DrJoePrime
Bronze Member
- Sep 9, 2007
- 1,535
- 948
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 2
- Detector(s) used
- XP Deus, White's Surfmaster Dual Field, Tesoro Sand Shark, Garrett ATX
- Primary Interest:
- Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
My heart is still beating fast from the memory!
This is an obvious seasonal carnival site adjacent to a heavily travelled highway. It's fenced in and I can't tell you how many times I've passed the site and literally drooled at the number of closely packed happy people enjoying themselves (and losing things!).
Four days ago I parked by the open gate and debated going in and asking the workmen for permission to search the two acre field covered in sawdust. They seemed very busy and I decided, in my shy way, to do a park instead. Yesterday, IT was my best choice. I had passed it and saw workers. I drew up my courage and drove right in there and parked next to two other vehicles. I casually walked over to a group of three workmen thinking: do the "Clint Eastwood" walk...no wait the younger "Clint Eastwood" walk. One of the workmen broke off and intercepted me. He gave some apologies about the work going slowly but he would have everything moved out today. Hmm...I was careful not to say anything to break his illusion that I was here on behalf of the owner. I asked about the locked gate and NOT being locked in. He stated that he always locked the gate upon leaving.
Thinking carefully about how to word this I decided on :"Is there any problem for me to metal detect the sawdust area?" He asked for how long and I said.."Oh about 45 minutes." He said. "Sure.. no problem"..AND I was IN!
He drove off leaving the gate unlocked. Now my heart was pounding! I took out my detector, digging tool and pinpointer and walked 1200 feet to the sawdust. I looked at my detector and there were only strange symbols on the screen....WHAT!!!....I pushed the on/off switch...NOTHING. As I walked back to the car I thought, "NOT NOW..please not now." I had spare batteries and with shaking hands got them installed and BEEP. YIPPIE!! Apparently I had left my detector on from the previous day's hunt..bummer..they had been fresh batteries too.
My first pass in the sawdust got me 4 strong signals, dime, dime, dime, quarter all in ONE SWEEP! I bent down and scraped the sawdust away. YEP three dimes and a quarter...all clad but what else did I expect with this site. Well, I did expect jewelery. I am so attuned to coin hits that concentrating on the poptab hits took amazing concentration. OK a VID of 25 (just like my last small gold ring)..this is the one. It's a dirty rectangular "golden" charm I place in my pocket and continue. a VID iof 85...gotta dig it..yep a clad quarter. How do you stop digging quarters? I'm too much of a newbie to know that skill.
Next lower VID was a nickel...date of 1977. Well I know getting nickels is a good sign. WAIT..maybe some of those dime signals were SILVER rings? Shoot, now what do I do. So I started digging everything! Most signals were less than a foot apart. Everything clad and pre 1982 pennies. My pocket was getting heavy. Had 20 dimes, 8 quarters, dozen pennies and still NO jewelery!
I was doing the perimeter of a rectangular outline and was getting quarter VIDS ...4 to a foot! My contact man just drove back in. I decided to not dig any of those quarters and save them for another day. I thanked him for his "help" and drove away my dream of detecting that place finally realized...at least partially.
Cleaning the coins at home gave me another surprise! One penny was a 1934 wheat and I also had a 1940 nickel. Those two coins mean more to me that all the rest of the loot which I consider battery money.
This photo is from Microsoft's Virtual Earth in bird's-eye view.
HH, Joe
This is an obvious seasonal carnival site adjacent to a heavily travelled highway. It's fenced in and I can't tell you how many times I've passed the site and literally drooled at the number of closely packed happy people enjoying themselves (and losing things!).
Four days ago I parked by the open gate and debated going in and asking the workmen for permission to search the two acre field covered in sawdust. They seemed very busy and I decided, in my shy way, to do a park instead. Yesterday, IT was my best choice. I had passed it and saw workers. I drew up my courage and drove right in there and parked next to two other vehicles. I casually walked over to a group of three workmen thinking: do the "Clint Eastwood" walk...no wait the younger "Clint Eastwood" walk. One of the workmen broke off and intercepted me. He gave some apologies about the work going slowly but he would have everything moved out today. Hmm...I was careful not to say anything to break his illusion that I was here on behalf of the owner. I asked about the locked gate and NOT being locked in. He stated that he always locked the gate upon leaving.
Thinking carefully about how to word this I decided on :"Is there any problem for me to metal detect the sawdust area?" He asked for how long and I said.."Oh about 45 minutes." He said. "Sure.. no problem"..AND I was IN!
He drove off leaving the gate unlocked. Now my heart was pounding! I took out my detector, digging tool and pinpointer and walked 1200 feet to the sawdust. I looked at my detector and there were only strange symbols on the screen....WHAT!!!....I pushed the on/off switch...NOTHING. As I walked back to the car I thought, "NOT NOW..please not now." I had spare batteries and with shaking hands got them installed and BEEP. YIPPIE!! Apparently I had left my detector on from the previous day's hunt..bummer..they had been fresh batteries too.
My first pass in the sawdust got me 4 strong signals, dime, dime, dime, quarter all in ONE SWEEP! I bent down and scraped the sawdust away. YEP three dimes and a quarter...all clad but what else did I expect with this site. Well, I did expect jewelery. I am so attuned to coin hits that concentrating on the poptab hits took amazing concentration. OK a VID of 25 (just like my last small gold ring)..this is the one. It's a dirty rectangular "golden" charm I place in my pocket and continue. a VID iof 85...gotta dig it..yep a clad quarter. How do you stop digging quarters? I'm too much of a newbie to know that skill.
Next lower VID was a nickel...date of 1977. Well I know getting nickels is a good sign. WAIT..maybe some of those dime signals were SILVER rings? Shoot, now what do I do. So I started digging everything! Most signals were less than a foot apart. Everything clad and pre 1982 pennies. My pocket was getting heavy. Had 20 dimes, 8 quarters, dozen pennies and still NO jewelery!
I was doing the perimeter of a rectangular outline and was getting quarter VIDS ...4 to a foot! My contact man just drove back in. I decided to not dig any of those quarters and save them for another day. I thanked him for his "help" and drove away my dream of detecting that place finally realized...at least partially.
Cleaning the coins at home gave me another surprise! One penny was a 1934 wheat and I also had a 1940 nickel. Those two coins mean more to me that all the rest of the loot which I consider battery money.
This photo is from Microsoft's Virtual Earth in bird's-eye view.
HH, Joe
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