Bad luck at 1860s park: hunted out or trash masking?

BanjoBobby said:

....Do you more experienced diggers think this pattern is more consistent with a previoulsy hunted out park, or trash masking the good stuff?....

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Welcome from CA.

Unless an experienced park hunter samples your particular park-in-question, there's almost no -way to answer whether or not you were doing something wrong.

It could be that the park was re-turfed (new top soil brought in) at some time in the recent decade or two ? It could be that it's been hunted to a frazzle (even including the modern clad). Or it could be that you're doing something wrong. Without someone being there to compare flagged signals, there's just no way to know, in printed text, what you might have been doing wrong.

The best way to advance up the ranks in turf-hunting for old coins, is this:

Find someone in your part of your state who routinely comes in with silver from the parks. Ie.: not just a sand-box hunter or big talker. But someone who can truly pull 7 to 9" deep wheaties, IHs, silver, etc.... from the parks. (without having to resort to "strip-mining" lucky draws type-thing.) Have them flag a few suspected deepies. Then you pass over them to hear what they're hearing. Have them pull out their headphone jack , and watch how they sweep and isolate the sound. Listen to what they're trying to isolate. And also make note of the stuff they'd pass. Eg.: they might elect to pass all shallow stuff. Or whatever. And you flag targets for them to try. Ask them why, or why not, they'd pass or chase it.

Once you've done that with about 10 cross checks, the "lights will go on "

Tom_in_CA said:

Find someone in your part of your state who routinely comes in with silver from the parks. Ie.: not just a sand-box hunter or big talker. But someone who can truly pull 7 to 9" deep wheaties, IHs, silver, etc.... from the parks. (without having to resort to "strip-mining" lucky draws type-thing.) Have them flag a few suspected deepies. Then you pass over them to hear what they're hearing. Have them pull out their headphone jack , and watch how they sweep and isolate the sound. Listen to what they're trying to isolate. And also make note of the stuff they'd pass. Eg.: they might elect to pass all shallow stuff. Or whatever. And you flag targets for them to try. Ask them why, or why not, they'd pass or chase it.

Once you've done that with about 10 cross checks, the "lights will go on "

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Yeah, I would love to get some tips like this. They guy at the local coin shop has a detector, but I don't think he uses it much and didn't say anything about any other local detectorists when I chatted him up.

If you have advice of any YouTube videos with this kind of detail, that would be super helpful.

I have done pretty well in more recent parks and yards, but the sites I've been most psyched about I've really failed at. I even got the construction maps of all planned sidewalk renovations in my town this summer and hunted under old slate sidewalks at night before they put in the new cement, but was stymied by all the junk signals and only dug old trash. I've been working on research but I'm at the point where I can't tell if my skills are terrible, or I'm picking bad sites, or maybe I need a smaller coil. Or probably all these things together...?

I'm getting a bit frustrated, but not giving up yet.

BanjoBobby said:

Yeah, I would love to get some tips like this. They guy at the local coin shop has a detector, but I don't think he uses it much and .....

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Haha, I know of some dealers in CA that don't even detect. They just inherited the business from their parents, for example (as a sideline in a shop that sells something else as the primary business). And I know of some other dealers in our state that, despite being big talkers: I know for a fact that if I were to meet them on some of my junky old-town parks for a duel, here's what would happen : Them: 30 clad and zinc. Me 5 clad and 8 or 9 oldies (wheaties, silver, or whatever).

That was why I went into detail to say to find a *real* turf-hunter. Not just a sandbox hunter, or clad hunter, etc.... But rather: Someone who can go to old park turf and pull silver routinely (not just occasional lucky draw shallow ones, blah blah)

Because in New York state, there should be TONS of turf zones that'll give up oldies . Even if only wheaties and common silver, if not barbers and so forth. Some buddies of mine here in CA make annual sport of flying into the east coast and getting a rental car. They just randomly drive around in the east coast small towns (CT, NY, VT, etc....) sampling various courthouse lawns, parks, median strips, etc.... and ALWAYS come back with a pouch full of oldies for a week's random drive-arounds there. Sometimes even LCs, reales, busts, etc... in those parks. But sure: Sometimes they try a park that's stingy for various reasons. Perhaps a local hunter in the immediate area is keen to deep-turf strategy or whatever. But other times, they stumble on to parks where oldies are child's play.

You can maybe find a mentor to trade off flagged signals, by watching the various md'ing forums for other NY hunters. See who's posting show & tell of turf-silver (not just a random roosie or war nickel) Then fish to find out what city their in. You'll eventually find someone in striking distance that might be up for taking you to a park that's known for still having some 4-star easies to-choose-from. Even if it's only 40s/50's stuff, as long as it's the type that's 4 to 8" , where you can semi-reliably discern clad from oldies just-by-depth and sounds.

If, in the course of finding someone to do this with you, if the first 10 targets they flag are memorials, clad dimes, zinc, etc... then you know they're not of the caliber I'm referring to. Or they've picked a bad park for that day, or something.

There’s good stuff. Just have to hunt “outside the box”.

I recommend keeping your coil close to the ground and swing very slowly. I have the tone break on the 11-13 at 20 giving me a high tone for nickels but still a little lower than the 25 I have for 21-35. I have dug more nickels with the Equinox that any other detector I have owned in 40 years.
I dig any target that gives me a high tone in both directions even it is a faint broken tone. If I am suspicious of a signal I switch over to all metal and listen for the low grunt of iron. If it grunts I move on.

choppadude said:

If I am suspicious of a signal I switch over to all metal and listen for the low grunt of iron. If it grunts I move on.

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Good advice man, thanks!

Depending on how experienced you are detecting the Equinox greatest strengths in my opinion takes time to learn. Yes it's a turn on and go detector that does great finding easy targets most other detectors would find. It's real strength is it can find coins that other detectors have missed. Example my buddy was swinging a CTX this weekend and I was following behind him. I hit a 11-12-13 signal 4 shovels on the meter. I circled the target same numbers all the way around. I popped out a 1893 V nickel. My oldest V to date.
Did he just miss it? This place is public and to say it's been hammered is an understatement. He had dug a hole 6ft. from where I found the V. I run Park2 with 5 tones. Tone pitch and volumes are set to my liking. If you go to youtube a guy called dirtfishing has a nice tutorial on setting up tone bins and stuff. Mine are similar to his, but not exact. In a little over a year I have pulled 8 silver coins, 2 V's, 2 Buffalo's, 4-5 IHP's at this place. Very trashy modern and iron. As I said it's been hammered to death. Good stuff is still coming out of the ground. Not easily, but there is still good stuff there.

One more thing I firmly believe is if you get relatively good at pulling stuff out of super trashy places modern and iron you can find stuff any where. It opens up a lot more opportunities if you dare to dive in to trashy places. It just makes you a better overall detectorist.