Sometimes Previously Hunted Sites Open Up

[GB_Amateur]

I've been slow out of the gates for the 3rd year in a row, but hopefully I can follow through better than recently.  I do have some ideas for sites I haven't hunted (and if I'm real lucky, no one else has either).  But that needs to wait for summer.  In the meantime....

A site that has produced modestly (Wheaties and a few silver dimes) in the past has a previously closed area that's opened up.  I was able to get out last weekend and give the Manticore a chance.  Here's what I found in 3 hours:

The highlight is the four silvers, the best of those being the nearly uncirculated 1953-D Roosie.  It's a very common date+mintmark but a bonus is that it's from my birth year.  Wish I looked that good after 70 years.  Maybe being buried in the ground is an advantage!  😁 (On second thought, I'll find out about that soon enough....) 

The denomination breakdown is interesting but may not be terribly meaningful:  three 1-centers (two are Wheaties), nine 5-centers ('nickels), three dimes but two are silver (I'll take that ratio!), no 25-centers at all.  Only three of the nickels have dates later than 1964.  Has this area ever been searched?  And how long has it been 'uninhabited'?  Or did someone hunt it decades ago but ignored nickels, not wanting to dig beavertails?  Note I found more nickels than imposters (five folded-over beavertails, a couple pencil ferrules, and a misc. scrap of aluminum).  The shotgun butt (next to the padlock) is very likely from quite long ago given this area has been settled for longer than I've been alive.  The small item left of the padlock is a piece of junk jewelry, probably a broken off pierced earpiece (plated copper with a blue glass 'stone').  I didn't photograph all the trash targets, but that's 2/3 to 3/4 of them.

Surprisingly the two Warnicks (1943-P and 1943-S) show the gray patina that is representative of that population which have circulated but never been in the ground.  Usually the acid in the soil eats off that surface, leaving the white metal (silver) finish.  For one of the two I didn't even realize what it was until I got home and cleaned off the dirt.

Only one coin was even close to being challenging -- the Roosie was 7 1/2 inches deep.  I picked up a faint but clean signal with the Manticore 11" coil (All Terrain High Conductor mode).   While investigating I turned up the sensitivity from 17 to 21, then backed off to 19 for the rest of the hunt.  It definitely sounded louder at the higher sensitivity settings.  (In my test garden it seems going much higher than 18 smears out the VDI resolution, getting worse the higher the sensitivity.  That's why I've been using 17.)

Anyway, I'm not done there so hopefully I can show more goodies in the near future.  Quantity of hunts has been low but quality of finds the opposite!

 

[Heavy Metal]

When we go to our lucky land again...  we usually do it once vertical, other time horizontal...

 

And allways found something new.. ofcourse, if the land is promising 🙂

 

So.. good luck, my friend!

[JCR]

A successful and thoughtful hunt.

[F350Platinum]

Nice hunt GB,

Looks like you're doing well with the M-Core, great to see a post from you. Nice silver score!! 👍 Pretty good place if you got that in 3 hours. 🤔

[Valens Legacy]

Very nice hunt GB and glad to see you out there again. I enjoy reading about your hunts as I know that you have hit the same sites many times.

Good luck on your next outing and stay safe out there.

[strick]

What is it about 1964 nickels ? They must have made a lot of them...I have found so many of those....I was saving them but now I just throw them in the clad bucket...

strick 

[glacialgold]

Nice finds!

Those pencil eraser bands give me fits, showing up like solid nickel signals on both the Equinox and the Legend. Schoolyards are obviously rife with them -- it feels like kids must bring their pencils out for recess and fling them all over the place just to spite future detectorists.

[GB_Amateur]

3 hours ago, strick said:

What is it about 1964 nickels ? They must have made a lot of them...I have found so many of those....I was saving them but now I just throw them in the clad bucket...

My experience is similar, and yes, they did mint a lot (2.8 billion from two mints, each over 1 billion).  That's about six times as many as any previous year and still a record.  It wasn't until 35 years later that the billion mark was again exceeded by a single mint.  I think it relates to the change from silver to clad (although the 5 cent composition didn't change).  Congress was slow to make a decision so the mint kept putting out 1964 dated coins until well into 1965.  Bowers also mentioned hoarding of coins in general, related to the popularity of the new Kennedy half dollar.  Seems strange but he knows his stuff.

27 minutes ago, glacialgold said:

Those pencil eraser bands give me fits, showing up like solid nickel signals on both the Equinox and the Legend. Schoolyards are obviously rife with them -- it feels like kids must bring their pencils out for recess and fling them all over the place just to spite future detectorists.

Yes, that's a common find in school yards as well as parks.  I guess they brought them out in their pockets for recess, and then...  They don't always read as clean (TID-wise) as the typical nickel, but they are close enough for those of us who don't want to miss any of the 5-cent coins, especially the older ones (Buffies and V-s) which can read a tad low sometimes.

[rvpopeye]

Any day with silver in the pouch is a good day on the hunt. arrrrrrrr 🏴‍☠️

[mn90403]

On 3/20/2024 at 3:13 PM, GB_Amateur said:

it's from my birth year.

My birth year too!

Very nice hunt and writeup.  WTG