I visited Ocean City, NJ this past week and detected every day for multiple hours. My idea of a perfect vacation! It was easily the best week of my short detecting career.
I did some beach detecting for the first time, but I quickly figured out that the conditions were not ideal. The beach was sanded in and there were very few signals, I think thanks to recent "beach replenishment." I did do some gridding in the dry sand one day which yielded a tarnished sterling ring.
The ring is the only beach find in the above photo. Fortunately, I got permission for a couple private properties which were very fruitful. On the first day, I found a New Jersey copper in the yard of the Victorian house where I was staying. It is my first old copper, and it was a surprise because it predates the house by about 100 years. I haven't done any cleaning to it besides a light tooth picking. It was deep in some tree roots and sadly I hit the shield side with my digger.
Another highlight was a coin spill containing a 1900 Barber dime and a 1919 Mercury dime. I think it is my first multiple silver spill.
On June 2nd, in 5 or 6 hours I found a personal best of 7 silver coins, including my first Barber quarter and first Seated Liberty dime. Also found my second ever "V" nickel.
The Seated dime was a very faint signal, and was almost a full pinpointer deep in some tree roots. It was tricky getting it out and I am glad I didn't scratch it.
It is either an 1873 or 1878 date. Hard to tell because of the heavy tarnish and caked in dirt. I am going to try to gently remove the dirt with some soap or maybe ammonia. I'll add some more photos if I can clean it up better.
All of the silver coins I found have varying degrees of gray to purple-gray tarnish because of the sandy soil. I haven't decided if I want to clean them up by chemically removing some tarnish. I experimented on the 1962-D dime with the aluminum foil/spit method and had great results.
Thanks for reading about my week of metal detecting heaven.
I did some beach detecting for the first time, but I quickly figured out that the conditions were not ideal. The beach was sanded in and there were very few signals, I think thanks to recent "beach replenishment." I did do some gridding in the dry sand one day which yielded a tarnished sterling ring.
The ring is the only beach find in the above photo. Fortunately, I got permission for a couple private properties which were very fruitful. On the first day, I found a New Jersey copper in the yard of the Victorian house where I was staying. It is my first old copper, and it was a surprise because it predates the house by about 100 years. I haven't done any cleaning to it besides a light tooth picking. It was deep in some tree roots and sadly I hit the shield side with my digger.
Another highlight was a coin spill containing a 1900 Barber dime and a 1919 Mercury dime. I think it is my first multiple silver spill.
On June 2nd, in 5 or 6 hours I found a personal best of 7 silver coins, including my first Barber quarter and first Seated Liberty dime. Also found my second ever "V" nickel.
The Seated dime was a very faint signal, and was almost a full pinpointer deep in some tree roots. It was tricky getting it out and I am glad I didn't scratch it.
It is either an 1873 or 1878 date. Hard to tell because of the heavy tarnish and caked in dirt. I am going to try to gently remove the dirt with some soap or maybe ammonia. I'll add some more photos if I can clean it up better.
All of the silver coins I found have varying degrees of gray to purple-gray tarnish because of the sandy soil. I haven't decided if I want to clean them up by chemically removing some tarnish. I experimented on the 1962-D dime with the aluminum foil/spit method and had great results.
Thanks for reading about my week of metal detecting heaven.
