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Motel permission hunts - nothing spectacular, but still enjoyed the hunts !

GKL

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Joined
Jul 22, 2016
Messages
8,544
Location
Winnsboro, South Carolina
If you prefer only reading threads about "spectacular" finds, then stop, this thread is not for you (just being funny :lol:), this thread shows some permissions are average permissions with average finds, which is simply part of the hobby.

No Mercs, or IHPs, or even any silver at all, but after a long wait it was still VERY VERY good to simply get back out and hunt again even with average non-spectacular finds ! :lol:

Well, after catching up on several major yard projects which took longer than normal due to limited outside time in the extreme heat I am finally ready to get back to regular occasional hunts again. I first had to wait for the weather to cooperate as we were getting an extended forecast of chances of rain, so I had to watch each day's futurecast to see if there would be rain in our local area.

Anyhow, I got permission to detect at a motel from a high level supervisor that could give permission. I'm sure it helped that I use to work there years ago and my wife is the manager. :lol: Now most of the few grassy areas that motel has are fairly small, but there is a larger semi-grassy area in the back that used to be a playground area years ago but no longer has equipment, except for a swing on a sectioned off sandy are on one side. I said semi-grassy as it is old crumbling asphalt paving, some of which is actually grown over with thick grass, and some areas the paving still shows through. The motel was built sometime in the 1960's.

Hey, it's not a huge detecting area overall, but I'm thankful for any permission.

I was somewhat disappointed when I saw what I originally thought was a large grassy area was really old crumbling asphalt paving overgrown in many areas with thick grass. I don't mind digging thru crumbling asphalt if the find is worth the effort, so in that area I was watching for signals that might possibly indicate silver. I thought I had a good signal but after digging thru crumbling asphalt my pinpointer did not detect anything. (is it possible the asphalt itself might have had metal in it ? :?:) I might recheck the crumbling asphalt area again on another day, but I wanted to get at least some finds on my first hunt at the motel so I moved on to the sandy area where the swing is, I didn't realize it was sand at first because it was all covered over with old pine needles and debris, once I got a signal and went to dig, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it was sand ! :thumbsup:

Anyhow, the sandy area had 2 dimes and 3 pennies, I found one other penny in a gravel area off the edge of the parking lot, besides some trash that was my finds for the 1st day of hunting at the motel.

Pics of finds from the first day (Thursday, about a 2 hour hunt)
motel_detecting_first_hunt_finds.jpg
motel_1st_hunt_1969D_penny.jpgmotel_1st_hunt_1979_penny.jpg
motel_1st_hunt_1982_penny.jpgmotel_1st_hunt_1994P_dime.jpg
motel_1st_hunt_2003_penny.jpgmotel_1st_hunt_2015P_dime.jpg

On the 2nd day (Friday) I focused on other areas at the motel I didn't get to the day before, being a motel it didn't surprise me that I was getting a lot of signals that likely was trash so I was trying to be more selective in my initial hunts, but I had signals that looked good but ended up being stuff like metal bottle caps.

On my 2nd day hunting there, besides trash, I found a penny in the back area and a quarter in the area out in front of the motel.

I know it is unlikely this motel is going to have any major finds, but hey, a permission is a permission, and I still enjoyed the hunts. I'll see about getting at least one more hunt in there as there are areas I could go over a little better.

Here is pics of the 2nd day finds (about a 2 hour hunt) as well as pics of the areas around the motel.
motel_2nd_hunt_stuff.jpg
motel_2nd_hunt_1974_penny.jpgmotel_2nd_hunt_1989_quarter.jpg

motel_detecting_hunt_1.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_2.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_3.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_4.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_5.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_6.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_7.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_8.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_9.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_10.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_11.jpgmotel_detecting_hunt_12.jpg
motel_detecting_hunt_13.jpg

.....and since a new clerk there is a noob detectorist I gave him some tips and showed a pic about carefully digging a proper plug
Motel_hunt_plug.jpg
 
The last pic of your plug patty looks so good , I could grill it up , throw a slice of cheese on it and have an EPIC burger !
 
Gad you finally got the chance to get out and work that new detector some, was hoping to get out and do some detecting tomorrow, but not looking promising at this point good chance of rain and heat index 101-106 degrees. Have a new park lined up , might be good for some clad. Will have to see how it looks in the morning.
 
Gad you finally got the chance to get out and work that new detector some, was hoping to get out and do some detecting tomorrow, but not looking promising at this point good chance of rain and heat index 101-106 degrees. Have a new park lined up , might be good for some clad. Will have to see how it looks in the morning.

I can understand needing to work around the weather, we been in the weather pattern of pop-up afternoon storms, but not widespread and not all areas getting rain every afternoon. I'll usually check the "futurecast" radar to see if and when rain might come thru our area, but it is not foolproof.

Did pretty good the past 2 days, it rained after I got home yesterday, and today it started to rain a little right after I loaded the car and was getting ready to leave the motel, that is why you see some raindrops on the windows of the car as I was taking pics of some of the areas as I was getting ready to leave, pretty good timing :lol:

It's been fairly warm, but thankfully not the excessive heat like we had a couple weeks ago.
 
I had a decent motel hunt in Illinois,fair amount of clad and some toy cars to boot...
 
I had a decent motel hunt in Illinois,fair amount of clad and some toy cars to boot...

That's great, glad you found one with plentiful finds !

Maybe a motel's layout makes a difference, the one here would have people likely walking on pavement most all of the time with little reason to walk across most of the grassy areas.

Also, this is a small town motel with about 60 rooms, but usually roughly about 10-20 rooms being rented at any one time, occasionally there will be busier times of the year though.

Looks like the coins I have found so far have been in the dirt for quite some time, so no recent drops of what I did find so far.

The neat thing about this hobby though is that I still enjoyed the hunt regardless :lol:
 
Looks like you had a great day...congrats!

Thanks, and yes I did have a great day, now would finding some silver, IHPs, neat relics, ect, be nice ? sure ! but I am amazed how much I can still simply enjoy the actual hunt itself even when the finds are nothing spectacular :D
 
Thanks, and yes I did have a great day, now would finding some silver, IHPs, neat relics, ect, be nice ? sure ! but I am amazed how much I can still simply enjoy the actual hunt itself even when the finds are nothing spectacular :D

When your expectations are just going out and having a good day, anything you find is treasure! If you go out all the time expecting to find some Civil War hoard, and you don't find it, well, you're probably going to spend a lot of days disappointed and tired!
 
When your expectations are just going out and having a good day, anything you find is treasure! If you go out all the time expecting to find some Civil War hoard, and you don't find it, well, you're probably going to spend a lot of days disappointed and tired!

Good point !

The fun is in the hunt itself, and since fantastic finds seem to be fairly rare I don't have unrealistic expectations, sure I still hope to uncover a great find, that is part of the fun, but I am not disappointed if I don't and I come home happy just having had a chance to enjoy the hunt and looking forward to the next hunt.

...hey, I am happy to simply uncover finds that are not trash :lol: even if they are just non-silver common coins !
 
Glad to hear you had a good time. That's what it's all about. Great pics btw.

Thanks, appreciate yours and everyone's comments !

I got back about an hour ago from my 3rd day in a row hunting the motel, I'll post about today's finds a little later, need time to clean them up a little and take pics. This 3rd day hunt I stretched it out to about 2 1/2 hours instead of the 2 hour hunts from previous days. 2 to 2 1/2 hours might not seem like a long hunt, but it's still warm enough out that I can do that long enjoyably without feeling like I'm pushing myself too far.
 
Okay, did a 3rd hunt at the motel today, about 2 1/2 hours.

I went back to the enclosed sandy area where the swing is at and spent a majority of the time there, covering it more carefully this time. Most of today's finds were in that area with a few more just outside that enclosed area.

I finished up trying the grassy area out in front of the motel again (that's where I found the quarter on a previous hunt) but found nothing today in that area.

The area in front is hard to detect because my detector's VDI numbers keep jumping around, at first I thought maybe it was a very trashy area, but now I wonder if the overhead wires in that area (see pic) are giving off too much EMI.
motel_3rd_hunt_front_overhead_wires.jpg

In that sandy area with the swing I was keeping watch for signals for nickels also and actually found a nickel pretty quick, that was neat !

Besides that nickel, I found a bunch of pennies, the usual trash including what seems to be a bottlecap encrusted with quartz-like rock (pic included). also found what seems to be a bracelet but not sure yet of the material, the corrosion seems to rule out silver or gold. Also had a very unusual find likely less than an inch under the sand and debris back off in the corner - the top of a grill ! :lol:

motel_3rd_hunt_finds.jpgmotel_3rd_hunt_grill-top.jpg

motel_3rd_hunt_1984D_nickel.jpg
What is with this 1976 penny below ? (this was made before Zincolns)
motel_3rd_hunt_1976_penny.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_1993_penny.jpgmotel_3rd_hunt_2000_penny2.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_2000_penny.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_2000_penny3.jpgmotel_3rd_hunt_2003_penny.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_unknown-date_penny1.jpgmotel_3rd_hunt_unknown-date_penny2.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_unnown-date_penny3.jpg
motel_3rd_hunt_unknown-material.jpgmotel_3rd_hunt_unknown-material_possible_bracelet.jpg

Again, no "spectacular" finds, but again I still very much enjoyed the hunt anyhow ! :D

It was neat wanting to find a nickel and finding one pretty quick !

I might or might not do a hunt there later tomorrow, if not then likely Monday and/or Tuesday because rain chances go up for a few days here starting Wednesday and I don't like it when the weather keeps me from detecting for days in a row when I am ready to go detecting :lol:
 
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Took yesterday off, but went back to the motel today for day 4 of hunting there.

Did a 3 hour hunt, heat index was getting up around 104 when I stopped, normally might have stopped at 2 hours with the heat, but rain chances going up this week starting Wednesday so wanted to stretch out my hunt since rain might keep me from hunting several days in a row later this week.

I might not be uncovering fantastic finds at the motel but still enjoying the hunt regardless AND and I'm getting more experience to fine-tune my hunting which might help me to not pass up good finds when I do get a permission that really produces.

One thing is I tried hunting the front area again, but this time I actually thought to reduce the sensitivity to diminish the effect of likely EMI from overhead wires..... DOH !!!! :doah: :lol: (made for better, more stable detecting in that area, but only one find in that area today if I remember right)

Okay below is a pic of all the finds including trash, followed by closeups of the coins.

I might not always post pics of such average finds, but I figure at least the noobs can see that a certain amount of trash is not unusual, also I wanted to show the coins, though not silver, are definitely not recent drops as you can see from their condition :lol:

Some signals had my hopes up for silver, but one was a bent up chromed gas cap, and bottle caps. :lol:

I was hoping to find more nickels since I found one the other day, but it seems the VDI of 13 is good for pull-tabs as well as nickels :lol:

One small area had several good signals, but I'll wait to another day as it was packed down hard and I didn't want to make a mess, it is an area near the edge of the property that people use for a shortcut across the grass next door, maybe I'll take a 2-liter bottle of water to soak that area down and make it easier to dig and restore.

One spot I was getting a good repeatable VDI of 38 and I was thinking silver ! :lol: but I dug a good deep plug and even dug down further but when I put my pinpointer in the hole - nothing ! :?: I ran the detector back over the spot and still a good signal, dug a little deeper and still no response from the pinpointer, that sure had me puzzled :?: but I had to move on, figured I could always try that spot again on another day.

I had thought I found 2 dimes today, so either the heat was starting to get to me some and I only thought I did, or I dropped it back on the ground when I went to put it in my pouch. (I just now thought - Ill have to check the gym bag I put my pouch in when loading up to make sure it didn't fall out in there)

motel_hunt_day_4_finds.jpgmotel_hunt_day_4_1994D_dime.jpg
motel_hunt_day_4_1968_penny.jpgmotel_hunt_day_4_1973_penny.jpg
motel_hunt_day_4_1980D_penny.jpgmotel_hunt_day_4_1996_penny.jpg

I'm not saying the motel is now hunted out, I'm sure there is more I can find when I'm willing to dig more of the signals that could likely also mean trash, but I think my next hunt will be elsewhere and eventually I'll try the motel again occasionally.
 
At least you are getting out. Making a few finds and having fun. I have not been out since the local beach towns took away parking to the point that one has to be there before daylight to find a parking spot and also have to pay to park .

May make a trip down to Edisto Beach soon. But i have never found much of anything down there. I think my best day was about two dollars in clad.
 
At least you are getting out. Making a few finds and having fun. I have not been out since the local beach towns took away parking to the point that one has to be there before daylight to find a parking spot and also have to pay to park .

May make a trip down to Edisto Beach soon. But i have never found much of anything down there. I think my best day was about two dollars in clad.

Thanks, and you are right, even though my recent finds are average, I'm still having plenty of fun just simply hunting !

Hunting is almost like that first cup of coffee in the morning, everything seems a little better once you have it :lol:

It would be good if you knew someone who lives close to the beaches you like to detect that would let you park in their yard.

I wonder if any people offer parking on their property for a much more modest fee than the regular parking areas, of course you would need to feel like your vehicle is safe there.
 
Looks like your soil there does a number on modern clad.

Look at the 1976 penny from the 8th, 1976 was before Zincolns started being made, I was puzzled as to how that 1976 coin could get that way :?:

All the coins from the motel hunt so far seem to have been in the ground for some time, so no recent drops, and amazingly a good number of them were fairly shallow where my pinpointer would respond prior to digging, yet you can tell they have been there for some time.

......also, if you noticed the blue car, I've been using our new Prius Prime in EV (electric only) mode so I don't use any gas to go detecting ! :thumbsup:
 
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