AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
Sometimes it’s just plain better to be lucky than good! And better yet, sometimes what seems like bad luck turns out to be good…
I had a couple hours to spare Thursday for a hunt, so I decided to hit a new-to-me park about a 20 minute drive to my west. I’m not really sure why I’ve never bothered to detect it before - it’s definitely got some age to it, and it’s been on my mental list to visit, but for one reason or another I’ve always skipped it in favor of someplace else. Regardless, the place is no secret, so it’s certainly been pounded over the years by countless other detectorists, and I wasn’t expecting much.
Sure enough, the first 10 or 15 mins or so were awful. A couple pieces of shallow modern clad, and no hint of any deeper signals at all…to the point I started suspecting something wasn’t right. Like a smack in the face, I suddenly remembered…I had turned my sensitivity way down to 10 from 22 doing some experimenting in the house before I left.
I called myself an idiot, then retraced my steps as best I could, and started over after rechecking all my settings!
Another 15 minutes and a couple more clad coins into the hunt, and I got over a classic Zincoln signal. The machine was hinting that the target might have a little more depth than the usual modern penny, but I had no real reason to believe it wasn’t my fourth zinc penny of the day. So I was pleasantly surprised to pull a 1919 Wheat out of the hole from maybe 4-5 inches down! (Many early Wheats read in the Zincoln range even out of the hole - I figure it has to do with inconsistent planchet composition maybe?)
While cutting the plug for that find, I started hearing a new tone in my earbuds…the intermittent warning tone that they were running out of charge. Double idiot!! I forgot to recharge them after the previous hunt! No worries, I’ll grab the back up pair from my backpack in the car. Triple idiot!! I left the backup pair at the house…charging!
“Ah well, I’ll keep going until they crash.” (I won’t hunt without headphones/earbuds in most situations for a multitude of reasons).
Back to hunting while I could and another 15 minutes later, I got over an odd signal bouncing between 20-22 on the Equinox TID, showing about the same depth as the Wheat. There was even a bit of an inconsistent iron grunt mixed in, but not enough to dissuade me from checking it out. Fully expecting an old Pepsi twist top or something, I was shocked to bring a silver dime out of the hole!
I saw the back first as soon as it came out of the the ground, and with the prominent “One Dime” and wreath, I was instantly ecstatic…”that’s a Barber!!” I broke out my spray bottle and started hosing it down to get rid of the dirt, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: “that’s no Barber…she’s a Seated!!”
Out of the hole, the coin rang up normally, but the hole itself was still showing a deep iron hit, so the Barber was clearly masked. I dug for a little bit to see if I could find it out of curiosity, but it was too deep to be worth it. It took some extra effort at home to remove most of the oxidation, but she cleaned up beautifully!! Anyway, the signal wasn’t particularly difficult or deep, it just didn’t have a sexy number assigned to it. I figure countless folks walked over it thinking it was a Zincoln or other trash…same for the Wheat.
Soon after that, the earbuds flatlined. I was up against a time limit, so I decided to save the rest of the park for another day. But if I drove home and grabbed my other earbuds, I would still have maybe 45 mins to hunt a different location closer to home.
Armed now with a fully charged pair of earbuds, I hit site #2. It’s a old home site that’s been turned into a park, and one section in particular is separated a bit from the rest by a tree line, and unless you do your research, you wouldn’t realize it was both part of the park and part of the former home property. I love the spot because it’s dominated by a natural band of sand/soil mix - super easy digging and the detector punches pretty deep. I’ve detected the location a couple times earlier this year and found some interesting stuff, but it seemed to be drying up the last time I was there. Still, I figured it’d be fun to try again, especially since the previous hunts were with my old control pod which may have already been having problems.
The first target came from a full 10” measured depth before my fingers could touch it and bouncing between the upper teens and low 20s on the TID. It looks like some sort of large brass clip - maybe a sash buckle just without the usual fancy scrolling? Next was a small oddball shotshell ringing up a solid 14 only a couple inches down, a Remington 410 - 12 m/m. Never saw one like that before.
Then came the real heart stopper. A compact and solid 17 signal with occasional flickers up to 18, but the detector was indicating it was pretty much on the surface and the sound matched that assessment. This section of the park has always been remarkably free from modern trash, but I assumed this was going to be one of the rare square tabs. When I stooped down to get it out of the way, the pinpointer confirmed that it was close to the surface, which was covered with a layer of dead grass clippings in between the tufts of growing grass. I flipped up a tuft of the dead grass in preparation to poke the ground with my probe, and a tiny thin brown disk lifted off the soil surface along with it. “Oh, a play coin,” I thought as I picked it up to examine it - but straining my eyes to see through the crud I was in disbelief to see a very distinctive large C surrounding a Roman numeral III!! “No it isn’t!!!”
A freakin’ Trime, basically sitting on the surface!!
Absolutely no skill required! Who says Trimes are hard to find…they’re just littered on the surface here in NW Ohio (Tom_in_CA is gonna lose his mind!!) The pic below shows the pinpointer pointing towards the little tuft of dead grass that the Trime was hiding under. I immediately texted a picture to fellow FMDF member Dan B. to share my excitement, as has been my habit lately. The Trime proved much more difficult to clean than most other silvers, taking me over three hours to work through the crust and oxidation. But I think it turned out fantastic…even revealing the 1853 date!
Soon after that, things got pretty weird (like a Trime sitting on the surface isn’t weird, right?). I got a great high tone, showing moderate depth…thinking quarter, I ended up having to dig deeper than expected and came up with a large brass item with a cool crest and some Latin phrases across the front. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I knew it was going to be interesting to research!
A few minutes later, I got a massive, jumpy high tone, and clearly pretty shallow. I figured it had to be an aluminum can, and I dug it only because I wanted to get it out of the way and maybe uncover targets below it. Well, out pops a massive belt buckle with a green patina!!
And I recognized it immediately when I saw the large script letters “P” and “M”….Dan B. had just found one of these a couple months ago!! (Here’s a link to the FMDF post about his find: Odd Fellows Sword Buckle Plate) It’s a Patriarchal Militant Odd Fellows uniform buckle. Plus, the crest exactly matched the one on the other item I had just found! The coincidence was downright bizarre, and I texted a pic to Dan B. again, “You’re not going to believe this, but it looks like we’re twins!” Using the old uniform picture he sent back to me, I suddenly realized that the other item was a sword hanger, visible just to the right of the buckle in the pic! Apparently I’ve gotta keep a look out for a sword…no worries, I’m sure it’s just laying on the ground there somewhere!!
Pics below show all the finds together before cleaning, the silver close up after just a soap and water bath, then after full cleaning, and a comparison of the thickness between the Trime and the Seated Dime…I still can’t believe how thin it is!!
Anyways, this was perhaps my most amazing - and incredibly lucky - day of detecting yet. I’m sure glad I forgot to charge my earbuds, otherwise I never would have switched sites and missed out on the Trime and other goodies. It all goes to show that often times location and dumb luck are at least as important as equipment or skill in this hobby!
I had a couple hours to spare Thursday for a hunt, so I decided to hit a new-to-me park about a 20 minute drive to my west. I’m not really sure why I’ve never bothered to detect it before - it’s definitely got some age to it, and it’s been on my mental list to visit, but for one reason or another I’ve always skipped it in favor of someplace else. Regardless, the place is no secret, so it’s certainly been pounded over the years by countless other detectorists, and I wasn’t expecting much.
Sure enough, the first 10 or 15 mins or so were awful. A couple pieces of shallow modern clad, and no hint of any deeper signals at all…to the point I started suspecting something wasn’t right. Like a smack in the face, I suddenly remembered…I had turned my sensitivity way down to 10 from 22 doing some experimenting in the house before I left.
I called myself an idiot, then retraced my steps as best I could, and started over after rechecking all my settings!Another 15 minutes and a couple more clad coins into the hunt, and I got over a classic Zincoln signal. The machine was hinting that the target might have a little more depth than the usual modern penny, but I had no real reason to believe it wasn’t my fourth zinc penny of the day. So I was pleasantly surprised to pull a 1919 Wheat out of the hole from maybe 4-5 inches down! (Many early Wheats read in the Zincoln range even out of the hole - I figure it has to do with inconsistent planchet composition maybe?)
While cutting the plug for that find, I started hearing a new tone in my earbuds…the intermittent warning tone that they were running out of charge. Double idiot!! I forgot to recharge them after the previous hunt! No worries, I’ll grab the back up pair from my backpack in the car. Triple idiot!! I left the backup pair at the house…charging!
“Ah well, I’ll keep going until they crash.” (I won’t hunt without headphones/earbuds in most situations for a multitude of reasons).Back to hunting while I could and another 15 minutes later, I got over an odd signal bouncing between 20-22 on the Equinox TID, showing about the same depth as the Wheat. There was even a bit of an inconsistent iron grunt mixed in, but not enough to dissuade me from checking it out. Fully expecting an old Pepsi twist top or something, I was shocked to bring a silver dime out of the hole!
I saw the back first as soon as it came out of the the ground, and with the prominent “One Dime” and wreath, I was instantly ecstatic…”that’s a Barber!!” I broke out my spray bottle and started hosing it down to get rid of the dirt, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: “that’s no Barber…she’s a Seated!!”
Out of the hole, the coin rang up normally, but the hole itself was still showing a deep iron hit, so the Barber was clearly masked. I dug for a little bit to see if I could find it out of curiosity, but it was too deep to be worth it. It took some extra effort at home to remove most of the oxidation, but she cleaned up beautifully!! Anyway, the signal wasn’t particularly difficult or deep, it just didn’t have a sexy number assigned to it. I figure countless folks walked over it thinking it was a Zincoln or other trash…same for the Wheat.
Soon after that, the earbuds flatlined. I was up against a time limit, so I decided to save the rest of the park for another day. But if I drove home and grabbed my other earbuds, I would still have maybe 45 mins to hunt a different location closer to home.
Armed now with a fully charged pair of earbuds, I hit site #2. It’s a old home site that’s been turned into a park, and one section in particular is separated a bit from the rest by a tree line, and unless you do your research, you wouldn’t realize it was both part of the park and part of the former home property. I love the spot because it’s dominated by a natural band of sand/soil mix - super easy digging and the detector punches pretty deep. I’ve detected the location a couple times earlier this year and found some interesting stuff, but it seemed to be drying up the last time I was there. Still, I figured it’d be fun to try again, especially since the previous hunts were with my old control pod which may have already been having problems.
The first target came from a full 10” measured depth before my fingers could touch it and bouncing between the upper teens and low 20s on the TID. It looks like some sort of large brass clip - maybe a sash buckle just without the usual fancy scrolling? Next was a small oddball shotshell ringing up a solid 14 only a couple inches down, a Remington 410 - 12 m/m. Never saw one like that before.
Then came the real heart stopper. A compact and solid 17 signal with occasional flickers up to 18, but the detector was indicating it was pretty much on the surface and the sound matched that assessment. This section of the park has always been remarkably free from modern trash, but I assumed this was going to be one of the rare square tabs. When I stooped down to get it out of the way, the pinpointer confirmed that it was close to the surface, which was covered with a layer of dead grass clippings in between the tufts of growing grass. I flipped up a tuft of the dead grass in preparation to poke the ground with my probe, and a tiny thin brown disk lifted off the soil surface along with it. “Oh, a play coin,” I thought as I picked it up to examine it - but straining my eyes to see through the crud I was in disbelief to see a very distinctive large C surrounding a Roman numeral III!! “No it isn’t!!!”
A freakin’ Trime, basically sitting on the surface!!
Absolutely no skill required! Who says Trimes are hard to find…they’re just littered on the surface here in NW Ohio (Tom_in_CA is gonna lose his mind!!) The pic below shows the pinpointer pointing towards the little tuft of dead grass that the Trime was hiding under. I immediately texted a picture to fellow FMDF member Dan B. to share my excitement, as has been my habit lately. The Trime proved much more difficult to clean than most other silvers, taking me over three hours to work through the crust and oxidation. But I think it turned out fantastic…even revealing the 1853 date!Soon after that, things got pretty weird (like a Trime sitting on the surface isn’t weird, right?). I got a great high tone, showing moderate depth…thinking quarter, I ended up having to dig deeper than expected and came up with a large brass item with a cool crest and some Latin phrases across the front. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I knew it was going to be interesting to research!
A few minutes later, I got a massive, jumpy high tone, and clearly pretty shallow. I figured it had to be an aluminum can, and I dug it only because I wanted to get it out of the way and maybe uncover targets below it. Well, out pops a massive belt buckle with a green patina!!
And I recognized it immediately when I saw the large script letters “P” and “M”….Dan B. had just found one of these a couple months ago!! (Here’s a link to the FMDF post about his find: Odd Fellows Sword Buckle Plate) It’s a Patriarchal Militant Odd Fellows uniform buckle. Plus, the crest exactly matched the one on the other item I had just found! The coincidence was downright bizarre, and I texted a pic to Dan B. again, “You’re not going to believe this, but it looks like we’re twins!” Using the old uniform picture he sent back to me, I suddenly realized that the other item was a sword hanger, visible just to the right of the buckle in the pic! Apparently I’ve gotta keep a look out for a sword…no worries, I’m sure it’s just laying on the ground there somewhere!!
Pics below show all the finds together before cleaning, the silver close up after just a soap and water bath, then after full cleaning, and a comparison of the thickness between the Trime and the Seated Dime…I still can’t believe how thin it is!!
Anyways, this was perhaps my most amazing - and incredibly lucky - day of detecting yet. I’m sure glad I forgot to charge my earbuds, otherwise I never would have switched sites and missed out on the Trime and other goodies. It all goes to show that often times location and dumb luck are at least as important as equipment or skill in this hobby!
