1846 Historical House Dig

jgas

Silver Member
Apr 23, 2008
3,805
2,497
Midwesterner
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1
Detector(s) used
DFX, Pro 6000XL, SunRay Probe, Centech Pinpointer
Stopped by an 1846 Circa Historical home that is a county landmark and asked the big question, "Can I please detect your home?" The answer was yes by the nice lady who resides there with her husband. She said come out and help her find her long lost wedding ring. She proceeded to tell me where she thought it was lost and to tell me about the home.

Built in 1846 with hand made bricks and located on an Indian trail(now a main highway). I told her that me and my friend and my two daughters would come out and try to find her ring. Well it took me about a week of torture in anticipation of getting out there and putting coil to ground. Had a window betweeen the rain storms and work to get out and do some searching. Started at around 9:00am and began a grid in the area of the lost ring. This property is fairly huge with wooded areas and a large grassy area. It looks ideal for a good weeks worth of hunting at least.

My hunting partner Don began his search with the DFX and standard 9.5 coil. I was using the Whites Pro6000 with a bullseye coil. I was locating a few targets that could possibly be the ring and was about 20 feet away from Don when I heard a noise that made me flip my headphones off and toss them to the ground. It was Don screaming "Oh My GOD!!!" Several times in fact. I then ran over to him and looked in the hole that he had just dug and saw the distictive ONE CENT in the ground. Of course the happy dance was on for both of us. I told him to leave it there while one of my kids grabbed the camera from the car to capture the moment. After a few quick snapshots, Don decided to look at the front to see if he could see the date. He flipped the coin, knowing that the 1812 LC that I had found this year was encrusted and the date is hard to read. As he turned to coin over he saw that the face side was encrusted with dirt. But to his surprise he barely touched the dirt and and the crust fell right off and revealed the prize. An 1853 Large Cent with extremely fine detail. Too bad there is a nick out of the side and the face has a scratch. Don did neither of those marks during the dig though.

He said the DFX sounded off a bit scratchy at first but a repeatable signal in the penny/quarter range. Thinking nothing but clad because it was only 1 and 1/2 inches deep. But whammo...a nice first Large Cent for him. He was obviously freaked out by it all being that it was his very first 1800's era coin and a large cent to boot.

We went on to find one wheat(1946) and a clad dime, quarter and nickle to finish out this 6 hour hunt. Of course we found our fair share of zinc mason jar lids all over the property. My other daughter located some buttons that were attached to some sort of leather. 9 of them all together. I will post all of the those pics soon.

Oh yes, we did not locate the ring this time around, but we will try again soon, real soon..I will post further pics of all the other targets we discovered as soon as I get them cleaned up a bit.....HH jgas
 

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Upvote 0
Make sure you get under that big fat puffy bush in front of the house too ;D It can only get better......Congrat's :thumbsup:
 

wow

sweet find and more to follow I bet

Look forward to you all finding her ring :thumbsup:

sounds like some cool folks letting you hunt her place
 

Nice coin! I still haven't gotten enough nerve to go ask someone if I could metal detect their home/property.... But I'm working on it... I usually just drive by the house.... lol..... Looking for a phone number or something....

I have asked at the fairgrounds a few ballparks and what not, That seems to work pretty good. I almost ready to make the leap to a house or private property... :wink:
 

A great find JGas :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Congrats and WTG
 

Nice large cent.

That is some kind soil in that yard. Great detail on the coin to.

HH Jer
 

GREAT looking LC! :icon_sunny: Congrats on permission to hunt such a beautiful old place. No telling what you all are going to find there. Looks like a fun day!

Nana :wink:
 

Man, that LC came out looking good. None of the usual pitting that most have. That's a nice looking piece of property to hunt. My best finds have come from people's yards and I've been having pretty good luck getting permission lately. Unfortunately for me, there aren't any houses around here as old as that one.

Good luck with future hunts.
 

There are a few places I always look for rings. Under the clothes line, around the outside faucet or anywhere a woman would have washed her hands and any flower beds.
 

Great finds!! Congrats on your success - just goes to show that all you have to do is ask! With all of the history/treasure shows on TV anymore, I think people are a lot more receptive to it than many of us think - especially if they have lost something of value!!

Good luck on your future hunts - good to see you have the kids involved and finding their own treasures too!!

Captain
 

Nice find! I liked the pictures, especially the fresh dug, laying in the dirt pics.

Steve
 

Beautiful LC!! Your soil is VERY kind to coppas....Congrats! :D ....and great pics! :)

HH, Hank 8)
 

beautiful LC :thumbsup: man i got to find time to go hunt some ! congrats :thumbsup:
 

Awesome Large Cent!! :thumbsup: Its cool too that your kids are getting a great feel for history at such a young age!
 

Wow that is nice! congrats. I have found only 1 so far and you can barely tell what it is. Nice detail.
 

Nice find! I'm still trying to get past the 1920's.

Hope that ring and many more coins leap out at ya.

Looks like you need a couple more detectors for the rest of the crew.
 

Thanks for the replies all. As far as the permission goes to hunt, I just wing it and ask. All they can say is no, right. I have only been turned down once and that was because the guy was a detectorist himself and wanted to hunt it before I did. I find most people are reseptive to it, especially if they lost something that you can find or they just like to see the history unflod from the ground. By the way, I showed the 1853 LC to the owner and he just said good luck and I hope you find more. Very nice person. I will be back. In fact I am posting the button pic in hopes tht someone can tell me what the heck they are. Thanks again for the kind replies.... ;D jgas
 

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