, so much to choose from here but I decided to hunt a spot where the finds could be very old, or not. It's only about 4 acres of a much bigger field that I divide by telephone poles. Didn't do too bad, got a buffalo nickel, some old wheats, and the best tiny colonial button I've ever found. It's smaller than a dime, but was gold plated: The back has a crown and the words "Rich Gilt" on it. The letters are raised so it must have been cast. There are still traces of gold plating on it. Got a nice musket ball, a big D buckle and a couple of other really old buttons. Some interesting metal fragments from who knows what, one appears to be part of a stamped flower. Today I went to an old farmhouse down the street from mine, a place that I've pounded pretty hard and found some nice silver coins. I went back over that spot with recovery speed turned down and sensitivity way up. Snagged a 1913 wheat, a 1965 dime, a memorial, and then I got a strong iron signal with just a few chirps in the 27-30 range, and the depth meter pegged. I was sorry of able to isolate the high sound but the iron kept coming over it. Dug down about 8-10", about the length of my Ranger shovel. I was still getting iron but there was a persistent 27. I took out my trusty (sort of) Quest Xpointer Max, and poked around the bottom of the hole until I found a non ferrous beep among all the iron. Got this nice little relic: it's only about the size of a dime. It was made probably in the 1920s to 1940s by the Uncas Jewelry company, here is some info: http://danielleoliviatefftwrites.com/found-in-the-jewelry-box-blog/four-popular-uncas-rings-and-some-company-history Not a bad week. Got to get out there, some of my permissions are about to become off limits with spring planting!

It hit 67 today here in VA, started out at 32. I wanted to hunt one of my old farm permissions, a place close to an old service station that might yield some decent coins. I was disappointed to remember that this is a holiday, Happy President's Day. The area I wanted to hunt was full of hunters (pumpkinheads, local name) blasting rabbits in the woods with dogs running them out. No going there! I took another road into the field and went to the old farmhouse, a place Chase and I scouted in the past but it was too muddy and we found next to nothing. I figured I'd hack around there now that things have dried up a bit. This place has been hammered over the years by detectorists according to the owner. He mentioned someone found two Trimes here and gave him one. Ended up not doing too bad. Dug some old relics and a 1930 wheat, but had to walk a lot to get them. I really don't know what any of them are, but they're brass and copper and old. 😁 The wheat was whacked by something but still gave up a date: The hunters left early afternoon, so I thought I'd leave this field for the one I originally wanted to go to. I was walking along slowly back to the truck, digging shotgun and percussion primers along the way , and got a sharp wake up, a solid 19/20 that just wouldn't change no matter what angle. I thought "great, another penny anyway"... Nope. I couldn't believe my eyes: 1847 silver seated liberty half dime. It was about 4" deep. It's in pretty good shape for being lost around 175 years ago in a farm. It's ridiculously small and thin, maybe a little bigger than a Trime, about 1.5mm. they were only minted in Philadelphia that year. For those of you who are interested, here's a size comparison: Here's the trash, I dug a lot of buck balls and small pieces of aluminum, shotgun shells and primers, some small copper pieces and what was left of a gold plated Zippo. The only big piece of iron that got me was the curved buckle, the rest were the typical nail falsing. Settings were park 1 5 tones, 21-23 sensitivity, F2=3.

I was going to add this to yesterday's post, but it kinda got a life of it's own. Yesterday I was going to hunt this area, but there were hunters and dogs all over the place. Didn't mind because I got a silver half dime. 😀 Today was another warm day but overcast. My goal was to hunt around that group of trees right of center, it's an old car repair shop that closed about 15 years ago, I remember when it was still open because I worked near here. It's now abandoned and overgrown, only one side is available to me as this huge farm permission runs up to it. It's almost a mile away from the road into the field, so I 4 wheeled it down there. Got 4 wheats and not much more than what I expected to find near a service station, lots of old busted car stuff. Happy with the 4 wheat pennies all pretty much from the 1940s, I went back to an area that I hunted a few months back and got some interesting finds. Today I was running the Equinox at my usual settings plus recovery speed 2, or mid. There is a cell tower here but I never had to run sensitivity lower than 20, as I got closer to it it got better and I could turn it up as high as 23. There was a house here in the early to mid 1900s, it's gone now. On the way over to it I got a nice 21, and popped out my first surprise of the day: A Buck USA 119 phenolic hunting knife. It's not in too bad shape, the handle has some chips and the aluminum parts are a tad corroded, but the blade is nice and sharp. Pinpointer to show size. Cleaned it up a little, not bad. While hunting around I got a 16/17 and dug this iron, yikes. It weighs about 5 pounds. I randomly hunted the relatively small area where the house was, and snagged the following with which I included the 4 wheats from earlier: 7 wheats total from 1910 to '17 to '26, and then mostly 40s. I was glad to get a 1905 IHP, a 1911 V nickel, an aluminum button I found near the garage, some sort of wrench, a bag seal, a small clip of some sort with a pattern on it, and an undated buffalo nickel. It was getting late in the day, I was heading back to the truck, and got a 27/30 that I thought might be a quarter. Nope... I think it's a King George copper, you can make out the bust looking right. It's pretty worn from the field, the reverse is unintelligible. I hoped I would get one here! It might be this one, a half penny, 1770s: Or it could be this one, 1775: Here's the trash, from copper junk to bullets to iron.