First Post - First Silver - Semi Key Date!

[Highline]

Hopefully this won't be long winded..

I got my metal detector in middle school and used it extensively at my parents - in the country on the site of an old house. The ground held an unbelievable amount of scrap iron and ZERO coins.
After a hiatus of almost 15 years, I took it back out last week to a house in town and found my first wheat penny! Fast forward one week to last night..

I have been doing some research on my town and found a 1903 plat book with this excerpt (below) on a now-gone town one mile away. You can see on the far left two black boxes marked "P.O" and "Store".



What the map doesn't show are the locust trees, thorny vines and weeds above my head. I could barely swing my detector but found a single coin (and a marble) at the site. Very exciting to pull my first silver and lo and behold, it's an 1896-O. Tougher date and in this grade is worth ~ $120. Thanks for looking.




P.S. I need some guidance with upgrading my current White's to something a little more robust. I would say I'm a coin/relic hunter and I need something that is good at identifying (and ignoring) iron. Something under $750, preferably.

 

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[Professor of Engineering]

Congratualtions on the nice silver recovery!

 

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[HighVDI]

Congrats! Great looking barber.

My vote is for a fisher f75, or technetics patriot. The f75 can be had with dst for $600, and it will do wonders around the trash. Same with the patriot....just might be a little chattery. Next vote would be a tesoro tejon.

 

[JerseyDigger19]

awesome semi key date! I would second the recommendations for the AT Pro or AT Max. those machines do a really good job separating good from iron in "zero" mode. It's also easy to pick up and detect with but you can still grow into it over time. someone mentioned the F75. that machine is a BEAST and deeper than the Pro but much harder to learn. with Deus in this price range you would be looking at a used basic "deus lite" setup which you can only control through the wireless headphones. I don't think you would enjoy that, and would definitely recommend AT Pro (or maybe the new AT Max) instead.