AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
The weather was sunny and temperatures climbed above freezing, so I snuck out for a quick hunt today at a new-to-me park. I focused on an area that once had a ball field in the early 1950s according to aerial photos, with the hopes that I might score a few goodies that previous hunters missed. The ground was stiffer than I had hoped, with the top half inch frozen in most places until late in the hunt - cutting the plugs was fairly easy, but putting them back so that they stayed put was the tough part.
Anyways, my luck was pretty limited in terms of old finds, but I ended with well over $5 in clad, aided heavily by a spill that included two modern $1 coins (a John Adams Presidential and a Sacagawea). Late in the hunt I hit on a deep ‘19 Wheatie that really didn’t like the fertilizer they use at this park, but it kept me from getting completely skunked on old coins!
The metal detecting gods will probably strike me down for saying this, but the highlight of the hunt was a bottle cap!
In fact, I almost passed on it because it rang up exactly like what it was...a squashed, aluminum cap. I set a tone break between 23-24 in the custom park program (EQ800) that I use because, in my soil, a lot of bottle caps ring up exactly there, so the tone break gives them a distinct broken tone - an almost automatic “skip it”. But this one had depth, so I went after it. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of it right out of the ground, but I figured it was a lost cause at the time. I could see the raised “PD” lettering when I wiped away the dirt, but it really was completely squashed like an old Pepsi screw cap! It wasn’t until I started cleaning it at home that I realized it was a neat, salvageable find - a Parke Davis & Company medicine bottle lid, probably from the early half of the 1900s.
The first two pictures are from after I soaked it for a couple hours in dish soap and water, then scrubbed it with baking soda and water. I also found that I was actually able to bend the aluminum roughly back into shape without causing noticeable damage.
The final three pictures are after hitting it with Loctite Rust Remover Naval Jelly for 5 mins and another round of baking soda.
Anyways, my luck was pretty limited in terms of old finds, but I ended with well over $5 in clad, aided heavily by a spill that included two modern $1 coins (a John Adams Presidential and a Sacagawea). Late in the hunt I hit on a deep ‘19 Wheatie that really didn’t like the fertilizer they use at this park, but it kept me from getting completely skunked on old coins!
The metal detecting gods will probably strike me down for saying this, but the highlight of the hunt was a bottle cap!
In fact, I almost passed on it because it rang up exactly like what it was...a squashed, aluminum cap. I set a tone break between 23-24 in the custom park program (EQ800) that I use because, in my soil, a lot of bottle caps ring up exactly there, so the tone break gives them a distinct broken tone - an almost automatic “skip it”. But this one had depth, so I went after it. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of it right out of the ground, but I figured it was a lost cause at the time. I could see the raised “PD” lettering when I wiped away the dirt, but it really was completely squashed like an old Pepsi screw cap! It wasn’t until I started cleaning it at home that I realized it was a neat, salvageable find - a Parke Davis & Company medicine bottle lid, probably from the early half of the 1900s. The first two pictures are from after I soaked it for a couple hours in dish soap and water, then scrubbed it with baking soda and water. I also found that I was actually able to bend the aluminum roughly back into shape without causing noticeable damage.
The final three pictures are after hitting it with Loctite Rust Remover Naval Jelly for 5 mins and another round of baking soda.
