AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
It's amazing how a hunt can go from skunky to awesome in a matter of seconds, and at the last moment! I got home from work relatively early today, and I figured I'd have plenty of time to get some detecting in before I had to get back home for my daughter getting home from school. Well, a comedy of errors conspired to whittle away my time, and I suddenly found myself with only about an hour to hunt...including drive time! Since time was short, I decided to opt for convenience - I went down to a local park that is generally trashy and well hunted. I've still eeked out the occasional good find, but it's been getting harder and harder to come back with anything from the site.
I had my gear strapped on by 2:35, my alarm set for 3:20 to hightail it home, and started swinging with pretty low expectations. And sure enough, it was starting to look like one of those days - by 3pm I was getting skunked hard. Barely any signals even worth investigating, and those that were ended up as junk.
And then my good luck charm drove past You see, this park happens to be along fellow forum member Dan B.'s path to work - and it's bizarre, but every time he's stopped or driven past while I'm hunting there, I have or end up with a nice find out of the place. So at about 3pm, I hear a honk from the road, and I look up just in time to see his truck cruise by on his way to work. Knowing that my time was running out and my pouch had nothing but junk, I thought to myself, "Well, this might be the end of that streak".
But I had 15-20 minutes left, so I decided to try something different and moved to a new-to-me section of the park. Within a few minutes, I hit on a really nice high tone, bouncing just slightly between 88-91 and showing 6" depth - the sound was unmistakably a coin. I assumed it was a quarter - but what kind? I dug the plug, and popped out the coin from a full 6" down - no shiny, but big! It was heavily caked with dirt, but I knew right away - Large Cent! This hunt had officially gone from skunky to awesome in no time flat!! This is the second Large Cent I've gotten out of this same park - I dug one in February just below the surface while I was still using my Ace. While I was taking my field pictures, a text came through from Dan letting me know he saw me and inviting me to hunt one of his permissions with him again, so I sent him a shot to give him the first look at the Largie
Anyways, clean up at home with a toothpick revealed an 1838 Coronet Liberty Head Large Cent - my new oldest coin! As sometimes happens, the date was almost easier to read before cleaning - oblique lighting still shows the date fairly well though. The pics below show the full hunt (like I said, there were very few worthwhile signals), and the Largie both before and after cleaning.
Thanks for looking!
I had my gear strapped on by 2:35, my alarm set for 3:20 to hightail it home, and started swinging with pretty low expectations. And sure enough, it was starting to look like one of those days - by 3pm I was getting skunked hard. Barely any signals even worth investigating, and those that were ended up as junk.
And then my good luck charm drove past You see, this park happens to be along fellow forum member Dan B.'s path to work - and it's bizarre, but every time he's stopped or driven past while I'm hunting there, I have or end up with a nice find out of the place. So at about 3pm, I hear a honk from the road, and I look up just in time to see his truck cruise by on his way to work. Knowing that my time was running out and my pouch had nothing but junk, I thought to myself, "Well, this might be the end of that streak".
But I had 15-20 minutes left, so I decided to try something different and moved to a new-to-me section of the park. Within a few minutes, I hit on a really nice high tone, bouncing just slightly between 88-91 and showing 6" depth - the sound was unmistakably a coin. I assumed it was a quarter - but what kind? I dug the plug, and popped out the coin from a full 6" down - no shiny, but big! It was heavily caked with dirt, but I knew right away - Large Cent! This hunt had officially gone from skunky to awesome in no time flat!! This is the second Large Cent I've gotten out of this same park - I dug one in February just below the surface while I was still using my Ace. While I was taking my field pictures, a text came through from Dan letting me know he saw me and inviting me to hunt one of his permissions with him again, so I sent him a shot to give him the first look at the Largie
Anyways, clean up at home with a toothpick revealed an 1838 Coronet Liberty Head Large Cent - my new oldest coin! As sometimes happens, the date was almost easier to read before cleaning - oblique lighting still shows the date fairly well though. The pics below show the full hunt (like I said, there were very few worthwhile signals), and the Largie both before and after cleaning.
Thanks for looking!
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