Sylth
Jr. Member
- Apr 11, 2008
- 35
- 0
- Detector(s) used
- White's M6 w/ Sunray Probe & a Bounty Hunter Lone Star
Yep; took a year of on/off detecting, clearing debris, and altogether figuring out where the inn stood, but a coin has finally been recovered! 
Some of you might recall my previous (old) post about finding the inn, and posting some of the things i'd recovered; up 'till now, it was more of the same. Random bits of glass, some pottery, the odd metal bit, etc. In fact, I went yesterday, and found some more oddities; such as a triangular piece of metal about a foot on the two shorter sides, with a curved lip on on edge. This was identified as a blade from a plow by my father, who was raised on a farm. Other notable things included a ring (i think it was a hitching ring for horses) and a foot long spike embedded in a nearby tree. As i finished detecting, I decided to take a moment and look around the area, to try to visualize the inn. This inn burned down in 1928, and if you read my old post it is completely overgrown. The one picture I can find of it shows nothing of its surroundings, merely that was somewhere around 50' by 20', give or take. As I looked, I happened to notice several trees that i'd just ignored up till now. These particular trees looked as if they had been burned; they were nothing but dead snags. Comparing where they were with the well, I realized that the area i'd been focusing most of my efforts, both in clearing brush and detecting, was where the house had actually stood; no wonder I was getting nothing but the odd bit of metal, and a ton of square nails! The house had burned on top of where I was detecting! Unfortunately, it was really getting dark, and i had to hurry back to my car, determined to come back the next day.
Well, work came and went today, and when I got home, it was really looking to storm
. I really wanted to get back to the site, if only to get one more attempt in before the rains made it too wet to detect (I have no idea how some of you can stand the mud/rain and detect! /shudder) On a whim, however, I decide to wait for my father to get home and invite him to go with me; it'd been a while since we last detected, and for some reason his old Compass Judge always out-performed my Whites Matrix M6. Well, it took some convincing, but he agreed to go with me; since he has trouble bending, i left my own detector behind, and just carried the camp shovel and digging knife. Arriving, we looked over the site, and agreed with what I'd determined previously; he even pointed out that the foundation would have been a hollow square, about 3' high judging from the picture. He then showed me some stonework that was still partially buried, stacked as if in a wall, that I'd never taken notice of before; this intact portion was almost in line with where we now thought the house might've been. Armed with this knowledge, we left the areas we'd been focusing on before, and struck out into where we believed the front yard to have been.
It was slow, but enjoyable. His judge did very well ignoring all the iron nails my M6 picked up, and he quickly picked up on a few loud hits; we then played 'guess what it is' for the nxt 30 or so min, finding some shotgun shells, half a horseshoe, and something we still dont know what it is; looks like the face of an old rotary telephone dial, but with only 4 largish holes. It was actually alot of fun; he'd get a hit, pinpoint it, and i'd attack it with the shovel; then go through the dirt with the knife. He was actually surprised at how much stuff was turning up (as well as the variety); he's not too big on relic hunting.
Then came THE hit. We'd just gone around the outside of a depression in the ground, caused by the roots of a tree when it fell. Funny enough, it was right next to a patch of tulips, planted who knows how long ago; He got the hit, a faint signal (I almost didnt dig it) SHUNK, SHUNK, SHUNK, SHUNK; 4 sides of the plug was cut, with teh shovel severing the roots. Up came the plug, up came the detected, showing the signal in the plug. Barely started shifting when a round disc came into few, covered completely in dirt. At the time, I didnt really know what it was; thought it was a coin, but it seemed unusually thick, and heavy, for any coin I'd seen of that size. And with all the dirt over it, It couldve been some bit of metal for all we knew. Still, it gave me (and my father; he was really into it now) the incentive to keep hunting, though we didnt find anything, and I made him late for dinner
At home, carefully put the coin in my ultrasonic cleaner, and let it go. Overall, it spent about an hour or so in the cleaner, being flipped, moved, rotated, whatever I thought would help it get cleaner, faster. When it was done (sry, but there STILL is some dirt that refuses to come off) I was just barely able to identify it. Barely. I mean, this thing is barely legible. In fact, since i'm never going to sell it, I'd like to ask for any advice on getting it cleaner. But o yea, the coin. Its a Flying Eagle Cent. Floored me when I saw the eagle on the front (my apologies for the scans; use your imagination, and you can see the eagle on the front
) Sadly, the date appears to be completely obliterated; on the plus side, without a date, I can take up more extreme measures of cleaning without worrying about it being an 1856.
Oldest penny Ive ever dug (even tho my father got the signal) and 2nd oldest coin to date (1853 half dime being the oldest). Great way to finish the day, and it proves to me that there are more coins to be found at this inn
HH, and thx for reading! (suggestions on cleaning would be greatly appreciated!!)
Some of you might recall my previous (old) post about finding the inn, and posting some of the things i'd recovered; up 'till now, it was more of the same. Random bits of glass, some pottery, the odd metal bit, etc. In fact, I went yesterday, and found some more oddities; such as a triangular piece of metal about a foot on the two shorter sides, with a curved lip on on edge. This was identified as a blade from a plow by my father, who was raised on a farm. Other notable things included a ring (i think it was a hitching ring for horses) and a foot long spike embedded in a nearby tree. As i finished detecting, I decided to take a moment and look around the area, to try to visualize the inn. This inn burned down in 1928, and if you read my old post it is completely overgrown. The one picture I can find of it shows nothing of its surroundings, merely that was somewhere around 50' by 20', give or take. As I looked, I happened to notice several trees that i'd just ignored up till now. These particular trees looked as if they had been burned; they were nothing but dead snags. Comparing where they were with the well, I realized that the area i'd been focusing most of my efforts, both in clearing brush and detecting, was where the house had actually stood; no wonder I was getting nothing but the odd bit of metal, and a ton of square nails! The house had burned on top of where I was detecting! Unfortunately, it was really getting dark, and i had to hurry back to my car, determined to come back the next day.
Well, work came and went today, and when I got home, it was really looking to storm
. I really wanted to get back to the site, if only to get one more attempt in before the rains made it too wet to detect (I have no idea how some of you can stand the mud/rain and detect! /shudder) On a whim, however, I decide to wait for my father to get home and invite him to go with me; it'd been a while since we last detected, and for some reason his old Compass Judge always out-performed my Whites Matrix M6. Well, it took some convincing, but he agreed to go with me; since he has trouble bending, i left my own detector behind, and just carried the camp shovel and digging knife. Arriving, we looked over the site, and agreed with what I'd determined previously; he even pointed out that the foundation would have been a hollow square, about 3' high judging from the picture. He then showed me some stonework that was still partially buried, stacked as if in a wall, that I'd never taken notice of before; this intact portion was almost in line with where we now thought the house might've been. Armed with this knowledge, we left the areas we'd been focusing on before, and struck out into where we believed the front yard to have been. It was slow, but enjoyable. His judge did very well ignoring all the iron nails my M6 picked up, and he quickly picked up on a few loud hits; we then played 'guess what it is' for the nxt 30 or so min, finding some shotgun shells, half a horseshoe, and something we still dont know what it is; looks like the face of an old rotary telephone dial, but with only 4 largish holes. It was actually alot of fun; he'd get a hit, pinpoint it, and i'd attack it with the shovel; then go through the dirt with the knife. He was actually surprised at how much stuff was turning up (as well as the variety); he's not too big on relic hunting.
Then came THE hit. We'd just gone around the outside of a depression in the ground, caused by the roots of a tree when it fell. Funny enough, it was right next to a patch of tulips, planted who knows how long ago; He got the hit, a faint signal (I almost didnt dig it) SHUNK, SHUNK, SHUNK, SHUNK; 4 sides of the plug was cut, with teh shovel severing the roots. Up came the plug, up came the detected, showing the signal in the plug. Barely started shifting when a round disc came into few, covered completely in dirt. At the time, I didnt really know what it was; thought it was a coin, but it seemed unusually thick, and heavy, for any coin I'd seen of that size. And with all the dirt over it, It couldve been some bit of metal for all we knew. Still, it gave me (and my father; he was really into it now) the incentive to keep hunting, though we didnt find anything, and I made him late for dinner
At home, carefully put the coin in my ultrasonic cleaner, and let it go. Overall, it spent about an hour or so in the cleaner, being flipped, moved, rotated, whatever I thought would help it get cleaner, faster. When it was done (sry, but there STILL is some dirt that refuses to come off) I was just barely able to identify it. Barely. I mean, this thing is barely legible. In fact, since i'm never going to sell it, I'd like to ask for any advice on getting it cleaner. But o yea, the coin. Its a Flying Eagle Cent. Floored me when I saw the eagle on the front (my apologies for the scans; use your imagination, and you can see the eagle on the front
) Sadly, the date appears to be completely obliterated; on the plus side, without a date, I can take up more extreme measures of cleaning without worrying about it being an 1856.Oldest penny Ive ever dug (even tho my father got the signal) and 2nd oldest coin to date (1853 half dime being the oldest). Great way to finish the day, and it proves to me that there are more coins to be found at this inn
HH, and thx for reading! (suggestions on cleaning would be greatly appreciated!!)
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