Metal detecting

Been a while since I've been out hunting - life, and cold rainy weather, intervened for a while. Went out in my yard this evening.

Some observations:

1. God reminded me tonight that exercise is cumulative, but can go away quickly. When I was out detecting every evening just a couple of weeks ago, I could knock out 3-4 hours no problem. Tonight an hour and a half kicked my butt. I need to get out there and sweat a little every evening.

2. I have nothing to compare it to, but the Teknetics Eurotek Pro appears to be a modern coin-sniffing monster. If I had access to a few tot lots or parks, I'd have paid for this thing by now in clad coins.

3. What they say is right - no site is ever truly "hunted out". I found the best coin of the bunch tonight in the edge of a hole I'd dug a few weeks earlier! My yard continues to spit out coins.

From left: A modern button with some cotton twine still attached; a nice 1944 wheat penny; a couple of quarters from the 90's; a couple of pennies, one from the 60's and one from the 70's.

My dad and i had two Minelab detectors when I was growing up. My dad's was ALOT older than mine, but he used to find stuff my "new one couldn't even get a reading on! One year we went to Alaska for his job and we found a couple of small nuggets. They were worth (at those prices) about $50 bucks each, but we kept those in a glass presentation case hung up on our wall. I figure they are worth alot more now, but i won't sell them.

When i was 10 we took a trip to West Virginia and puttered around a bit and my dad found the coolest meteorite I'd ever seen. We had it assayed and it had a "Widmanstaaten" pattern which made it more valuable. My dad sold part of it and bought me a Bike...! I was ALL FOR Detecting after that!

My son is turning 8 this year and just like my dad bought me I'll be getting him a Minelab Eureka Gold...Mine was the Minelab Ultra PK, which looks like the same model and probably works just the same, with less electronics, and more knobs buttons...haha. I hope we have as much fun on our trips as I did when I was kid with my dad.

^^^ Your family has excellent taste in machines. I'd love to try a Minelab E-Trac or CTX 3030, but since I have access to so few areas to hunt, I can't justify dropping that kind of money on a detector. I'm pretty satisfied with my Teknetics entry machine, especially after I put a 5 inch coil on it, but I'd LOVE to find some deep silver coins...

Okay, I know everyone else has stopped posting in this and I am pretty much talking to myself, but tonight's finds from my yard just had to be posted.

From left: a 1990's Quarter, various copper and zinc pennies, and ... the remains of a Gillette Superspeed. To the right is one of the end caps (other end cap is missing and couldn't be found). I think it has a 1956 "B" date code, but it is so cruddy it is hard to tell. And in case anyone is curious, I am definitely NOT shaving with it.

Now that's cool. Talk about a find in the wild. I have been busy with Boy Scouts every weekend and haven't been detecting. Will take my gear to NY next week to use at a few family properties and help my dad find his wedding ring. I'll report back with my results.

Wicked cool find! I have been busy and not detecting at all, I have been wanting too though!


-X

I personally love this thread and check into it everyday to see if there are new posts. I've always been interested in metal detecting, but just haven't made the time to get after it.

In fact, I am going to make time tomorrow morning to go digging for a bit before it gets hot. Supposed to be 100° tomorrow, don't wanna be out there for that.


-Xander

Last night I tried out another new toy: a Harbor Freight dual-drum tumbler (about $40, shipped, with a 20% off coupon).

The clad coins I've been finding have been pretty cruddy, as my pics in this thread reveal. The tumbler mostly turned my nasty coins into something I'd take to a bank without hesitation.

I do need to work on my coin-cleaning recipe though. I'm filling each drum about halfway full of aquarium gravel, dropping in my coins (pennies in one drum, all other coins in the other), adding probably a tablespoon or so of table salt, and adding a squirt or two of dishwashing liquid. Then I fill each drum with water until the coins are just covered.

Two hours of this recipe turned very nasty coins into something a bank teller would probably take without a fuss. Coins are still very dark, though, and the odd coin or two is still caked with some crud.

Next time I may replace the water and dishwashing liquid with vinegar and lemon juice, see if that works any better.

Thanks for the tip. I've been wanting a rock tumbler anyway.

RichieRich3902 said:

I personally love this thread and check into it everyday to see if there are new posts. I've always been interested in metal detecting, but just haven't made the time to get after it.

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Yes! I'm not the only one
Although I've never metal detected I enjoy 'hunting things' as part of my little bicycle and hiking wilderness adventures.

Got out for a couple of hours this evening, didn't find much. Three pennies (the difference between copper and zinc pennies is very apparent here), and a mystery item made of some type of very heavy metal: ornate hydrant handle? wheel off a child's toy? Who knows.

My wife and I spent the July 4 holiday at my mother-in-law's, and I took my metal detector along. We hunted her property about 6 hours or so on the 4th, and about 3-4 hours on the 5th. We had a great time. My wife, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law all seemed to enjoy it almost as much as I do. I look forward to visiting again and looking around some more.

From top left: a set of Dodge or Chrysler car keys; a metal toy lizard; an old lock; a broken compass; a broken key; a fancy belt buckle or suspender buckle; a mystery object that may just be an iron washer; and the remains of a "Frontier Smoker" cap gun that most likely dates from the 50s or 60s.

Bottom left: yet another brass garden hose nozzle; 18 pennies, mostly copper, one of which is a 1940s wheat; 5 dimes; 5 quarters; one nickel.

The best find of the bunch is the nickel, if you can find nickels you can find gold!


-Xander

fast14riot said:

The best find of the bunch is the nickel, if you can find nickels you can find gold!


-Xander

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Yep, those nickels are tough! I haven't found many, and every one I find is a definite victory.

Interesting thread. I'm thinking of picking up a metal detector not so much as to have a new hobby, but because I want to do target shooting in my yard. Picking the spent cases is important as I don't want to hit them with the lawn mower or have one punch through a tire.

I just got a Tracker IV and took it out in the back yard for a spin. First did some calibration with known coins and aluminum and a sheetrock screw. That went well. Next, a couple of swaths through the yard for the heck of it. Found (in the following order)

An old screwtop off a Schweppes bottle
A nondescript bit of aluminum flashing
A 2 ounce lead fishing weight
A Roosevelt dime (1967 - drat! No silver first time out)
A very small brass washer
A large piece of aluminum flashing

The tone discrimination didn't seem to work so hot on the big piece of flashing. Maybe the settings need more tweaking.

Anyhow, it was fun, and I'm looking forward to doing the whole place a bit at a time.

Klopstick said:

I just got a Tracker IV and took it out in the back yard for a spin. First did some calibration with known coins and aluminum and a sheetrock screw. That went well. Next, a couple of swaths through the yard for the heck of it. Found (in the following order)

An old screwtop off a Schweppes bottle
A nondescript bit of aluminum flashing
A 2 ounce lead fishing weight
A Roosevelt dime (1967 - drat! No silver first time out)
A very small brass washer
A large piece of aluminum flashing

The tone discrimination didn't seem to work so hot on the big piece of flashing. Maybe the settings need more tweaking.

Anyhow, it was fun, and I'm looking forward to doing the whole place a bit at a time.

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If you'd found silver your first time, I would have been jealous - I've been trying to find silver all summer.

On my detector (not a Tracker IV), pieces of aluminum flashing tend to sound off with a clear high tone, just like a coin. I don't know anything about the Tracker, but your settings may be fine - it may just be the nature of the beast. I've dug up a ton of those little triangles and squares of flashing that result from window replacements. Every one of them rings like a coin.

auk1124 said:

If you'd found silver your first time, I would have been jealous - I've been trying to find silver all summer.

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Well, technically I did find silver my first time, but since it was a silver quarter I tossed in the grass myself, that probably counts for less, doesn't it?

Found some more flashing later int the day, and a couple of pennies. The flashing seems to present a "larger" target and a bit of a tone bloop that I'm starting to recognize. Then again, I don't know what a bottle full of coins might sound like and it would be a shame to dismiss it.

A wad of aluminum foil tightly packed to the size of a dollar will make any detectorist dig like a dog for a bone! Crushed cans, some liquor tops, batteries all ring up like a 10# bar of silver. The one that irritated me was tiny wads of gum wrapper about half the size of a pea, the bark box at a park was full of them, they rang up as perfect nickels.

Being new you should be digging every solid target. Being an old salt at it you should dig every solid target...


-Xander