County Courthouse Grounds

[Alchemist]

I've been eyeing up the 1934 county courthouse in my city and last week I got permission from the building committee to prospect the grounds. It took me four nights (about 3 hours each) to cover all the grassy areas. Attached photos highlight the following:
1943 Mercury Dime
1955 Canadian Dime
1911 Lincoln Cent
1939 Canadian Cent
1966 2 Cent Pfennig
US Sacagawea $1
(9) total wheaties
8.55 clad
a few curious junk trinkets


It was a fun hunt. I kinda was expecting to find more older coins, but I still feel it was a success. The committee board said it was an unusual request to metal detect the grounds. That's a possible sign that maybe it hasn't been hunted all that much, but who knows...

It might behoove me to go back

 

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[dig kzoo]

Hit it again and hit it hard! Nice finds.

 

[MUD(S.W.A.T)]

Holy crap,

I want to hunt my Courthouse property SOoooo bad.... Maybe I'll take it up with the committee. How would I go about doing that ??

Keep @ it and HH !!

 

[Alchemist]

Hit it again with a better machine than the bounty hunter

Without getting into a pissing match, it's not the unit I use that may have lead to the limited results. Keep in mind, the one thing this committee was concerned with was the depth I would dig (due to tele-comm lines and the such). I told them I would dig no lower than 6 inches, and I tried to keep to that (occasionally I'd go deeper, such as when I found 3 wheaties in one hole 9" down). Also, just because I took the effort to secure permission doesn't mean others have in the past. It may have been experienced hunting that allowed me to get the 2 silvers pieces and such that I did. Finally, I cherry picked the best repeatable signals, mainly those in the high silver range, but could have spent twice the time there digging all the other inconsistent signals if I wished (and I still may do that).

 

[dirtlooter]

I would hit it hard again, being respectful to the their wishes, just slower

 

[Alchemist]

"I want to hunt my Courthouse property SOoooo bad.... Maybe I'll take it up with the committee. How would I go about doing that ??"


I looked online at the members of the county board, each of them within certain departments. I figured the building committee would be the best place to start, and the peeps on that committee usually have their emails listed online. Email one of them to get the ball rolling. State your case. They may just give you the green light with an email. In my case, they offered me to make my pitch in person in front of the 6 person committee during one of there meetings. I brought some of my coolest coins I have found thus far to pass around, showed them the small trowel I'd use to dig to reassure them I wouldn't be using a front loader or something, and they quickly voted and granted permission (one member afterwards showed me around to point out the underground wiring and such).
There's nothing like digging with impunity on very open, very public and very official land. I loved it.

 

[Alchemist]

I would hit it hard again, being respectful to the their wishes, just slower

I might just do that, thanks. Maybe hit the areas from a different direction and such.

 

[wheatfinder13]

Very cool foreign coins

 

[jewelerguy]

cool race car

 

[unfound]

You cleaned up on that hunt !!! I'd hit that spot until there was only very faint patchy deep signals left.

 

[vpnavy]

Nice! Thanks for sharing...

 

[dohbart]

"I want to hunt my Courthouse property SOoooo bad.... Maybe I'll take it up with the committee. How would I go about doing that ??"


I looked online at the members of the county board, each of them within certain departments. I figured the building committee would be the best place to start, and the peeps on that committee usually have their emails listed online. Email one of them to get the ball rolling. State your case. They may just give you the green light with an email. In my case, they offered me to make my pitch in person in front of the 6 person committee during one of there meetings. I brought some of my coolest coins I have found thus far to pass around, showed them the small trowel I'd use to dig to reassure them I wouldn't be using a front loader or something, and they quickly voted and granted permission (one member afterwards showed me around to point out the underground wiring and such).
There's nothing like digging with impunity on very open, very public and very official land. I loved it.

This here is the coolest part of the story IMHO! Very cool hunt and great finds!