West Jersey Detecting
Gold Member
The Best Things In Life Are Not Always Silver & Gold
Back at the turn of the last century, people would flock to Southern New Jersey from the city of Philadelphia for summer vacations. They came to picnic or swim in one of the many beautiful lakes or to have fun at one of the areas amusement parks. Many of these places are near my home, and all but one (Clementon Park) have been overcome by suburban sprawl or closed due to insurance liabilities. I have had limited success at some of the other area parks finding Barber Dimes, Quarters, Halfs and one beach tag. But one park had eluded me. The lake had been drained many years ago making it more difficult to identify this particular site . I had searched all around the lake over the last 3 years searching, but had no luck until recently, when I found some new information.
Last week I was granted permission to detect the site. I knew it would be difficult to detect this time of year with the ticks and underbrush, but how could I sit on this new information until November?
So I ventured out this weekend to the site. It was too overgrown to detect most of the area, so I stuck to a 500 square foot area that was not too bad. I detected the dried up lake bed under what was once a diving platform. Within minutes I was getting signals, and the first thing I dug was exactly what i was looking for. A beach tag with the name of the park, Pillings on it! Then the tags started coming, left and right! In total I dug eleven tags.
You can see the history of the tags by the photos. The earliest ones are the round brass tags which date from around 1900 to the 1920's; the ovals are from the 1920's to 1930's (one is dated 1927); the clip on types (which must have had labels on them at one time) from the 1940's. The remaining small clips are from the more modern cardboard type, most likely from the 1950's and 1960's when the park closed.
I also dug a 1943 P "silver" war nickel, the 1914 Barber Quarter, some yet to be identified wheat pennies, a possible Indian Head, and the silver bangle.
To me, digging up local history is more valuable than precious metals! This was a very exciting outing!
Back at the turn of the last century, people would flock to Southern New Jersey from the city of Philadelphia for summer vacations. They came to picnic or swim in one of the many beautiful lakes or to have fun at one of the areas amusement parks. Many of these places are near my home, and all but one (Clementon Park) have been overcome by suburban sprawl or closed due to insurance liabilities. I have had limited success at some of the other area parks finding Barber Dimes, Quarters, Halfs and one beach tag. But one park had eluded me. The lake had been drained many years ago making it more difficult to identify this particular site . I had searched all around the lake over the last 3 years searching, but had no luck until recently, when I found some new information.
Last week I was granted permission to detect the site. I knew it would be difficult to detect this time of year with the ticks and underbrush, but how could I sit on this new information until November?
So I ventured out this weekend to the site. It was too overgrown to detect most of the area, so I stuck to a 500 square foot area that was not too bad. I detected the dried up lake bed under what was once a diving platform. Within minutes I was getting signals, and the first thing I dug was exactly what i was looking for. A beach tag with the name of the park, Pillings on it! Then the tags started coming, left and right! In total I dug eleven tags.
You can see the history of the tags by the photos. The earliest ones are the round brass tags which date from around 1900 to the 1920's; the ovals are from the 1920's to 1930's (one is dated 1927); the clip on types (which must have had labels on them at one time) from the 1940's. The remaining small clips are from the more modern cardboard type, most likely from the 1950's and 1960's when the park closed.
I also dug a 1943 P "silver" war nickel, the 1914 Barber Quarter, some yet to be identified wheat pennies, a possible Indian Head, and the silver bangle.
To me, digging up local history is more valuable than precious metals! This was a very exciting outing!
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