A Couple Firsts

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

Great reporting Steve.

Nice finds too.

Thanks for sharing.

[Steve Herschbach]

Thanks folks! It got more interesting today.

I have not found a silver now that I am detecting again this spring. I went to an area where I got a lot of the silvers from my Equinox silver report. I had hunted the area halfway well but I am getting a better hang of Equinox every time I use it, and so decided the area needed some gridding to see what I missed wandering around.

Since I was looking for silver and the area is both really trashy and not all that old (my oldest coins in this spot have been 30's and mostly 40's) I got more aggressive than ever with notching. I even notched out 39 and 40 to reduce noise from ferrous falsing, figuring I can use the horseshoe button to check questionable targets. I stayed at Recovery Speed 7 due to trash density. The machine ran crazy quiet like this, even in this dense modern trash.

Park 1 - Multi-IQ
50 Tones
Iron Bias 0
Detect Speed 7
Auto (Pump) Ground Balance
Sensitivity 22
All items from 21 on down rejected plus 39 & 40

No zincs, no nickels, and almost no trash at all. I gridded away for three hours and got 8 dimes, seven copper memorial cents (no wheatbacks) and a couple quarters. No silver. I am ready to quit but take one last row on my grid and get a 25ish signal, a little weak but good. I dig a pretty deep plug but the lower portion was left in the hole, pinpointer signaling a coin in the middle of the bottom. I stuck my digging tool down in and pried the hard soil apart and the bottom kind of popped apart as the dirt levered to one side. I spotted a silver dime. A first it would not register however as I did not know what I was looking at, until my brain finally recognized a Seated Dime! Another first, and at 1887 the oldest coin I have ever found in the U.S. I figure it was right at about 6" deep.

The dime has good sharp detail and I am thinking it will grade better than most. Then I turn it over AND SEE THE SCRATCH! I know I did not hit it with my Lesche digging tool, and its edges are too worn to make a scratch this sharp and fine. I think when I levered/popped that hard dirt apart a sharp little rock edge must have scraped along the coin. Don't know, but it does look like a fresh scratch so I am owning up to it. The good news I guess is an 1877S is not a super high value coin and so all I did was reduce the value of what might have been a $20-$25 coin. Still, I hate it when that happens!

The only mystery to me is what a coin so old was doing in that location, but I am not complaining.

[Vez]

Nice!  Congrats!!!!

[Chase Goldman]

Awesome and a beaut!

[Steve Herschbach]

A couple notes. Even at Recovery Speed 7 Equinox gets the depth in bad ground. I also think fast Recovery Speeds plus 50 tones does accentuate the tonal difference between nickels and square tabs. And I have no proof of this, just a gut feeling, but Equinox seems to not lose any appreciable depth from aggressive notching. These last settings were super quiet and would make a good "silver program" for places unlikely to have the oldest coins. Like 1930 and newer.

I sure like this detector! My ear just keeps getting better with it. Anyone giving up on Equinox with less than 100 hours is not really giving it enough of a chance. There is nuance and power here aplenty that reveals the more you use the machine.

[Dukester]

Awesome finds! 

[Mark Gillespie]

8 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A couple notes. Even at Recovery Speed 7 Equinox gets the depth in bad ground. I also think fast Recovery Speeds plus 50 tones does accentuate the tonal difference between nickels and square tabs. And I have no proof of this, just a gut feeling, but Equinox seems to not lose any appreciable depth from aggressive notching . These last settings were super quiet and would make a good "silver program" for places unlikely to have the oldest coins. Like 1930 and newer.

I sure like this detector! My ear just keeps getting better with it. Anyone giving up on Equinox with less than 100 hours is not really giving it enough of a chance. There is nuance and power here aplenty that reveals the more you use the machine.

100% agree on all points.  I truly enjoy detecting with this machine.  I love hearing all these success stories.  Everyone needs to keep in mind the good finds don't come every time out, regardless of what machine you use.  But the Equinox does give you an added edge.

 

[steveg]

Steve --

The firsts keep coming for you!  SEATED!  My favorite coins!  They are few and far between here in Oklahoma, and it's always nice when one shows itself in a plug/hole.  OUTSTANDING!

First V, first Indian, first Seated, first 1800s coin, and then bested by an OLDER 1800s coin...

I'd say you are killing it!

Steve

[Cabin Fever]

Awesome coin Steve!  You better be careful.  Your likely to get hooked on coin hunting if you keep this up.

 Very nice coin, and a hard one to get in most areas out West..

Bryan

[flakmagnet]

It is really fun to read about your hunts and the bonus is getting to see your settings.

I am really having fun with the Eq. too. I am hunting a park that is just littered with coins, it's unbelievable actually. But very few old coins and so far, no silver. I have been playing with Park1 and 2,  Field  1 and 2. If I get an interesting hit I switch through all four settings (after ground balancing them all etc.), and it is quite educational to listen to each Mode's response on the same target. Sometimes I will get an "iffy" but interesting sound. If I cycle through the four settings I find it helps clarify my decision to dig or not. I am about to try notching out bigger sections of the VDI and see how that goes as well. But today, without notching out zinc pennies, I just skipped digging the obvious 21's and concentrated on nickels, dimes, quarters and weird sounding hits.