terpfan
Bronze Member
- Oct 31, 2007
- 1,655
- 694
- Detector(s) used
- White's Matrix M6
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Hi everyone--
Its been a while my last post, mostly because I haven't been finding anything interesting. That changed this week, and I hope you'll bear with me as I recount the best 24 hours (over two days) I've ever had metal detecting.
I recently got permission to hunt a home site I've had my eyes on for a long time. There is a 1940's home on the 2 acre site, but I knew that an 1865 map showed another house on the same site. I was hoping to find remnants of the previous home. I spent the first afternoon basically covering the envelope around the existing house and was very disappointed. I mostly found lots of clad mixed with roofing nails from the slate roof of the house. I was starting to think the current home was sited in place of the old home, and I would be shut out.
The second afternoon is when things changed. The 1865 home site was dicovered at the very edge of the property. There I got lots of iron hits, and saw the beautiful old (undisturbed) dirt. I got a nice "soft edge" tone that was reading pretty deep. Out from 7" popped a toasted, green, fantastic 1796 Liberty Cap LC, my first ever Liberty Cap and oldest US coin.
I thought my heart would jump out of my chest! I'm not sure a date is visible, but several factors make me think it is a 1796. Anyone agree? The reverse is no help, as it is basically smooth. I kept searching and found what may be an aluminum dog tag (?), and an unidentified cut oval-shaped piece of copper that someone attempted to put a hole in. It was late in the day and I had to leave.
The next day I went right back to the area of the LC. Less than 15' from the plug of the Liberty cap the M6 gave me a screaming 90's signal. I was absolutely sure that it was a buried soda can, but I needed to clear it from the ground. I cut a plug back and was stunned to see, about 5" down, the reeded edge of a large silver coin. Right next to it, were two more of the same! Three Morgan dollars, 1879, 1883-O, and 1889-O! I have never even found a silver half-dollar before, and in one plug there are 3 Morgan dollars! I believe they must be a small buried cache, as their positioning together does not suggest a random drop. You can see the stains that the coins left on each other in the hundred years they have been in the ground. The coins with the clean reverse and the clean obverse must have been the top and bottom of the "stack." There was no sign of a container that could have originally held the coins.
The last significant find came as a mixed signal, which usually means a nail with my M6. Sure enough, a nail was quickly located, but a scan of the excavated soil uncovered a sweet 1895 Barber quarter. This quarter still has some mint luster on it. Unfortunately you can see the little nick I put on the rim of the reverse. Ouch. The last picture is a group photo shows my best hunt ever. Thanks for making it to the bottom of my post. Hope everyone can experience the same thrill some day. Steve
Its been a while my last post, mostly because I haven't been finding anything interesting. That changed this week, and I hope you'll bear with me as I recount the best 24 hours (over two days) I've ever had metal detecting.
I recently got permission to hunt a home site I've had my eyes on for a long time. There is a 1940's home on the 2 acre site, but I knew that an 1865 map showed another house on the same site. I was hoping to find remnants of the previous home. I spent the first afternoon basically covering the envelope around the existing house and was very disappointed. I mostly found lots of clad mixed with roofing nails from the slate roof of the house. I was starting to think the current home was sited in place of the old home, and I would be shut out.
The second afternoon is when things changed. The 1865 home site was dicovered at the very edge of the property. There I got lots of iron hits, and saw the beautiful old (undisturbed) dirt. I got a nice "soft edge" tone that was reading pretty deep. Out from 7" popped a toasted, green, fantastic 1796 Liberty Cap LC, my first ever Liberty Cap and oldest US coin.
I thought my heart would jump out of my chest! I'm not sure a date is visible, but several factors make me think it is a 1796. Anyone agree? The reverse is no help, as it is basically smooth. I kept searching and found what may be an aluminum dog tag (?), and an unidentified cut oval-shaped piece of copper that someone attempted to put a hole in. It was late in the day and I had to leave.
The next day I went right back to the area of the LC. Less than 15' from the plug of the Liberty cap the M6 gave me a screaming 90's signal. I was absolutely sure that it was a buried soda can, but I needed to clear it from the ground. I cut a plug back and was stunned to see, about 5" down, the reeded edge of a large silver coin. Right next to it, were two more of the same! Three Morgan dollars, 1879, 1883-O, and 1889-O! I have never even found a silver half-dollar before, and in one plug there are 3 Morgan dollars! I believe they must be a small buried cache, as their positioning together does not suggest a random drop. You can see the stains that the coins left on each other in the hundred years they have been in the ground. The coins with the clean reverse and the clean obverse must have been the top and bottom of the "stack." There was no sign of a container that could have originally held the coins.
The last significant find came as a mixed signal, which usually means a nail with my M6. Sure enough, a nail was quickly located, but a scan of the excavated soil uncovered a sweet 1895 Barber quarter. This quarter still has some mint luster on it. Unfortunately you can see the little nick I put on the rim of the reverse. Ouch. The last picture is a group photo shows my best hunt ever. Thanks for making it to the bottom of my post. Hope everyone can experience the same thrill some day. Steve
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