Hunting A Church

[schoolofhardNox]

So, I have been MIA to detecting for the past 2 weeks, as I had my second date with Covid. 🙄 She visits me every 2 years and this time was no fun as well. 😄. A buddy of mine wanted to do an E Trac hunt, so I met him at a church built in the 1940’s but on a very old piece of land. I also brought the Equinox 800 and the GPX 5000. I started the hunt with the E Trac and a 13” Ultimate coil (that I just purchased here recently). It took me a bit to remember how to use it in this kind of EMI setting, but it worked very well finding me an 1852 Large cent at around 9”. I ran it for about 2 hours and found some memorials and a couple of wheats. I decided to switch and try the Equinox. Now the selling point of the Equinox is its multi-frequency technology, so I wasn’t interested in hunting with the 20 or 40 Khz frequencies, as I was looking for deep silver. The Equinox didn’t fare well with the EMI, so off to the car trunk it went. I then pulled out the GPX with a Detech 11” DD coil. It was noisy, but bearable as I ran it with very mild settings. The last 2 hours of the hunt were the  most fun as I could almost run with the GPX and just bang out coin after coin, all around the 6” mark. This section I was doing had almost no trash or iron, just coins. There wasn’t a pull tab to be found, and besides some modern clad, every cent there was a wheat cent. So, the GPX found both silvers and a lot of wheats including a decent 1921. It was a ton of fun and I was just glad to get out and hunt after sitting home for all those days.

[longbow62]

Nice finds! Especially that Large Cent. That's a bucket list coin I hope to dig some day. Very tough to dig one where I live.

[F350Platinum]

Nice Matron! 👍 Sorry you got sick. I was wondering 🤔 Those large cents sink pretty deep don't they? 

Even the trash is interesting. I guess at some point a military funeral occurred, or some sort of salute, that looks like a .308 blank.  And you got a couple of jacks! 😀 

The ground is very kind to old cents there.

[Rick N. MI]

Great hunt. The LC looks in great shape.

[schoolofhardNox]

5 hours ago, longbow62 said:

Nice finds! Especially that Large Cent. That's a bucket list coin I hope to dig some day. Very tough to dig one where I live.

Thanks. We have a good amount of large cents in my area, but they are getting harder to find. Hopefully there is an older section of town or some old race track or church where you may have a chance of finding one.

5 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Nice Matron! 👍 Sorry you got sick. I was wondering 🤔 Those large cents sink pretty deep don't they? 

Even the trash is interesting. I guess at some point a military funeral occurred, or some sort of salute, that looks like a .308 blank.  And you got a couple of jacks! 😀 

The ground is very kind to old cents there.

Thanks. I'm not quite normal yet but getting better by the day. Large cents can sink real deep depending on where they be. I've found them deeper with the GPX on some fields I've hunted. The church does shoot some blanks. Not sure if they are for a funeral or Memorial Day events. The jacks were a surprise for sure.  This ground was dryer, brown soil, very consistent and not many rocks at all. Looks like it drains well.

44 minutes ago, Rick N. MI said:

Great hunt. The LC looks in great shape.

Thank you. The large cent cleaned up pretty well. I just tooth picked it, followed by a wet #0000 steel wool and Dawn rub.

[F350Platinum]

4 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

followed by a wet #0000 steel wool and Dawn rub.

Just dug two of them, I'll try that! 🙂 

[schoolofhardNox]

Just now, F350Platinum said:

Just dug two of them, I'll try that! 🙂 

Toothpick and dry tooth brush them to death before anything else. Then if the coin looks like it has a solid, mostly pit free look to it, you can finish off with the wet steel wool and Dawn rub. If the coin is crap to begin with, it may not improve much. I like the newer large cents because they have a very deep strike, so they clean up nice. I may use a toning mixture of Vaseline and sulfur to darken the coin to a more uniform color if I remember 😄

[schoolofhardNox]

9 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Just dug two of them, I'll try that! 🙂 

I just saw your 1837 Large cent. It may not work too well on that one since there is a decent amount of corrosion on it. But if you do try it be careful not to remove too much dirt, since that is what is giving you the contrast to see the date and features.

 

[kac]

Glad  your doing better, nice large cent.

[Valens Legacy]

Great hunting with some very nice finds, I like to  hunt old churches because of what is in the ground.

There are over 9 churches near me that have been here since the 1800's, and I can tell you that the have some very old coins.

Good luck on your next outing.