A Month In Western Usa, 5 Of 5 Reports Posted -- Complete (updated)

[geof_junk]

GB_Amateur I think you "nailed" it in your last photo. 😀

[Valens Legacy]

The gas cap looks to be from a 1970 Dodge Dart. Grandfather has that car in his garage and it runs fine. I should really fix it up and have it repainted to make it look new again. That was the car he bought grandmother for her birthday shortly after they were married.

Glad you had fun so far and will enjoy reading more of your post on your trip.

[GB_Amateur]

6 hours ago, jasong said:

Did you see that massive old trash trench at the old Jungo townsite? That thing is pretty interesting to walk through, even though it's been picked over. Surprisingly a lot of people don't seem to know it's there....

Add my name to that list, because I didn't notice it.  Was it on the northside of the road?  I spent most of my time there (just a couple hours) on the southside.  Your observations make me want to go back....

[jasong]

Yeah, north side of the road surrounded by salt brush, and to the west of that other road that intersects at a right angle. It's a big trench that they dug apparantly with the intention to infill it, but then never did. It's been over a decade since I've stopped there though, it coulda been filled in by now, no clue. It was very well hidden in the bushes. There were smaller trash pits around it too, IIRC, think those may have been where I got the bottles actually.

I also have no clue how anyone ever lived there, it looks like it would have flooded yearly, probably why they all just up and left.

There used to be some similar time capsule places in AZ too, people just left and never came back. I remember an abandoned house that still had like 60's 2001:Space Odyssey-looking chairs with velvet, tiki heads everywhere, leisure suits in the closet, highball glasses and 60's drink mixers laying around, lounge music records. Those places got totally hit and destroyed though by Mad Max style scavengers when more people moved in the area. 

[GB_Amateur]

On to the oldest ghost towns for my last two stops+reports.  At Elko (county seat) on my way to NW Nevada earlier on this trip I stopped at the library to 'research' the ghost towns I was (potentially) going to be visiting later in June.  One book in particular showed the locations of over 100 ghost towns in Elko County alone, and I suspect it only indicated the best known ones.  Monte's recent WTHO's -- last year's and current expedition, cover five of those but four were founded in the early 20th Century.  The other actually began during the quest to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean via railroad (task completed in 1869).  As typical, this town quickly reached its max poplulation and slowly declined, remaining a key stopping point for 35-40 years until a nearby camp/town replaced it (and that one was also among the 5 sites detected by others on this expedition).

In my case I have a lot of sites near home with coins that go back to the Barber coin days but not many accessible places with Seated coins -- at least that's been my experience so far.  So these last two locations (this one in NE Nevada and the one in the Colorado Rockies I'll finish the thread with) gave me hope for those elusive oldies.  I spent the rest of my trip camping out and detecting these two.

A word about my detector choices this trip.  Monte is an outspoken proponent of simple, beep and dig detecting which has for him proven successful for well over 50 years, particularly in ghost towns.  I decided this trip to give that method a serious chance so for all but my last 1.5 days in NE Nevada I went almost exclusively with the Tesoro Vaquero and 6" concentric.  I was at this old ghost town 3.5 days so the first two were mostly with that combo.  The problem for me (maybe not for others with a better ear) is that I could not distinguish scraps of sheet metal (aka 'tin') from good sounding non-ferrous targets, and this 1860s town was absolutely loaded with it.  My magnetic rake methods that I had used previously didn't solve the problem because there was still way too much of that evil trash buried an inch or two down -- not clearable with magnets.  I had the Fisher F75 as a backup but being able to see digital Target IDs (dTID's) using that detector didn't help -- the sheet metal still masqueraded as good targets and it was way too plentiful.  Instead of pulling coins out of the ground, I ended up spending those first two days pulling my hair out of my head.  🤯

Oregon Gregg (occasional poster here) is a protege of Monte's and he's been super helpful giving me advice over these two hunts.  (He uses a Nokta/Makro Fors CoRe and 6" DD coil quite successfuly in this environment).  He mentioned that Monte had been getting attendees to try their skill with their favorite detectors on his Nail Board Performance Test and that Utah Mike (don't know if he posts here) had done well with the ML Equinox and 6" DD, to the surprise of some hardcore old-timers.  I decided to revert to that combo for the last 1.5 days.  The difference for me is that with my >1000 hours of experience with this detector (mostly with the 11" DD) my ear was better tuned to the audio subtlties and I could much better discern and ignore the pesky sheet metal scraps.  I ran in 2 tones (no dTID threshold discrimination), recovery speed 4, iron bias F2=4 or 6 gain 15-17.  I dug everything with dTID > 6 to make sure not to eliminate nickel 3 cent pieces (typically 7-8 in my air tests).  As you'll see in photos I not surprisingly dug a lot of lead bullets using this mental threshold criterion.

This site has a lot of area to hunt and some parts have more trash than others.  These included a Chinese campsite (one of the less trashy) which is easily recognized from shards of pottery -- again, the trash being a good indicator of its history.  Some detectorists (including at least one on this trip) have found Chinese coins here.  Late Friday morning on my way back to camp for lunch I decided to take an easy walk along a railroad company vehicle road which Gregg told me few people ever seem to think of detecting.  I got a decent low ~20 dTID (zinc penny range) surface hit which I could see was a small (cuff?) button with an Eagle.  As usual I initially assumed it was some kind of modern reproduction from a railroad worker's coat.  I returned to the Chinese camp after lunch and eventually (after many lead bullet recoveries) in a cinder ('coke') pile I got another shallow low 20's hit which immediately revealed itself as a scalloped edge thin disk with "good for 5" clearly showing amongst its dark patina.  I was pretty sure that wasn't any reproduction, but how old?

Saturday morning (my last half day) I was awakened at 7 AM by Gregg and his two young and rambunctious (but friendly) dogs.  I showed him the token and he got excited, he being particularly fond of old tokens.  I decided to spend my last 3 1/2 hours near the foundation of the old hotel which has been hammered by about everyone who comes to detect this site.  A few coins had already been found here on this hunt so why not me?  Using the Equinox I was digging quite a few nails and an occasional small sheet metal chip and then got a clean sounding high-teens hit.  About an inch down out pops a familiar sized disk which turned out, with a little spritz of water (quickly dried), to be an 1880's Indian Head.  Finally an old coin!  I kept going and after many more junk recoveries, got a clean low teens signal and once again recognized the size -- nickel 5 cent piece, but with almost no discernable details.  (Turned out to be an extremely worn shield nickel with no distiguishable date.)  In less than 2 hours I found the only two coins of my week in NE Nevada, and in the last 3 hours of the entire expedition.  "Slow, short amplitude swings" Gregg had recommended to me more than once, and it paid off.

First photo are 'finds' (including junk) with the Vaquero. 

I've left out the rusty sheet metal as it was too psychologically painful to bring home.  Note that the nails are square.  I think the metal lid with punctured holes (upper left) was a poor (China)man's homemade shaker top.  The spoon-like implement is completely flat (no bowl) and doesn't appear to have been flattened from a bowl.  I'm confused as to what its purpose was, if in fact I've interpreted it properly.  The animal shoe is interesting to me as its shape is not what I'm accustomed to seeing.  Note the two embedded nais, and a couple other shoe nails above it (but not from the same hole).

Here are the trash from the last 1.5 days when I used the Equinox + 6"DD exclusively:

Interestingly more (lead) bullets than casings -- maybe they were shooting from the train?  The coins aren't shown (that will come in the last post) and one of those round items upper left fooled me as it gave a strong, clear 31-32 and I was hoping for a silver quarter....  Turned out to be some kind of brass knob.  I've separated the square nails from the modern round cross-sectioned kind.  A couple of the buttons were surface, non-metallic finds and my (seamstress) wife identified them as made from seashells, apparently a common practice in the days prior to plastic.

(I'll finish up this report with one more post, and that one will include decent resolution photos of the best finds.)

 

 

 

[Valens Legacy]

Congrats on the coins, I know that you have to have a lot of patience when on an old site like that.

With digging all the nails I bet your knees are sore, but if your like me it passes quickly on the next good tone.

 

[abenson]

Good write up and it was good meeting you. Wish you could have found gold on your trip. I think I ended up with 9 or 10 small ones over the 2 days I was there. I wish I could have made Monte's outing but we were getting ready to list our house for sale and I had a lot to do to get it ready. I actually have not metal detected since the day after you left until yesterday, because of our move. Hope it gets cooled down a little now here in the west so I can get out more. We just tied the record yesterday for hottest summer in Salt Lake City and hottest July on record since 1875. If you ever get out this way again, let me know.

[oneguy]

Noticed your comment about busting out the Nox, using 2-tone ferrous, then finally finding a couple old coins amongst the trash. Never could quite understand Monte and the Tesoros being so good in trashy sites?  I swung Tesoros for 22 yrs (GSII & Tejon) and dug lots of good stuff plus had fun. I had no idea there could be a much better coinshooter until I switched to Minelab.  My trash to treasure ratio did a 180 flip after I learned the Etrac (actually still have more to learn).  My favorite, and simple, setup on the Etrac was a six inch coil and also 2-tone ferrous...killer in trash.  Only problem I had with 2-tone ferrous ON THE ETRAC was the break point on the fe 17 line.  Never tried 4-tone ferrous but that would open up a few more iffy-deepies once learned.  You probably have more options I'd guess with your Nox on setup?  No experience with a Nox.  Anyways...just wanted to comment on the 2-tone ferrous, might not get em all but 2TF gets a lot and won't fry the brain listening to multi-tone by the end of the day either...jmo

Thinking about it I guess I can understand Monte in a lot of ways, he's old school, learns what he uses well and continues to use what has worked for him.  I no longer coinshoot but should I return it'll be with my Etrac as I feel I've paid my dues learning it and it works for me?  Just like swinging Tesoro for 22yrs...it worked at the time and I knew no different?  Same with the Goldmonster...I absolutely love that thing and nowdays nobody thinks squat about the Monster anymore.  I'll swing a Monster till the bitter end...lol

get some more and have fun.........

[GB_Amateur]

Got some time today so I'll finish up the trip report.  A long drive (for me -- ~700 miles) back to the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, getting to camp (my sister and partner had set up) before dark.  And a nice change in weather....

Altitude is such a big factor.  The previous week in NE Nevada, on Friday it was 100 F (38 C) less than an hour's drive East (in Wendover, at 4300 ft = 1.3 km altitude) from where I was camping and detecting yet I don't think it reached 90 F (32 C) at 5600 ft (1.7 km, first campsite) - 5900 ft (1.8 km, second campsite where I was on Friday).  Breeze/wind was appreciated, too.  In Colorado we were camped at 10,600 ft (3.23 km) and the improvement was quite noticeable -- warm (not hot) all day in the thin atmosphere sun, at Summer Solstice, but two nights got down below freezing.  Fortunately in my vehicle (in a sleeping bag) I was toasty warm.

On Monday I headed for the nearest National Forest office only to find it closed for the day.  (Why??)  Not giving up, I found the local library but they didn't have the old maps I was hoping to view but they sent me to someone who did, at the local history center.  That person was off for the day, too.  😞  Given the price of gas at the time I didn't really want to make a second trip so I winged it from there.  Before leaving home I had done the obvious internet searching (including at HistoricAerials.com) plus between my sister and me we had three books on Colorado ghost towns which included the one we were looking for.  But..., OK, I won't go into my usual long-winded experience other than to say such easy searching isn't really what it takes most times (including this time).  I spent the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday on foot trying to find some obvious marker (old foundations would be nice). 

One of the books had a photo from the 1860's with enough visual info (background mountains) to be my main source/hope.  That book also had geo-coordinates, but I think those were determined by interpolation on a USGS map and weren't particularly accurate.  To make matters worse, not having the NF info (thanks again, closed office) I was unsure where the public lands turned private.  There were sporadic fences and "Keep Out!" signs but even my limited amount of hoofing out West has taught me some people are loose with the rules and there usually aren't sufficient federal employees to keep them in line.  "Keep Out" isn't the same as "Private", and furthermore, where are the frigging boundaries??!!  I found a couple cabins but they were unoccupied, likely only used a few days per year for hunting, etc., so no one to ask permission (if it was even their right to give it).  About 50 meters from the book's geo coordinates was an old foundation which I'm almost certain was from the original town but it was very close to a cabin and was being used by the property owners as a storage spot.  I just had to trust that it was off limits.

By late Tuesday afternoon I was 90% sure I had located at least part of the town, and on an open meadow which wasn't fenced off nor held any signage.  Without info to the contrary, and not wanting to head home (1200 miles) without trying, I decided to detect there the following morning.  I don't know if it was good or bad that where I would be detecting was easily seen from a fairly busy county road, but so be it.  BTW, I did find two claim markers that (if I interpreted them correctly) included the area I was detecting, so collecting minerals, etc. was not going to be part of my actions.

Tuesday morning I hiked the 3/8 mile from camp to the meadow.  I was pleased to find a surface food can with a bottom center plug/seal, indicating a 19th Century origin.  I used the detector (ML Equinox w/6" coil) to search for trashy iron signals while occasionally clearing off surface iron (cans in particular) with my magnetic walking stick.  Less than a half hour in I got the more/less frequent hits I was looking for, confirmed by digging some square nails.  This wasn't a guarantee I found the town (which was abandoned prior to 1870).  As with the NW Nevada mining area, just because the town was dead didn't mean the mining stopped.  I had found some hardrock mines nearby (original town was founded due to placer mining) which, although inactive, had deteriorating structures with round cross section nails (interpretation 20th C. activity).

BTW, I had forgotten my handheld pinpointers so recovery was using the ancient method, slowing me down considerably.  But in the next hour I recovered what I think is a miner's tag -- more on that later.  Wanting that pinpointer I headed back for an early lunch, crossing paths with my sister with her White's MXT heading to the hoped to be garden spot (which I indicated the place I thought she should hunt).  When I got back she hadn't found anything other than trash.  I got busy and within 30 minutes a high teens signal, strong and sweet enough sounding, led to the best coin find of the entire trip.  A dark disk the size of a small cent got me interested, and a bit of water spritz revealed the prize -- I could see an Eagle quite clearly!  Besides a bucket-list find, I felt vindicated that I had indeed found part of the original town.  (Justification for that feeling is explained later in this post.)  Despite this quick find, I never recovered another coin in 3 more hours on Wednesday nor another hour on Thursday nor did my sister.  Lucky find?  IMO the evidence is pointing to 'yes'.

After one unsuccessful hour on Thursday morning back at the site of the Flying Eagle cent find, I decided to spend the remainder of the morning at a fallen miner's cabin on a (clearly marked) NF road before heading out a bit after noon.  When my sister and I had happened upon the remains of this cabin earlier in the week I only noticed round cross section nails so I figured it was depression era construction, but after beginning my search this morning I started seeing square nails.  Clearly someone had 'repurposed' a 19th Century dwelling -- a not uncommon practice in gold producing areas of the USA West.  Unfortunately I was unable to recover any goodies in ~1.5 hours of searching.  As typical, the sheet metal trash was plentiful and distracting.

Here are the unexciting targets:

Note the dominance of square nails over round.  That thing on the far right is an open ended cylinder (pipe?).  The tuning fork looking item on the third row center is non-ferrous copper alloy, but soft/bendable.  Any guesses as to its use?  The tag at center of top row wasn't at the ghost town site but rather at what appeared to be a modern (post WWII) horse riders' camp.

If you've been hanging on for the past week, here finally are shown what I consider the best finds of the trip (front and back sides):

The finds are arranged by site:  left three are from the 1900's NE Nevada railroad town, middle five are from the 1860's NE Nevada railroad town, and right two are from the 1860's Colorado mining town.  Here is what I (think I) know about them, from top to bottom and left to right:

1) cheapo ring has some gold plating and a glass or plastic 'stone'.

2) I think this decorative clip is from a woman's clothing, possibly for stockings, but it also could be from a man's suspenders.  It must have been meant to be viewed.  It has a 1907 patent date on the reverse.

3) This brass button has the stylized initials "P D Co", I assume a clothing manufacturer.

4) Saloon (/bar/tavern) token with generic obverse "Good for 5 (cent-sign) in trade" and identifying reverse "Sweeny and Worley - 320 K - Sacramento Cal" (I've taken the liberty to change case on most letters).  320 K is a street address, still in existence but the building is long gone.  A friend with Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com memberships helped me narrow this down.  Best evidence is a newspaper blip about Sweeny and Worley opening a tavern and restaurant at this address in 1901.  By 1904 Sweeny's name is still on the property (with now a hotel on the 2nd floor) but without Worley.

5) 1880 Indian Head cent.

6) strange iron piece for which I have no idea its purpose.  Identification help with this (and any other items) is appreciated.

7) Eagle cuff(?) button.  I haven't been able to discern the lettering on the reverse but very likely this was lost during the Indian Wars (and skirmishes) of the second half of the 19th Century.  It may have its origins earlier (e.g. Civil War) as I think professional soldiers often kept their uniforms as long as they were still wearable.

8 ) Badly worn (dateless) shield nickel.  This series was minted 1866-83.  There are chemicals (e.g. ferric chloride) that can produce a ghost date sometimes -- I haven't tried that yet.

9) Miner's tag?  I know at some mines, when a miner was going underground, he would take a numbered tag off a hook on the wall and record in the logbook the tag number next to his name.  Possibly this is what this item was used for.

10) Saved the best, or at least my favorite, for last.  😃  The condition when lost appears to be Very Fine, but unfortunately the ground/soil has deteriorated the date a bit, particularly the most important right hand digit.  However, there was a small letter variety (obverse) which was only found on 1858 cents and mine exhibits that.  (I can see the top of the last digit so it's not an 1857, consistent with the small lettering evidence.)

Not only was this FE cent a bucket lister, but I think it vindicates me in claiming I found the original townsite.  Consider the following excerpt from Richard Snow's book (p. 65):

Although scarcer today than the 1857 cents, these (1858 dated coins) were distributed much more widely and are found more often in lower grades.  At the time of the Civil War coinage shortage (from the summer of 1862 to early 1863) these were largely removed from circulation, only to reappear after the war.  Any high-grade examples were probably held back from circulation at this time.  By the time of coinage redemption of the 1870's most were called in and melted.  The remaining pieces are either very worn or in very high grade.  Problem-free EF and AU coins are very scarce.  (emphasis mine)

Thus the time window for circulation of Flying Eagle Cents was limited to their mintage dates through the first half of the 1870's decade.  Add the fact that mine is in moderately high condition and my contention that it was dropped during this ghost town's occupation (pre-1866) is supported.  Note that this Snow quote confirms why many coin detectorists have had trouble finding this elusive issue.

The End, and I hope this exposure of the best finds was worth the wait.

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, oneguy said:

Thinking about it I guess I can understand Monte in a lot of ways, he's old school, learns what he uses well and continues to use what has worked for him.

He can (and usually does 😏) speak for himself.  But here's a personal experience which might explain at least part of his preference:

In the Spring I was prepping for my trip West with the Tesoro Vaquero and 6" coil.  I went to a well hunted (by me and others) park to train my ear, sweep speed, etc.  I was in front of what looks like a wishing well but was actually an drinking fountain built in the 1930's by a Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) crew.  If you think about it, who with a detector that noticed this landmark would ever not think about searching around it.  (Well, maybe if you figured it had been beaten to death.)  I'm sure I'd been there at least twice with the Minelab Equinox and 11" coil.  The Vaquero pulled out two shallow Wheat pennies among rather thick (but not as bad as out West) trash. 

Monte's Nail Board Perforance Test aparatus, as many know, was simply a copy of a real life situation he encounted -- surface Indian Head penny among several surface nails.  That setup seems to be where the Tesoros are king, particularly his favorite Tesoro models.  No detector is best in every situation and Monte knows that.  But in this modern day of digital detectors he apparently feels he's one of the few who still speaks for the analogs and their concentric coils.  I count myself among those who respect him for that.