Frodov
Bronze Member
OH..... MY...... GOD!.......
Today, I got schooled! Saturday afternoon, the sun was shining, there was but a light breeze, (thankfully because it was a little on the cool side of warm) and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. This after two days of rain and one very cloudy damp ugly day that followed, today was gorgeous! I had the bug BAAAAAD today... I had to get out and do a little detecting. My dear wife Val knew it was coming and she pretty much just rolled her eyes when I said I wanted to go hunting, and rolled herself up in her "nap" blanket on the couch and said she'd see me when I got back. <grin> And I was OFF and RUNNING! The day before yesterday I, accompanied by my lovely wife, did a tour of holiday vacant schoolyard tot lots. I...er... "We" detected eight tot lots in 6 different locations in less than three hours. A whirlwind tour so to speak. Today I thought I might check out a few of the other schoolyards on the other end of town, one being just down the street from my house. I've detected this tot lot several times, but it's been a month or so since my last visit.. alas.. it must not have been long enough. Pulling only three coins for 12 cents out of the woodchips I thought I'd try my luck elsewhere. Loading up my trusty little steed (Ford Ranger Pickup) I relocated a few blocks away to an elementary school that I've been meaning to visit, but have only today gotten around to actually getting there.
Pulling up, I noticed that this particular tot lot was of the older variety, no woodchips here.. it was pea gravel. The sinking feeling only got a little worse when I noticed that the majority of the playground fixtures had been removed, leaving only two different sets of swings. It was still damp from the recent rains, and on top of that it was somewhat muddy as well. *sigh* I really didn't hold much hope of finding much if anything here. BOY WAS I IN FOR A SURPRISE!!!!
I've had experiences with metal detecting in gravel before, but not pea gravel. I've hunted in parking lots and baseball complexes where the gravel is considerably larger or at least coarser in nature, not so much dust and dirt (mud today). This Pea gravel would be a real pain in the keester to dig in the dry heat of summer.. with all that mud and dirt solidified into "concrete". Today however it was very loose and easy to move. Starting with the swings closest to my parking space I swept around the likeliest spots for loose change and pocket dumps.. and found a few coins. This cheered me up a bit and I was about to head across the dessert of mud and gravel to the other side to sweep around the other set of swings when I started getting targets. A quarter here, a nickel there, a penny, quarter, dime, dime, quarter, penny, dime...
? Then it dawned on me! What an Idiot I was to think this place would be a bust! The playground equipment had been removed!!! As in TORN DOWN, SCRAPED UP, and REMOVED! presumably to make way for newer play structures, but for the moment I had a window of opportunity that doesn't get opened up for most detectorists.. at least not very often. I had a clutter free sea of gravel with all the years of accumulated goodies that had lain buried around and beneath all that playground equipment.. just waiting for the likes of me to come along and liberate it from the dirt, rock and mud. OH... MY... GOD!!!! With eyes as big as a small child on Christmas morning, and a giddy tingling feeling coursing all through my being... and a smile that just would NOT dim, I set to sweeping a grid pattern across the seemingly barren playground.
Oh and DID I find goodies! Clad out the wazzoo! Tokens! Toys! BLING!.. and of course the ubiquitous omnipresent pull tabs. <smile> Can't go anywhere without them now can we? My only regret was that I got such a late start today, especially at this particular playground. I never left the house till sometime after 1:00PM this afternoon and didn't arrive at this spot until roughly 2:30... had a few errands to run as well while I was out. From 2:30 till sunset (5:19PM today) I was a tot lot sweeping, pea gravel pushing, clad collecting, giggling fool. I honestly lost count of all the coins and treasures I was finding, just sweeping, digging and sweeping some more. I probably spent as much or more time on my knees in the gravel than I did on my feet swinging my detector! It took the realization that it was getting dark (noticed the light from my bullseye actually lighting my targets enough for me to see them), and an empty feeling in my tummy for me to come back to the here and now. Slowly, with a heavy heart full of regret for knowingly leaving soooo many targets yet to be found.. and a HEAVY finds bag swinging on my belt, I made my way back to my truck, and to home.
I knew I had been away longer than was expected of me today when I noticed that dinner had already been consumed by my darling wife.. who got tired of waiting for my return.. At least she saved me some dinner too. But my spirits were still soaring from the fun and good luck I'd had today detecting. I think it even rubbed off on my somewhat sullen spouse because before long she was helping me sort through my goodies and counting the coins for me. Of course she noticed the ring right away! "silver!" she said. Yeah, but no hallmark or proof stamp on this little bling, but it's silver I'm sure.
Along with the one silver ring, there were a few other trinkets, one little locket photo pendant, a plastic pendant from Disney, a monogram letter M pendant, a bangle or two, metal buttons, some zipper pulls. There were more hair berets (plastic and metal closure types) than I could count, I had a double handfull of them before I came home, but I dumped them in the garbage can beside the playground, along with several soda and two beer cans I dug up, and a handfull of nails. I found probably, at least, two dozen pencils or pencil tips (erasure barrels), a handfull of cheap pens, lots and lots of foil candy and gum wrappers. Plastic toys kept popping up out of the gravel too, I only kept the one little soldier figure and the spider ring.. will go nicely with the plastic spider I found the other day..<grin>
There was one lone wheat penny.. a 1955 D.
;
;
I found a couple of foreign coins in the mix. One being a Ten Peso coin and the other a Ten Cruzado piece Anyone know how much a "cruzado" is in US currency? for that matter is the 1998 Ten Peso coin "new" or "old" Peso? <shrug>
I found a Kennedy Half today as well.. a Bicentennial edition.. making it only the second one I've ever found so far.. half dollar that is.
And then there were the tokens.. Car wash token, gaming token, a Chuck E Cheese token, and a Presidential token.. George Washington to be precise.. with a short history of the man on the reverse. I thought they were pretty cool.
And then there was everything together..
Made for quite a haul today.. I certainly had a blast finding all of it. All told I found (not counting the lone wheat penny and the two coins from south of the border) $13.05 in clad ... yeah.. that's some battery money! Or in my case, money towards the next vacation stay.<smile> With the coin totals, and all the other targets combined, I tentatively estimate my target count for today at close to or more than 300 individual targets. WOW! All in roughly three hours time.. I wouldn't be surprised if my back is sore in the morning. <grin> But I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!.. but I'd start earlier! I know I'll have to make another visit to that particular playground SOON.. before they install the new equipment. Perhaps tomorrow, or next weekend when, again, the children will not be there. (I just don't feel right detecting in or around a schoolyard when school is in session.. know what I mean?)
I hope everyone gets to have a day or two like I had today. It was a BLAST! And a real eye opener for me. I mean I went into this pea gravel lot thinking that I'd be lucky to find a target, and I hit the jackpot! Got to be an optimist! <grin>
Happy Hunting Everyone!
Frodov
Today, I got schooled! Saturday afternoon, the sun was shining, there was but a light breeze, (thankfully because it was a little on the cool side of warm) and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. This after two days of rain and one very cloudy damp ugly day that followed, today was gorgeous! I had the bug BAAAAAD today... I had to get out and do a little detecting. My dear wife Val knew it was coming and she pretty much just rolled her eyes when I said I wanted to go hunting, and rolled herself up in her "nap" blanket on the couch and said she'd see me when I got back. <grin> And I was OFF and RUNNING! The day before yesterday I, accompanied by my lovely wife, did a tour of holiday vacant schoolyard tot lots. I...er... "We" detected eight tot lots in 6 different locations in less than three hours. A whirlwind tour so to speak. Today I thought I might check out a few of the other schoolyards on the other end of town, one being just down the street from my house. I've detected this tot lot several times, but it's been a month or so since my last visit.. alas.. it must not have been long enough. Pulling only three coins for 12 cents out of the woodchips I thought I'd try my luck elsewhere. Loading up my trusty little steed (Ford Ranger Pickup) I relocated a few blocks away to an elementary school that I've been meaning to visit, but have only today gotten around to actually getting there.
Pulling up, I noticed that this particular tot lot was of the older variety, no woodchips here.. it was pea gravel. The sinking feeling only got a little worse when I noticed that the majority of the playground fixtures had been removed, leaving only two different sets of swings. It was still damp from the recent rains, and on top of that it was somewhat muddy as well. *sigh* I really didn't hold much hope of finding much if anything here. BOY WAS I IN FOR A SURPRISE!!!!
I've had experiences with metal detecting in gravel before, but not pea gravel. I've hunted in parking lots and baseball complexes where the gravel is considerably larger or at least coarser in nature, not so much dust and dirt (mud today). This Pea gravel would be a real pain in the keester to dig in the dry heat of summer.. with all that mud and dirt solidified into "concrete". Today however it was very loose and easy to move. Starting with the swings closest to my parking space I swept around the likeliest spots for loose change and pocket dumps.. and found a few coins. This cheered me up a bit and I was about to head across the dessert of mud and gravel to the other side to sweep around the other set of swings when I started getting targets. A quarter here, a nickel there, a penny, quarter, dime, dime, quarter, penny, dime...
? Then it dawned on me! What an Idiot I was to think this place would be a bust! The playground equipment had been removed!!! As in TORN DOWN, SCRAPED UP, and REMOVED! presumably to make way for newer play structures, but for the moment I had a window of opportunity that doesn't get opened up for most detectorists.. at least not very often. I had a clutter free sea of gravel with all the years of accumulated goodies that had lain buried around and beneath all that playground equipment.. just waiting for the likes of me to come along and liberate it from the dirt, rock and mud. OH... MY... GOD!!!! With eyes as big as a small child on Christmas morning, and a giddy tingling feeling coursing all through my being... and a smile that just would NOT dim, I set to sweeping a grid pattern across the seemingly barren playground.Oh and DID I find goodies! Clad out the wazzoo! Tokens! Toys! BLING!.. and of course the ubiquitous omnipresent pull tabs. <smile> Can't go anywhere without them now can we? My only regret was that I got such a late start today, especially at this particular playground. I never left the house till sometime after 1:00PM this afternoon and didn't arrive at this spot until roughly 2:30... had a few errands to run as well while I was out. From 2:30 till sunset (5:19PM today) I was a tot lot sweeping, pea gravel pushing, clad collecting, giggling fool. I honestly lost count of all the coins and treasures I was finding, just sweeping, digging and sweeping some more. I probably spent as much or more time on my knees in the gravel than I did on my feet swinging my detector! It took the realization that it was getting dark (noticed the light from my bullseye actually lighting my targets enough for me to see them), and an empty feeling in my tummy for me to come back to the here and now. Slowly, with a heavy heart full of regret for knowingly leaving soooo many targets yet to be found.. and a HEAVY finds bag swinging on my belt, I made my way back to my truck, and to home.
I knew I had been away longer than was expected of me today when I noticed that dinner had already been consumed by my darling wife.. who got tired of waiting for my return.. At least she saved me some dinner too. But my spirits were still soaring from the fun and good luck I'd had today detecting. I think it even rubbed off on my somewhat sullen spouse because before long she was helping me sort through my goodies and counting the coins for me. Of course she noticed the ring right away! "silver!" she said. Yeah, but no hallmark or proof stamp on this little bling, but it's silver I'm sure.
Along with the one silver ring, there were a few other trinkets, one little locket photo pendant, a plastic pendant from Disney, a monogram letter M pendant, a bangle or two, metal buttons, some zipper pulls. There were more hair berets (plastic and metal closure types) than I could count, I had a double handfull of them before I came home, but I dumped them in the garbage can beside the playground, along with several soda and two beer cans I dug up, and a handfull of nails. I found probably, at least, two dozen pencils or pencil tips (erasure barrels), a handfull of cheap pens, lots and lots of foil candy and gum wrappers. Plastic toys kept popping up out of the gravel too, I only kept the one little soldier figure and the spider ring.. will go nicely with the plastic spider I found the other day..<grin>
There was one lone wheat penny.. a 1955 D.
;;I found a couple of foreign coins in the mix. One being a Ten Peso coin and the other a Ten Cruzado piece
Anyone know how much a "cruzado" is in US currency? for that matter is the 1998 Ten Peso coin "new" or "old" Peso? <shrug>I found a Kennedy Half today as well.. a Bicentennial edition.. making it only the second one I've ever found so far.. half dollar that is.
And then there were the tokens.. Car wash token, gaming token, a Chuck E Cheese token, and a Presidential token.. George Washington to be precise.. with a short history of the man on the reverse. I thought they were pretty cool.
And then there was everything together..
Made for quite a haul today.. I certainly had a blast finding all of it. All told I found (not counting the lone wheat penny and the two coins from south of the border) $13.05 in clad ... yeah.. that's some battery money! Or in my case, money towards the next vacation stay.<smile> With the coin totals, and all the other targets combined, I tentatively estimate my target count for today at close to or more than 300 individual targets. WOW! All in roughly three hours time.. I wouldn't be surprised if my back is sore in the morning. <grin> But I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!.. but I'd start earlier! I know I'll have to make another visit to that particular playground SOON.. before they install the new equipment. Perhaps tomorrow, or next weekend when, again, the children will not be there. (I just don't feel right detecting in or around a schoolyard when school is in session.. know what I mean?)
I hope everyone gets to have a day or two like I had today. It was a BLAST! And a real eye opener for me. I mean I went into this pea gravel lot thinking that I'd be lucky to find a target, and I hit the jackpot! Got to be an optimist! <grin>
Happy Hunting Everyone!
Frodov
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i like hitting that gravel to but it hasnt been as good to me yet 
