some Tough detecting in Lewiston Idaho and Spokane WA!

LovestheShiny!

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A few days ago I headed out to try some detecting solo in Lewiston Idaho. Man, what a tuff town to find stuff. Curb strips were stripped of most everything. The several home permissions that I did get - some of them were previously detected according to the owners, or the owners reporting detectorists in the adjacent curb strips, but as always, I hoped to get into one good yard with my AT Pro, and I did get into one area that produced a Silver Washington Quarter, a Merc Dime, a Silver Rosie, small Sterling Silver ring, and a few wheat cents. Tough sledding for sure!

A day later I headed up to Spokane WA to meet up with RainorShine (Gale) and Buellride (Paul), both Friendly Forum members and excellent detectorists. They both swing the Manticore. We had high hopes to find a relatively undected area of Spokane, but on the whole that was not to be. I ended up going earlier in the first day to scope things out, and again, really tough sledding... curb strips empty, and even front yards with nothing in them. I did find a neat "Spokane City Lines" transit token. Again, I did manage to get one good permission. I had door knocked on a nice corner home, the friendly owner told me he had promised a friend of his to have the OK to detect his yard, but he told me that the owners of the home behind him had just purchased an old Victorian at the end of their block. I scooted over there and found them at their new purchase, a beautiful 1903 home with large corner yard. The grass had gone dry from the summer and was really short, so the yard was perfect to detect. The very nice owners gave me the green light, and I did well there, with a Silver Rosie, 2 Merc Dimes near the street sidewalk, a couple of Indian Head cents, a 1892 "V" Nickel, and out of the curb strip on the side of their home I pulled a large Sterling .925 ring, and the yard had a flattened Sterling ring with large amber stone. I did pull some wheat cents, and Chuck E. Cheese showed up too, and of course the afternoon produced clad quarters, dimes, and lots of copper cents from some of the non-silver yards.

Paul, Gale and I met for breakfast, then headed out the next morning with high hopes, like fishermen heading out to pull in Salmon, Halibut, and Ling Cod! Well... between the 3 of us detecting for 8 hours each that day, only ONE silver showed up. Gale got a Silver Quarter from a curb strip that was tucked right along the concrete edge, no doubt missed by earlier detectorists. I did manage a nice 1884 Indian Head Cent, a few Amusement tokens, a neat 1931 English Large Penny, and about 15 wheaties, one which had been flattened into a larger size! We saw some recent plugs, and the 3 areas we tried were really cleaned out. I did get a lot of clad that day, and 4 of those good sounding aluminum Washington State tax tokens that ring up like a silver dime.

Paul and Gale were able to detect the next day as I headed back to Idaho. Once again, tough sledding, though Paul did pull a nice Merc Dime and Sterling Silver St. Christopher medallion, and Gale got 3 Merc Dimes. This was after detecting for almost 8 hours each once more. They also saw recent plugs and talked to homeowners who already had their yard detected or had seen other guys detecting the curb strips.

Anyway, we did get some finds but not nearly what we hoped for, but getting out to detect is always better than a day at work. Nice weather, mostly friendly folks, pics show my finds and my friends can add photos if they want, thank you for your interest!

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Thanks for taking us along, nice write up and description. Quick question, what are the coins/tokens with the hole in the center? The reason I'm asking is the last 3 IHP I have dug all had holes in the center of them. WTG!

Mark in Michigan
 
Thanks for taking us along, nice write up and description. Quick question, what are the coins/tokens with the hole in the center? The reason I'm asking is the last 3 IHP I have dug all had holes in the center of them. WTG!

Mark in Michigan
Thank you Mark! Those four items are Washington State tax tokens, good for covering the sales tax on a purchase. I think they came out in about 1935. They are always a disappointment to dig as they ring up like at least a Silver Dime. I have found them in Montana and Idaho in addition to WA State. I've attached a closeup of one of them.

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David, as always a pleasure to get out with you. Have to say I still love that silver ring. It was pretty and very heavy. Boy, was that a tough couple of days. Just very little silver to recover. I can't tell you how happy I was to find that GW at the end of the first day of hunting. Paul and I must have had 10 permissions on the last day, and with the exception of the one permission that had a number of wheats and one Merc we were hard pressed to find much of anything. I ended up with 15 wheats in the end, and Paul had the same number. I guess we did recover 3 tokens in one yard, but nothing impressive. There wasn't even a whole lot of clad. Let me know when you'll be back over and we'll try to do better in some of the local haunts. Pics of my silver finds below.
10-25 GW -80-.jpg
10-26 Merc -81- Merc -82- Merc -83-.jpg
 
Thank you Gale, always enjoy detecting with you and Paul! Yep... tuff sledding for sure, glad you got that GW and some nice Mercs. Will let you know when I get over to the Seattle area.
 
I think you all did well! I don't live in a very populated area, so finds are pretty sparse; especially good ones! Anyway, I hope you all at least had fun! Grats on the silver that you did find!
 
I think you all did well! I don't live in a very populated area, so finds are pretty sparse; especially good ones! Anyway, I hope you all at least had fun! Grats on the silver that you did find!
Thank you Sorthious! Yes, at least we did get some silvers and older coins.
 
Tough detecting that paid off very very well with some great finds in those great pics. I like the transit token w/ the tree cutout, pretty cool, of course the old IHP and silvers aren't half too bad either ;)

Nice work!
 
Tough detecting that paid off very very well with some great finds in those great pics. I like the transit token w/ the tree cutout, pretty cool, of course the old IHP and silvers aren't half too bad either ;)

Nice work!
Thank you GroundSweeper! Washington being "The Evergreen State" with the Western Hemlock as state tree it is neat that Spokane used a tree cutout for their transit tokens.
 
Congrats, at least you got something, the same is around here, never been in to hunting houses or private property. Prefer the woods, " myself".
too_
Thank you too_pointer! I've never really done "the woods" as there is not much out here in the West that is out there.
 
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