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  1. Got out for a bit today with the Manticore and the 11" coil, keeping the learning going. It was a rough day, never got over 38 degrees. It never looked much better than this either. It was 33 when I got out there, I brought handwarmers and put them in my sweatshirt on my wrists, it was tough to keep them in there but it kept my hands warm and they don't interfere with the detector. I was out there for about 6 hours, I searched places I've been before, some I haven't, and one on a hunch that paid off. Here's the trash, got one nice musket ball and lots of buckshot from different ages. The finds: A really nice old rosette, I found a few pieces of another the last time I was in that spot. It has a square hole in the center but I have no idea what it might be used for. Next is a ~1650-ish shoe buckle, I'm thrilled to get a whole one. Got buckle bits, some larger pieces of brass that don't add up to anything. I decided to go to a spot that gave up a lot of buttons and some flying eagle cents last year. This time I got a pair of matched two piece buttons, and a 1908 V nickel, my only coin for the day. I think the other buttons may be tacks that were used to decorate leather. It was a rough day, but I was glad to get out and use my new detector! So far I'm doing well with it. šŸ€
  2. Sorry for all the posts, I'm getting "Trigger Time" on the Manticore. šŸ˜Ž Headed to a beach in a few days, and will alternate with my Deus 2. Today was the complete opposite of yesterday, yesterday's 38 was 57. Cloudy was sunny. There was some wind but it was great, no handwarmers needed. This is a 200 acre farm near my house, I can hop in my golf cart and drive there in minutes. It's surrounded by river, comes to a point on it. The farm itself is 80 feet above the river level, so there are dangerous ravines everywhere. Walk to the treeline and it suddenly drops off 60 feet or more. šŸ˜¬ Today I searched an area I had been over most of last year, I got a lot of buttons and a piece of Spanish silver. I wondered if the Manticore could pull anything else out of it, but I dug so much getting to that spot I only got a bit of it done. What I did go over again there was nothing. I sure dug a lot of trash, but Freestyle is really a great relic program, very little aluminum: Mostly lead and a couple of old Schrader valve stems. Finds were fairly scarce but old for sure, a mix of 1700s and 1800s. This farm had two houses on it, a few barns, and an equestrian area and racetrack. Thimble, buckles and bits and other odd metal stuff. Got a gold plated collar stud and 7 buttons, the first a silver wash button that I thought was a coin, 3 Tombacs, 2 brass and one half of a cufflink. Not an incredible day, but a nice one. My next post will come from a beach trip! šŸ˜Ž
  3. Chase and I had been discussing an opportunity to get out at least once more before the next La NiƱa polar plunge, so we picked yesterday to give it a shot because it was supposed to go up to about 48. My region of Virginia has had snow on it since 6 January, but generally the soil doesn't freeze too much, or it doesn't last. Here most of it has melted away, but many of my permissions are still covered with some. While Chase was on his way I scouted quite a few places, and most were still pretty snow covered except one, or so it looked from the road. That one has a decent entry and parking spot with a fairly short walk to where the hotspots are. Looks pretty clear, right? Well this is a ground view out in the field. Despite that, the ground under the snow was not frozen, it was delightfully saturated and easy to dig. It wasn't a fantastic hunt, but we both managed a few relics, and I was astounded by two of them, the first was a button I dug within inches of a large iron object, and the second a coin I hit at about 12" that had a solid ID from start to finish. Here are my finds: Got two pieces of a very large buckle, 4 buttons; one lead or pewter, a shattered tombac, the button I dug next to the iron (don't know what it was), and a perfectly round and flat shotgun shell end that I thought was a button until I saw the center dimple. A lock slide, and some small decorated piece. Under that is an assortment of lead, a flat piece with a hole in it, a chewed mid size ball, a perfect pistol ball, fused buckshot and a misshapen ball. The coin on the bottom is the one I found in the bottom of a 12" deep hole, it is unrecognizable and corroded, but I was impressed at the 13" coil being able to get and keep an ID at that depth from start to finish. It never wavered from 71. This place is pretty devoid of trash in the best spots, and loaded with can slaw and modern bullets in others. Didn't get a lot. Digging buckshot is like digging pull tabs for the chance of gold, it's what gets you the Tombacs which range from the mid 40s to the 60s. Overall it turned out to be a nice day, it got sunny and almost to 50, and because of the cover crop growth it was much less muddy than my last hunt. šŸ€
  4. Finally got a chance to do some detecting today, it snowed on 6 Jan, and the snow didn't really melt, nor was it warm enough to get out there until today. I went to a permission I've had pretty good luck at, it's obviously been detected but not very well. I've got everything from large cents to Spanish silver to buttons here, and it was sort of turbo tilled before the snow, so I knew it would be pretty flat. Today I searched the most difficult part, a place where a barn once stood, there is a lot of iron in the ground, big pieces, some roof steel, and plenty of nails. The worst part of winter hunting is the mud in these fields, after time your boots can weigh 5 pounds or more, you have to keep scraping the mud off. I dug a ton of trash, most annoying were little lead caps with a hole on one side. They were concentrated in one area for the most part. Did pretty good, got silver: 2 old buttons, an overall button with a patent date, a bit of a spoon handle. The coins are a 1905 Barber dime, a completely unidentifiable coin that is thin and the same size as a penny, and a 1910 wheat. Here's a sidelight of the coin in the center šŸ¤·: If ya see anything there let me know šŸ¤£ šŸ€
  5. Not many finds posted lately, so I thought I'd keep y'all up on what old F350 has been doing the past month. Life kinda got in the way, lots of visiting and Christmassing, problems with HVAC and installing/repairing stuff around the house. The HVAC issue still persists. šŸ«¤ I mostly hunted in the fields near my house due to little time or to not be far away if someone showed up, problem is no one did. My first hunt was a field down the street, ended up with a few things, buffaloes and bits. Next I managed to sneak out to the beach for a water/land hunt, but couldn't go deeper than my boots. It was freezing but I managed to score a few bits and some old coins: V nickels, buffaloes, and I think there's an IHP in there. That spot is still producing old coins, but it appears I got all the silver. Even the trash was odd. Did a couple of hunts in the field out in front of my house, again no big deal, but as usual it produced some cool finds. I found this tiny charm using 40khz in relic. It's smaller than a Trime. My last hunt was the day after New Year's, I went to my small beach using the new Fiberglass lower on my SteveG rig, then to a small farm nearby: Here I managed to "spearfish" a couple of Zincolns out of the wash. At the farm I did a little better, even managed an IHP and one colonial button, the oldest wheat was 1919. So, I've been busy, didn't get skunked anywhere and got at least one IHP almost everywhere. Not a big deal, but if ya missed me, miss no more. šŸ¤£ Happy new year! šŸ€
  6. Today was a beautiful day, windy but it got up to 60. I contacted the owner of a permission I got over the summer, it's a house and small farm that is the younger brother of the one I've been going to lately - it was built by the same family that upgraded the older one. The house was built in the 1880s, it has a small pasture, a new barn and one that is as old as the house. The owners just bought it over the summer, I stopped by there and they showed me around, they are very interested in what might be found there. I also was fortunate to meet the previous owner of almost 40 years, and she said it had never been detected. I was really excited to go there. Well it wasn't incredible, but I did find a few things, I expected some late 1800s coins and got one anyway. I don't think the place was hunted too heavily, but I believe the previous owner didn't tell me everything. šŸ¤” I hunted the pasture all morning, really didn't find anything but can slaw, one Zincoln, something that might be a coin or token, and a couple of brass bits. No buttons or anything! šŸ¤Æ Went over to the house and started finding some coins, an IHP and a few wheats. Got one button with Fleur de lis on it, and some clad nearer the house. I'm not sure what the clip is on the left next to the iron center token that says "For Amusement Only". I dug the big rosette behind the barn, it's either for a drawer pull or a door knocker, it's probably the most interesting thing I dug today. The buckle with the teeth was also pretty cool. Trash was horrendous, usually is the first time I check a place out: But I did get silver, a 1953 Roosevelt dime. I found it under a bush. I'll have to return here with the 9" coil, there is so much iron in the backyard and around the barn I will need to use a smaller coil, might even bring an old Tesoro and disc iron out. šŸ¤” Waiting for that new Deus HF elliptical! šŸ™
  7. Only got out for about 4 hours today, I hunted the field out in front of my house, the first place I got permission to. That part of the farm was sold off for "waterfront property", it's not really although the property does eventually end up at the water through dense woods. It's illegal here to cut trees thicker than 4" down 100 feet or more from the water, so it has to stay wooded. I got permission from the new landowner who is currently about to build a barn and then a house here, we've been here 16 years by ourselves. The last 4 I've been metal detecting, and this spot was the first I hunted outside my yard. I think I was hooked when I found Spanish silver not far from this photo. I have grid searched this spot with other detectors, I pretty much stopped when I didn't find anything with the Deus 2, but now I've had it for a long time and I have a few new tricks up my sleeve. šŸ˜ Running Relic in 40kHz max is my new thing, and I use the 13" instead of the 9". That may sound counter-intuitive, but with reactivity at 2, I can locate a target and eventually get the center of the coil over it to get a 2 way solid read. This means I can cover a lot of ground more quickly than with the 9", and get about the same results. It would not work in machine gun iron, however. This field is pretty clean from all the times I've detected it. The new owner had scraped almost a foot of soil off this spot, so I wanted to see if there was anything deep there, sadly nothing makes it past that clay except big iron. šŸ˜µ Searching elsewhere I was pretty surprised to get all these tiny targets, they would all make a dime look big: A very small brass button, a small tombac, a small ball button with the shank, and a fragment of a 1600s spectacle buckle. If I go back through my collection I might find the rest of it from 4 years ago. šŸ˜… Trash was also tiny, the shotgun shell end being the largest object: Mostly lead. Now for the real surprises: Yet another cut ~1736 2 real pistareen, This is what the whole coin would look like. The other is a small fragment that may be gold. This is how it looked when I dug it, so it's either modern bronze, or old gold. Couldn't be more thrilled to get another piece of Spanish silver this year! šŸ„³
  8. Today was probably the most brutal hunt I can think of so far. Today looked good about a week ago when I was talking to Chase, so we decided to do some hunting on a permission we've been to before, he stopped there on his way to another detecting event. I got out there early, it rained a bit on the way, and the weather had changed quite a bit, from initially a nice day in the 50s, to a cold day with winds near 50mph. At first the wind had stopped completely, last night we lost power it was so bad. I was happy to see that it was still in the low 40s and thought we might have a day more like we expected. Well that didn't happen. The sun came out but as it did the wind picked up, and as the day wore on the temperature dropped. I think it was about 37 by the time we got sick of the wind hammering us. Pretty much all we got today was buttons, but some good ones. Finding really old Tombacs is always a good thing for me anyway. I ended up with 7, and the smallest thimble I've ever found. Got a corset hook, a buckle bit, and some of device that looks like a very old rank insignia, but I really don't know. I also have no clue what the little square with the "eyes" is. We've been over the spots we were hunting today, I brought my WS6 Master rig with the 9" coil to see if I could scratch out some more stuff, and was pleased with the result. I ran Relic at 40 kHz max to catch the small stuff and anything that might be on edge. Almost everything I got was small. šŸ˜… Best find was an 1814-1821 artillery button, first one I've ever found. It seems to be Tombac, not brass: Here's a sidelight for detail: And here is what it would look like if it wasn't dug in my acidic soil: Trash was about right for this place: I brought the root back because it had a BB embedded in it, I thought that was funny. It took a long time to find it. šŸ¤Ŗ I don't think I'll be going out in the wind much like that anymore. šŸ˜µ
  9. I had a lot of stuff to do around the house for the last 6 days, couldn't wait to get out to the old house again, despite how cold it was today. It started out at 32 degrees, and ended up at 38. šŸ„¶ I have Reynaud's in my hands and feet, so I brought two handwarmers and kept them in my vest. I sure needed them, as most of my hunting was in the shade. I was in the shade of the treeline in the distance. Where it was darker the ground was frozen about an inch down, so it wasn't too bad. I just had to break through it in spots. Today I had the WS6 Master with the 9" coil. My goal was to search places I had not looked, there is a lot of erosion where I was today. Lots of large and deep fissures that were difficult to hunt. It ended up being a really good day, I got a find I have been hoping to get for a long time now šŸ„³. Trash was the usual stuff: Lots of busted brass and copper, buck and musket balls, some harmonica bits. Here are the large finds, one is a broken rein guide, one might be a barrel tap plug, and I have no idea what the center item is: And now the finds, a lot of really old stuff. 3 Tombacs, brass buttons, plates and horse tack. A large buckle in 3 pieces, a pin with threads on it. The thing above the big buckle has a hole on either end, I'm guessing some sort of handle. At the edge of the field I got a solid 88, and dug my find of the day: A 1776 silver 1 Real coin minted in Mexico. This is a first for me, to find one of the larger Reales in such great shape without a hole! I also found what I think is a pistareen: It's silver, about the size of the Real: It is marked with suspiciously Spanish symbols on both sides. Despite the cold it was a great day! šŸ€
  10. I have to say that this farm is not the most productive place I've ever hunted, but I'm doing ok. In 4 visits I've covered about 3/4 of the place, and got some pretty good relics and coins. I kinda expected more but imagine I'm not the only one that has detected there. There is one spot loaded with aluminum bits, another that has a lot of molten lead, and yesterday I found what was probably a barn site that is nothing but nails. I've been lucky hunting one side where stuff was dragged out by the farm equipment, but I'll have to consider higher reactivity or other coils for the barn spot. It also has lots of steel bits which was probably from a roof, I have a place like that in front of my house. I walked about 6 miles again, made some great random finds but also dug a lot of trash. I must have walked a fence line because I found a lot of copper fence wire. Here are some of the interesting large finds, someone here once told me what the spiral wire thing is but I forgot. Got a musket ball and a couple of post-civil war miniĆ© balls, what might have been part of a stirrup and a really cool rein guide. The porcelain "Frozen Charlotte" doll head was on the surface. They were popular from the mid 1800s to early 1900. The strangest large object was this: A brass strip with a triangular pocket. No clue. šŸ¤” Here are the finds, some unrecognizable bits, a really nice large tombac, rose tag, some kind of reed, some brass buttons and a lead button. I dug a pretty toasted KG2 halfpenny, and a 190x V nickel was my last find. Using 40kHz in Relic netted me this small silver object, possibly a "Tree of Life" pin, the trunk is missing. You can see where it was attached and the pin weld on the back, size compared with the Trime I dug here the first day: Yep, it's that small, and thin. It was also about 8" deep. I looked for the school house, but there is nothing near where it was, and a new house has been built further in, so next I'll look for the old church that they say was here. I'll probably only find random stuff from now on. I'm going to dig the yard, but it will be a trash fest šŸ˜¬ šŸ€
  11. Back at the old farmhouse today! I gave the landowner some of the stuff from last time, the silver spoon bowl and the flintlock trigger guard. The farm apparently has a barren section, a place behind the house where relics are extremely old, and then what I call "Aluminum Alley", the next spot is loaded with iron and lots of can slaw. šŸ˜µ I have not got to the largest field yet, but I did walk through it and it made the day better. Trash was hellacious this time, lots of small lead and bullets, large junk too. Despite all that, got some pretty cool relics, I think I found the rest of the barrel tap, it was really far away from where I found the spout. I found a drawer pull, buckle bit, the end of a skeleton key, a very small rectangular buckle, a silvered Dandy button, a small strap with initials on it, and a small General Service cuff button. I also found this cool token: The Crescent Machine company of Ohio, they made woodworking machines until about 1946. https://mycompanies.fandom.com/wiki/Crescent_Machine_Company This is the serial number for a really early one, the company started in the 1890s. This strip of copper or brass has initials, it looks like it was linked: And here are the coins I dug today, when I was leaving I took an arc through the big field and scored the 1887 IHP and the 1899 Barber dime: The wheat is a 1920. šŸ€
  12. Another installment of digging at the small farm, got out yesterday to do some digging. I met up with the owner who provided more history of the place, and I gave him the crotal bell I dug šŸ˜¢ along with some of the other artifacts that are too big to display. The owner said his wife would be thrilled! It's going to take a while to get through this place, thankfully there isn't a lot of newer trash in the ground. It's really an honor to do this for them, but as I surmised they are not particularly wanting everything, but they do want me to be forthright about what I find. I have no problem with that. It was a beautiful day, the ground was perfect, not too wet or dry. I started at the bottom of this hill looking for stuff that might have washed down it, in my scouting trip I got a Trime so I knew there would be more. Nothing at the bottom where the field is eroding, but starting a little higher produced some great results: A mix of the old and newer, not sure what the object with the square hole is on the top left, but the trigger guard, rein guide, Tombacs, brass buttons including one I've found before, buckle bits and a nearly complete 1700's shoe buckle, and a Braided hair large cent (no date šŸ˜µ) made it a great day. The knife blade appears to be Tombac and the silver object below the trigger guard is a taco'ed spoon bowl that I can't straighten. The round object in the bottom row is what I believe to be a paper collar stud, possibly silver backed with a brass stud. There may be a cap missing for the back: I had to read it backwards but it is stamped "Gold Twist London". The front has some indecipherable text but I'll try to find out what it says. I'm going to be making a display box for these nice people and the size of it will be determined by the amount of stuff I find šŸ™‚ šŸ€
  13. Today I invited Chase down to go to a new permission that I had doubts about, but I shouldn't have. We met up at a place we hit before, searched it a bit but all I got was an 1898 IHP. We decided to go to the new place. It's around 50 acres with one carved out for a farmhouse, someone lives there. Corn stalks and cover crop, despite the drought it was fairly easy to dig. We walked the field for about 30 minutes or so, and found nothing at all but some small aluminum bits. Then we got closer to the road, and at almost the same time Chase dug an IHP and I got my first button: We heard lots of iron in this spot, so we figured we probably found a hotspot, and it turned out to be pretty good, later we found a second one. Here's my haul, 7 buttons - a big dandy and one tombac, a pipe tamper with the top missing, a rectangular buckle marked "1850", an odd piece of metal that I can't really identify but it's not lead. An old spectacle buckle, a round lead disc with cut marks on it, a lock slide marked D.M. & Co, and 3 copper coins, one large cent, one about the size of a farthing, and the IHP. Sadly the two older coins are toasted, if I can get any details I'll update this post. I also got one piece of cast silver that is hand engraved, concave, and broken: Not sure what this is. But it's cast silver! Here's the trash, not bad, we picked up all aluminum to make sure it wasn't masking anything. I hope Chase will post his finds either here or on his own, it was a surprisingly great day. šŸ€
  14. I thought it was going to be a nice day today, sunny and in the 60s with a bit of wind, but not what it ended up being. There was no wind at all when I got there, it was cloudy and kinda cold, in the 40s. My goal was to check out the last spot Chase and I didn't get to, about an 8 acre spot. I found nothing there. ? Nothing. But, in 7 hours and 7 miles of walking, I managed to get a few things, random stuff here and there: 7 more buttons, two of which may not be, the octagon and the misshapen one 3d from the left. A few buckle bits and a whole buckle. Only 4 came from the button hotspot. What really stands out is the smallest thing in the button row, I've found plenty of buttons with no shanks, but never a shank with no button! It was about 4" deep, a solid 51. The Deus hit it like it was on the surface. Also dug a 1945 wheat. I don't get much trash using relic with the 13", and today was no exception. By the end of they day the wind was blowing 20mph with gusts to 35, I really couldn't hear targets through the WSA II headphones, so I called it early.
  15. It was way too windy to cut my grass yesterday, and I'd only be cutting the grass that grew with the dew, the drought continues. šŸ˜µ I only had about 3 hours of light left by the time I got stuff done, and my wife said "well you could go out"... So I did and I'm glad I did. Went to the largest part of this enormous farm down the road, I've found and hit most of the hotspots so only random finds remain, literally half of the 200 acre farm is relatively barren. My first find was a wheat penny as soon as I started, but I knew it would be a while before I found something else, I didn't expect much. Got a nice ball button in a particularly trashy area nearby, and then nothing for a long time crossing the field. I decided to head back via a spot where a few random things surfaced in the past - nothing, nothing, nothing, then bam, got a 95 on the Deus. I said "Say it isn't so" out loud! šŸ¤£ I used to whine and cry that I never found a Barber coin until I did, but 2024 has been The Year of the Barber for me, in the last 3 weeks or so I think I've found around 8 of them, and I think 4 quarters. My thank you for coming token was a flat button nearby, I think a more detailed search of this spot is in order. šŸ¤” Trash wasn't bad at all, there wasn't much out there. Here's a pic of the back of the coin for the numismatists: šŸ€
  16. I wasn't going to post my last two days of hunting, really didn't get out for long and only found a few things, I was in a field near my house that produced my most valuable find - an 1803 Draped Bust Half Dime. I found a bunch of buttons with it, and was wondering if I'd find anything else in that area. I had also found a 1/2 real Cob there on another trip. It's a fairly small field, about a fifth of the whole place, it's way out back and ends in a point on a river. Very valuable land my farmer friends own! First day I was only out there a couple hours, I have a lot going on but managed to get about 3 out there. I got a small handful of trash, a couple of musket balls, a lot of buckshot, and a lot of harmonica bits. Today my trash was similar: I did get a really old doorknob with the iron shank, a tack stud, and a pile of lead again. Here's what I found that was interesting: A solid brass divider tool, a small one probably used for navigation or cartography. I found one like it that was estimated to be from 1650 to 1750. Wow! You can see with the other objects it is small. Got a clad quarter, a nice 1901 IHP, a thimble tip, a really strange object with leather sandwiched in it that is sadly broken, a red cattle tag, and some sort of plug. Also a small button with the shank. I'm thinking there was a mapping expedition here, and the divider was lost. They may have lost some of the buttons as well. I hope to free the device up and polish it a bit if possible, but it may be pretty valuable as is. šŸ¤”
  17. As @Joe D. wrote, "the third time is the charm!" It was 39 this morning when I got to the beach, but it warmed up fast. I was late for low tide so I was worried that I wouldn't find much, but I started finding old coins and relics right away! As soon as I walked down to "the spot", I dug this 1913 Barber dime. šŸ„³ It was like that for the next 3 hours or so, I walked to other spots on the beach and found nothing but clad. Here's everything old: 1914 Barber Quarter, Barber dime, 3 Mercury dimes from 1918 to 1941, two Buffalo nickels, and two pre 1960 Jeffersons. 7 wheats, I'm going to tumble them all from my recent visits to get dates. Got what I think might be an old dog tag, it says "TAX" on it and has a stamped serial number on the back. A garter clasp, a Washington DC bus token, a small lock with engraved initials, a key and a small piece of jewelry with a stone. Here's the trash, a good portion of it came from looking elsewhere. 5 more silver coins! So far I've found 10 or so here over the 3 visits.
  18. I made it back out to the site where I have found almost a dozen flat buttons (including one Tombac), some lead farm or communion tokens, and an 1822 large cent. The buttons just keep on coming. No coins this time, but another half dozen buttons including another Tombac (small), and a white metal fancy. I shouldā€™ve taken a good picture of the front of the fancy before I started cleaning it. It was pretty well caked and I didnā€™t realize there was a pattern to it. It has a sawtooth-like pattern around the rim with several concentric fine lines inside that crossed with slanted spokes. The inner circle is surrounded by a coiled rope (?), and the very center appears to have dots like the center of a flower or sunflower. With the exception of the one that is punched through, these buttons all appear to be alpha shank or cone and wire eye. This would date them to the late 1700s to early 1800s for manufacture date. I am digging pretty much everything at this location now. Consequently I dug a large iron target that kept giving intermittent good signals. That was the large chain which has some sort of eyelet bolt attached to the link near the red leaf in the lower left corner. Iā€™m only posting it because I understand some people can identify chains and approximate age based on pattern. If thereā€™s enough here to go on, I would be curious to see if this dates to the same general time period. Thanks for looking, and happy hunting!
  19. A lot of my farm permissions are starting to open up due to the month long (as of today) drought. The farmers say they've never got their crops in so early, the corn was a loss due to the early year drought but soybeans were right in the pocket for all the rain. Despite the dry, the weather here has been incredible, I'm still trying to finish up beach hunting but after today I may have to spend more time at the beach because digging the ground here is like hammering concrete. Today I invited Chase down to hit some open farms, we ended up going to 3 because the first one I went to before he got there was planted with winter wheat. Always check with the farmer to find out what is there. The 3 we finally visited were only turbo tilled, so maybe the first 2-4" were soft and dusty, but below that dry and hard packed ground. It's going to take a lot to get to where we usually are this year. It was a long day but not unproductive, I managed to get a few things, and a couple of strange things I've not seen before: I ended up with 5 buttons and 5 coins. One button may not be one, it is extremely old, heavy, and has an unusual back: And the front appears to have had some decoration and maybe lettering a couple hundred years ago: If anyone recognizes this as something else I would appreciate knowing, it may be a broach or something. Regardless it is crude and very old. The best button was this basket weave Treble Gilt: I cleaned it up a bit with lemon juice to bring out the gold. I've found a few of these in the past but not with this blackmark: Got a thin flat, a fat flat with the shank still intact, even some thread in it that fell out. Also a button back with stamped lettering that I can't make out. 5 coins, one Buffalo nickel and 4 wheats, the latest is 1951. Here's what I had to dig for all that: The usual stuff. One last thing, if anyone can tell me what this object is that would be cool: At first I thought it was a light bulb socket but it's way older than that, thick heavy brass. It kinda looks like a bottle of some kind. šŸ¤” It was a great day to be outside. At the end we got a possible 1,000 Acre permission nearby. šŸ¤ž
  20. Beautiful weather here this week, but the ground is drying up so I need to get out as much as possible. No rain in sight for the next 15 days. šŸ˜µ I have a permission where I dug a half of a 1607 King James 1 sixpence, and recently got permission to hunt the land across the road as well. Earlier in the week I scouted the new place, and used ONX Hunt to mark a spot in the middle of the field where I detected a possible deep coin. I only had a composite trowel, and after getting down 4 inches I still couldn't hear the target with my MI-6. I marked the spot in ONX and left. The landowner of the new permission mentioned that he might sell some of the land and to check with him after the corn was harvested. I sent him a text in the morning, but didn't immediately hear back from him so I went across the road to my other permission. The corn was cut really short and may have been bush hogged, a very fortunate instance. I really dislike hunting in corn stalks but these were cut right to the ground. In about 4 hours hunting the spot where I found an assortment of extremely old relics and the coin dating to the first explorers here, I did pretty well: A large coat button, a silver wash button, a small decorated cuff button, drawer knob, half of a knee buckle, either a rivet or collar stud, a small triangle that may be a cut coin, and a pewter object that says "Police Whistle". I tried to find a whistle with similar stamping but could not. The really old buttons came from the area where I dug the KJ1 sixpence, so they are probably from that period. The whistle bit came from the edge of the field near the road. I got a text later in the day from the landowner saying it was ok to hunt the field across the road, so I used ONX Hunt to get to the spot I got that coin signal in. I'm pretty impressed with how accurate that app is. I dug down and about 8-12" down was a 1934 wheat penny. That and some other finds came up, nothing impressive except for the last find of the day which gave me hope for this field: An old thin button. The farm is about 40 acres so I'll have a lot of searching to do! Trash was pretty much all firearm related, including a live shotgun shell. Just a few bits of aluminum and steel, you have to dig those buck balls if you want buttons. It was nice to add a few more bits to my KJ1 box.
  21. Don't know what it is this year, for the second time I've found gold that came with a moral obligation šŸ¤” Apparently the karma from the last time I found gold and "did the right thing" led me to an even greater test, I hope I passed... This past week I noticed one of my permissions had been harvested of corn, they cut it really short. I've been eager to get out and relic hunt, this particular spot has been hit hard, but I hoped I'd find something and I did. Got out there fairly early, and decided to look for a gold coin that I was originally asked to find when I first got this permission. I poked around for about 45 minutes or so where they told me the coin should be, only hearing and digging aluminum. I wanted to go to other parts of the 67 acre field, so I headed out feeling I had done my due diligence. I've spent hours looking for that coin over the last couple of years. Today I brought my WS6 Master setup with the 9" coil. I figured the 9" would be easier to get around the corn stalks but the battery wore down fast, later I switched to my trusty 13" coil and the RC. Not 5 minutes into my walk across the field I got an upper mid tone, and a solid 79 in all directions. I'd been finding nothing, so I was glad to finally find something. It was more than something: 1886 S $5 gold coin. It also had a gold bezel around it but it was mangled. There was also a chain, I'll have to look for that some more but it's probably part of a tilling machine now. šŸ™„ The landowner drove up, and joked with me that he now wants half of everything I find, and I said "How about everything I've found today?", and held out the coin. You should have seen his face. I said "But wait, there's more!" and handed him the bent bezel. This coin has been lost for a long time, probably 5-10 years or so. The landowner thought he knew where it was lost, but it wasn't near that today. There is a long story behind all this but I've written enough about it. He did say he felt bad taking it from me, but I said "Honor feels much better than deceit", and I thanked him for all the stuff he did let me have. Nothing I've found was as valuable or desirable as this coin, but I've done well. He also has now allowed me to hunt around the house. šŸ™‚ This coin and another were passed down by the original builder of the farmhouse. I also did good afterward: Mid sized button with shank and no marks, a broken brass object I believe to be a small crotal bell, a suspender clip that is decorated with a fish and a dragonfly, and a large copper or brass strap. Also got a small lock slide. The best objects are the two small buttons: Really old one with decoration; And a most interesting ball button with no base, the shank soldered inside. I figured out why I got so much trash: This might be some good advice to the more inexperienced with the Deus 2. I've been hunting all summer in full tones, if you follow my posts the trash got to be less than the good finds. It didn't start that way, listening to the tonal nuances was the process that got me a successful summer. Now I'm using Relic with pitch tones and I'll have to learn it all over again. šŸ¤” My point is that bouncing around different programs with different tones will mess you up. Find programs and settings that work, and stick with them. It will get better. I use a modified Beach Sensitive and Relic, that's pretty much it. I might switch between the two to verify a target, but that happens increasingly less. Relic for relics, and Beach for beach. Ok, I have one question for y'all, am I now in the Gold Coin club, or am I disqualified because I "knew" it was there? It was lost the same as any gold coin gets lost... Anyway a great day. Yet again I had to take the moral high ground with an awesome find, and it feels pretty good. šŸ€
  22. According to the Warren K. Tice book the back marked R&W Robinson button dates from circa 1834 to 1855. This one is loaded with gilt and the photos just do not do it justice. Has a very nice decorative rim. I never imagened that a merc would knock the wind out of my sails but this one did as it was just a foot or so from the buttonšŸ˜© The whatzit piece of forged on the top and a pretty Cool multi kitchen tool on the bottom complete with corkscrew.It's most likely from a later period 1890's? Any thoughts and opinions are welcomed about the iron relic. It's quite early in my opinion as it came from the same site that I have dug New York Legion and Phoenix buttons and the object pictured below that some of the more knowledgeable forum members and i agreed was probably a Guidon flagpole but cap could this be another one? Thanks in advance for any information I tried to clean the button with the Andres relic pencils but did not like results that I was seeing Maybe lemon juice or naval jelly? There is a lot of gilt on this one that I would like to bring out.
  23. Tough hunt on my hands and knees working a small area that was partially exposed during last winters high water. I still had to move a lot of deadfall and do a fair amount of pruning to hunt effectively and used the deus 2 with the remote in the armband and the nine inch coil with just the lower rod attached for easy mobility. The site has seen intermittent habitation from probably the Clovis period or shortly thereafter through the post contact trade era and with some probable brief military occupation and modern usage as well.Therefore lots of pollution to deal with. The Tongue From A Tongue And Wreath Buckle And The Pewter Button Spent A Great Deal Of Their Life In The Brackish Water And Did Not Hold Up Very Well. This Small Button Was A Little Dissapointing I Could See That It Had A Lot Going On And Was Hoping For Something Military Related Which Is A Possibility? Just A Common Garden Variety Flat Button But Not So Easy To Come By For Me At Least. For Me This Was The Find Of The Day.Not Sure About The Age But It Looks Like A Gold-Rush Or Civil War Period Ship? Ancient Stone Tools And Trade Era Beads Etc What I Call Bycatch. 1850's And 60's Glass And Some Other N.F Targets. And A Small Portion Of The Trash That Was Masking The Goodies.
  24. Just a few finds while living in Lake Anna VA, now that we currently reside in South Carolina, I haven't had the time to get out. Too busy working, and getting the new home up and running. Life...
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