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Today was kind of a miserable day, gloomy and cold, in the 40s. I went to this field about 2 miles away, it's across the street from one of my largest permissions, but part of it. The landowner owns over 1000 acres on both sides of the road. I've been through this field a couple of times, really didn't find much so I put it on the back burner. I drive by it a lot, it's on the main road. Not a very big field, and it has a couple of really steep hills in it. It's only 50 yards wide, and about 3 acres total. I haven't been finding much in other places lately, so I thought I'd give this field a go. It's very noisy with highway traffic slowing down to go into the center of town, so today I tried out the Killer B headphones that just came back from being looked over, I want to thank @Keith Leppert for his support. I've decided I like the Killer B wireless enough to keep them, at first I thought I didn't like the audio, as it's thinner and mid-rangey as opposed to the ML105 headphones, but after a day of using them exclusively, I got used to them and definitely recommend them. They effectively blocked out about 90% of the road noise, and not having deep bass or sharp spikes ended up being quite pleasant. 🙂 They're comfortable for me, I wore them all day. At first I thought I'd zigzag the field and go somewhere else, but I kept finding coins, a memorial here, a dime there, a wheat penny or two, so I decided to stay in the field all day and make my passes tighter. It's a good thing I did! The Manticore was silent until it came upon a target, the ground was easy to dig albeit a bit muddy, and I had the M15 coil counter balanced with a battery so it was comfortable and felt almost weightless! I dug a lot of trash again today: Mostly aluminum, buck balls, bullets and wire. Unfortunately the target trace shows a solid dot in the center often on aluminum, I'm not used to it yet. Some aluminum has a ragged tone and lifting identifies it, but sometimes it doesn't. 🫤 It's going to take a while. Here are some things too large for display: A massive chunk of lead, what I think might be a bit crossbar, some sort of device inserted and clamped into a hose, and some other weird stuff. Got some modern coins: Mostly 70s stuff except for the wheats, one is a 1926. I also ended up with some nice relics: A large tombac, two pieces of an ancient spectacle buckle, some bits and a heart shaped lock. What kept my attention in this field was the fact that I kept finding silver occasionally: A silver cufflink, a 1942 nickel, and a 1939 Mercury dime. I'll explain the silver object on top in a bit. 😎 I was getting sort of close to my goal, and got a very strange signal. It wavered from the mid 30's to the mid 50's and finally sort of settled in the 40s. I thought for sure it was aluminum, but I was too far back in the field for that. Wow, was I wrong 🤯 I got this, a men's 10.3 gram 14k Freemason level 32 ring with a genuine 1/4 carat diamond! 🥳 This is the second gold ring I've dug on this property, and for sure the most gold. The little silver clasp above with the other silver was clamped on this ring to "size" it, in my experience, sized rings = lost rings. 🫤 My gain though! It's just incredible. Thick, solid - not hollow - white and yellow gold. The 32nd degree varies, either the person is a "Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret" or "Master of the Royal Secret", whatever that means. Some of my ancestors were Masons, but I am not familiar with the group. 🤔 I've seen these for sale anywhere from $800 to $6,000. Melt value is around $600. I didn't finish the field and might return, but I am very happy with the equipment I used today to find all this great stuff. I'm going to take the ring to a jeweler to have it straightened and cleaned up. 🍀

Pretty nice find by an amateur detectorist using a XP Deus at about 9” under the soil: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgzm3857emo more details and auction: https://www.noonans.co.uk/news-and-events/latest-news/1131/ As it’s scheduled to be auctioned 3/26, the website will take down the listing and backstory about it so here is the text: It was discovered by metal detectorist, Mark Sell on King Row, Shipdham in Norfolk, on a cold but sunny afternoon on November 22, 2019, and is estimated to fetch £15,000-18,000. As Mark, who is 63 years old and lives at Swaffham said: “I had been on the field a couple of times before but had not found anything of importance and had been detecting for a couple of hours with a friend, using my XP Deus metal detector, when just before it started to go dark I got a faint signal and dug down about 9 inches to find what has to be the best item I have found so far!” He continued: “I was amazed to see a thin line of gold in the clod of mud that I had dug up, and as I wiped away the mud, I could see the bezel of a medieval gold jewelled ring. I could also see that the ring was complete with all of the original jewels still in place and was in pristine condition.” Mark then reported the find to the landowner and took it to show him and his family and it was then deposited with his local Finds Liaison Officer. Norwich Castle Museum and the British Museum were also involved in the treasure process and the British Museum put the ring on temporary display while in their care, Norwich Castle Museum had also shown interest in acquiring the ring for their permanent display. He took images of the ring to a Noonans valuation day and experts dated the ring and informed him of the extreme rarity and historical importance of it. The proceeds from the sale of the King Row Ring will be shared with the landowner. Mark, who has retired from the Fire Service, has no plans how to spend his portion of the money. As Laura Smith, Jewellery Expert at Noonansexplained: “The village of Shipdham, central Norfolk, was well established by the time of the Norman Conquest, extensively detailed in the Domesday Book of 1086, and at that time recorded as being within the largest 20% of settlements in England. During the reign of Henry III (1207-1272) the Bishop of Ely built a manor house at Shipdham, the moat in evidence on 19th century maps. Also, of importance during the medieval period, this area contained a Royal deer park, owned by the See of Ely. The park, composed of Little Haw and West Haw, was in existence by 1277 but passed into the hands of the Wodehouse family between 1561 and 1584. All Saints church, Shipdham, dates from the 12th century.” She adds: “This form of medieval ring, with a principal cabochon stone, usually a sapphire, surrounded by smaller collet set satellite stones (garnets or rubies, and emeralds), can be securely dated to the late 12th or early 13th century, and is associated with the bishopric. Other similar rings include one belonging to Walter de Gray, the wealthy and powerful Archbishop of York - Archbishop from 1215 - until his death in 1255 – which is on display at York Minster; as well as the Bishop of Chichester’s Ring and the Whithorn Cathedral ring.”

I promised I was going to take the M8 coil to a small one acre patch where a house used to be. A few days ago I went over it with the M11 coil and found a couple of pennies, a wheat and an IHP. I set up a grid search using flags. This patch has an unbelievable amount of iron in it, it's absolutely the most brutal iron patch of all my permissions. So bad in fact that I haven't been back to it since 2021. 😬 I found some pretty good stuff there with my Equinox. I found my first Trime near this spot along with a Mercury dime, my first two silver coins. Before I get into it, I have a few things to mention about the Manticore: I like it, I think it has its place on the beach for sure. I do not like the battery life, many times already I've had to end a hunt because it was near zero, and I don't like running a lithium battery down that far. I have a solution for that, ala Algoforce: I bungee a big honkin' battery to it. 😅 It's somewhat heavy but balances the M11 and M15 very well. You'd think that a detector with "50% more power" would have a 50% bigger battery. 🤔 I love how light the detector is with a small coil, but I find that in March winds it gets blown off the shovel - a lot. I found a solution for that as well: Got this on eBay, it's a printed shovel magnet that will work with T and D handle shovels, especially Predator and Lesche. Here's a link to it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/186083602070 Another thing I needed a solution for was the little Velcro straps that you're supposed to use to hold the wire on, they always pop off and are just too fiddly for quick coil changes in the field, so I got some of these: Here's a link to that, not many make them, and he's only got one more set. https://www.ebay.com/itm/296636161776 I use two of them, that way I can completely shorten the Manticore without any issue. Ok enough of that. 😎 I learned something today that made me feel pretty good. I searched this area 4 years ago, and only recently found two cents... Well that was it. Other than a good portion of this junk I got nothing after a slow grid search with the M8: Aluminum, iron, brass junk and lead. The problem was that everything sounded good with the little coil, even big forged iron, and particularly the large solid brass shotgun shells. I'm going to have to find a way to make the machine more reliable with this coil, other than lifting, which I should have done more of. 🤔 I can see using the M8 coil in some of my campgrounds, but in a bean field after harvest it's like a pinball game. 😅 The day was not without its rewards, I finished the search and went "on walkabout" with the M11 coil, and got all this stuff, my last find was the 1895 V nickel: I ended up with one really nice colonial button, a small object that looks like a bell, a D buckle, a 1962 memorial, and part of a copper or bronze nail. The other round bits are not identifiable, and I dug a chrome plated buckle piece. The top left object is button like, but the back of it is all iron. I wonder now if the Deus 2 can pull anything out of this spot... 🤔 🍀

The snow is finally almost gone here, I came back from Cocoa Beach right after one snowstorm, and then it snowed again a few days later, we almost never get this much! Haven't had it snow this much in 10 years. 🙄 It only took 3 days to melt most of it, luckily Virginia is like that. Right now it's very muddy and some spots are still frozen and difficult to dig. I was stuck inside for a while, but finally decided to go out today to a field near my house: I wanted to test some Manticore programs I've copied from 2 experienced detectorists, Neil Jones' "Freestyle", and Sid Perry's (Englands History) "The Beast Programme". I've used Freestyle before and like it, it's an enhanced All Terrain General program specifically for relics, but could be put over any profile. Beast is an enhancement of All Terrain Fast, I got it put in the Manticore yesterday. Why do I use settings others have created for the Manticore instead of trying to do it myself? 🤔 Quite honestly, it took me about 2 years to get the Deus 2 the way I want it, it's deadly on the beach and relic sites. I have every confidence in it. I simply wanted to hit the ground running with the Manticore, I had a beach trip come up right after I bought it, so I didn't want to be fiddling around. I have Dankowski settings for Beach, however I've overlaid the tone curve from Freestyle rather than using the stock settings, Neil Jones went to a lot of trouble to make the Manticore sound like an Explorer. 😏 The curve is really not a curve, he uses 5 Region All Tones: I like the spread, so I used that instead of the stock tones for the Dankowski programs. Beast is a beast alright, I alternated it with Freestyle and found I didn't like the tone curve so I'll probably modify it to Freestyle so all my programs sound off on targets the same way: I didn't find it any deeper than Freestyle, and quite frankly it falsed a lot more. If I got a really high tone at first, it at least signaled something was there, but mostly the area I was in is machine gun iron, the high tones were more of a beating than the low. Subsequent sweeps told me the whole story, and when I got a mostly repeatable signal I dug it. I turned Recovery Speed down to 5 to match Freestyle as well when I found I was missing stuff with RS at 6. Today I was using the M15 coil, I wanted to get all the coverage I could get, and to be able to get a lot of area done. It's a spot I've been over with other detectors, I did a pretty tight grid search to see if I missed stuff last year when the field was all corn stalks. I didn't do too bad, found almost as many good items as the trash: The Manticore like the Equinox loves forged nails, and I ended up with a few. 🙄 That's one thing I don't dig a lot of with the Deus 2. Got 5 buttons, brass, Tombac, and the top of a 2 piece with no markings, some fancy 1600s buckle bits, a thimble, and some other bits. I decided to make a sweep out of my grid area, and got a very nice surprise: The Spanish Fleet. 🤯 I ended up with 3/4 of a 1737 2 Real coin, one fourth was broken but I got both pieces. They may not be all from the same coin but it sure looks good! You can see some knife cuts in the top left piece. Quite a while back I found a copper not too far away that had knife cuts, so I guess it was being used to cut these. At that point I had switched back to Freestyle. I'm sure I would have found all this with my Deus, nothing was especially deep, but it sure was fun to get some more time on the Manticore, and I'll be changing the Beast audio curve. 🙂 For sure the Manticore finds the small stuff! 🍀

If you've been following my posts, I've been grid searching this small hill, it's only about half an acre. Last year I got a lot of buttons and even some flying eagle cents, so I decided to use it to see whether the Manticore could find anything after a thorough search with the Deus 2. It took me a couple of trips to finish with the Deus, and today I took the Manticore there with the 11". It was an extremely windy day, 15mph with gusts to 25, typical March. The only saving grace was that it went up to 60. I set up a grid 90° to what I did with the Deus, I wanted to give the Manticore every chance. For headphones today I used this wired bone conduction headphone set with a built in little preamp, and the WM09, I clipped them to the back of the band. I call them the Frankenphonez™ 🤣 Thing is, these bone phones are true bone conduction, you can only hear them when they are in place like the BH-01 backphones for the Deus 2. They were $29 from Amazon, all I had to do was charge them up, and plug them into the WM09. They lasted 6 hours anyway! The charge light was still green when I was done for the day, they would have lasted longer. They sound really good. I'm trying to find stuff that will work well when it's hot, and it was a bonus to also have these work well in the wind. They almost "put the sound inside your head". Of course I don't like having all that stuff hanging from them! 😅 It wasn't uncomfortable, and the phones have an adjustable backband. I searched the area for 4 hours, going slow. What did I get? Nothing but one piece of iron, some tiny copper bits, and a lot more lead. Seems the Manticore loves lead more than the Deus. 😅 All this proves is that the Deus didn't miss anything good. I'm not saying it is better than the Manticore, I do wonder if I would have found all the good stuff and even more lead. 🤔 Maybe I'll reverse the process and use the Manticore first in another spot. Or actually bring them both sometime. The day was not without reward, outside the grid, and in another spot I went to, I got these: A silver or nickel plated copper whatchamacallit, a "hot rock" that is either lead or silver, it ID'd very high, and knocking a piece of it out produced a glittering inside. It's heavy so it's probably lead. I dug two IHPs, 1870, an 1867 and a 1919 wheat. I was able to pull the 1867 and the 1919 out of a spot where a house used to be, It's machine gun iron. That speaks volumes for the Manticore.

I went back to finish up the area my last post came from, it was a beautiful day, perfect weather for detecting. Today I brought my Deus 2 out for a swing. I am confident in my settings on that machine, but the day started out not so great. Ya have to have a bad day sometimes... Got out there at 9 am, and searched for almost 4 hours in the area I got all those great things in my last post, and ended up with this: Just a small handful of non-ferrous but non-desirable targets, mostly lead and junk brass. 🫤 I decided to return to a small, nondescript hill nearby, I discovered it last year and got quite a few buttons and even my first 2 Flying Eagle cents there, seems there was a house or barn there that is not on any old topographic map, but the hard sandstone rocks I find both on and below the surface belie the real story. It's just a bit of high ground, I thought there had to be something I missed because my settings are much more accurate than they were last year. I was right, as soon as I got out of my golf cart I dug a button, then another, and even got an old 4-hole on the surface. I was also rewarded with a barely legible V nickel: One shard of Tombac or pewter as well. As always I saved the best for last, at one point I got a 99 on the Deus. I dug and dug and still heard it, but big iron is never a consistent 99, not really much else except a Morgan Dollar or something would do that! After digging down over a foot, I got this: A very old silver brooch or hat pin. 🤯 I can't find hallmarks, but I'm pretty sure nothing but silver would sound off that high. Because I started late in the day, I'll have to return for more, but a bad day turned satisfying. Total trash was not much more, no iron except for the lead disc pierced with a nail. The Deus 2 is still a powerhouse relic machine to me. 🍀

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. 🍀

Sorry for all the posts, I'm getting "Trigger Time" on the Manticore. 😎 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. 😬 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! 😎

Well here ya go, took the Manticore to my local big beach, it started out a bit cold and windy but ended up at 65 degrees. The beach is thawed out, but the water is 35 degrees. I got there about an hour before low tide. I wore insulated boots and didn't go out very far. I wanted to hunt a certain spot on this beach to see if the Manticore could pull any more coins out of it. When I got there a crew was in that spot digging and grading the beach. As I headed out to hunt somewhere else, the gentleman in the digger drove up to me and said, "we're all done, you should go over there, we really dug stuff up!" Wow. Guess luck was with me today, but I also knew I wasn't going to be able to compare whether the Manticore would do better or even as well as the Deus 2, with all the sand moved around I would never know. 😥 The river was calm, I went almost boot deep in the water, and then searched the upper beach. There were targets everywhere. I stayed there about 5 hours, here's what I got for coins and relics: 33 coins, 4 really old unidentifiable pennies, 4 copper memorials, a quarter, 4 dimes, 13 nickels including 3 buffaloes. An odd knob for something, a key, a bag seal and some links of gold plated brass chain. The Manticore loves nickels, and the other detectorists seem to skip a lot of them. It was really nice to get some old coins still, but the Manticore didn't find any more silver. Back in the fall I got about 10 silver Barbers in this spot, guess I cleaned it out. Got lots of trash, but not a lot of iron or aluminum. The settings did well, I'm sure I'll get better with that. I used Beach Surf and Seawater most of the time, but I changed back to normal audio. I also used Beach Low Conductors. Here's the trash: Some sinkers, a couple of bottle caps, and lots of small junk. So why was it a Golden Day? Heh. 😎 I was out in the water digging nickel after nickel, and one of those nickels turned out to be an 18k signet ring! It's broken, but is the second signet I've found in this spot. I'd say it is very old. It was only a few inches down, but there are lots of small rocks in the water here. A little later while searching the dry sand after the tide came in, I was digging more nickels and got a very insistent 20. I scooped and scooped, probably down about 10" to a foot, and discovered this: A 10k pave white and yellow gold ring with 20 diamonds. 🤯 I wish I could say that the Manticore did better, but I really can't after finding all those silvers and a gold signet ring here back in the fall. One thing for damn sure is that the settings impressed me, to hit a gold and diamond ring at almost a foot is insane, this detector is a keeper for sure. 😎 My wife is ecstatic with her new ring. 🥳 🍀

Chase and I had been discussing an opportunity to get out at least once more before the next La Niña 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. 🍀

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 🤷: If ya see anything there let me know 🤣 🍀

Hello everyone, the forum here is really great, especially the technical side of the metal detector is discussed in detail here. Thank you for that! I would like to give something back and share my findings with you: Picture 1+2: two nice buttons, maybe around 1700-1800 century Picture 3: Silver Coin from 1816 Picture 4: 1 Pfennig 1717 Picture 5: fragment of a segment belt 1600-1700 Century Picture 6 the most interesting find for me by now : fragment of a disc brooch from the middle ages, maybe around 1100 century Best regards!

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. 🫤 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. 🤣 Happy new year! 🍀

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. 🤔 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! 🤯 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. 🤔 Waiting for that new Deus HF elliptical! 🙏

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. 😁 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. 😵 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. 😅 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! 🥳

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. 😅 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. 🤪 I don't think I'll be going out in the wind much like that anymore. 😵

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. 🥶 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 🥳. 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! 🍀

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 minié 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. 🤔 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 😬 🍀

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. 😵 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. 🍀

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 😢 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 😵) 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 🙂 🍀

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. 🍀

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.

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. 😵 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! 🤣 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. 🤔 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: 🍀

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. 🤔

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. 🥳 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.