I'm at a loss to figure out why I find everything BUT coins. Maybe it's the red clay. I'm finding plenty of copper wire, brass casings, bronze, even the tiniest lead fishing weights but we have not found a single penny. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Metal detecting
- Thread starter fast14riot
- Start date
I don't have one but I've read the Bounty Hunter Tracker IV is well thought of as a coin-finding machine. It could be your hunting location - maybe someone got there before you and cleaned the place out. Or maybe there is so much iron and foil in the ground you can't separate out the coin tones. Maybe try another spot.
Well yeah...there is a lot of iron in the ground here. I've searched at my inlaws which has the town's oldest commercial building, a blacksmith shop and in the woods by my house there's an ancient horse barn - so I dig up mountains of horseshoes and nails...occasionally very old railroad spikes as the trains come right through here.
Time for a new spot for coin shooting.
Time for a new spot for coin shooting.
+1 on this. Metal detecting has always fascinated me, but the LAST thing I need is another hobby to eat my $$.
It's as expensive as you want to make it. You could get started with nothing but an entry-level detector, a cheap set of headphones or earbuds off of your ipod, and a spade out of your garage. Just about every decent metal detector manufacturer out there makes a good entry-level machine in the neighborhood of 200-300 dollars, that could theoretically last a lifetime.
The problem seems to be that it is hard to stay satisfied with just one toy. The high end detectors with more power and features can run in the thousands of dollars. If you can buy an entry level detector and remain content, you can get by relatively cheap. But that is the rub with any hobby, I guess.
Metal detecting pays for it self. Find a place that buys scrap near you. They even buy the rusty old cast iron stoves I dig up. Copper wire is everywhere under our feet. Wherever houses got built and cars worked on, there's a wealth of metal in the dirt.
I had a friend get fined for trying to metal detect in Valley Forge Park about 20 years ago. He wasn't looking for relics. There is a spot people call "Hippie Hill" where high school and college kids go to lay in the sun, hang out or just try to pick each other up in the spring and summer. My friend got the idea that hippie hill would be loaded with lost jewelry and coins so he went for it with his detector. He lasted 10 minutes before the rangers were on him.
I stopped by city hall and asked the police chief if anyone would care if I used a metal detector around abandoned historic spots like the old jail or the parks or schools. He said I could have at it. And so it begins...
Using a Tracker IV my daughter found this pocket knife over a foot deep in red clay. It'll never be usable again but it gave her a thrill to find it.
- Thread starter
- #31
No, I've been using a probe I made a while back. I can pretty much get within a 2" circle of a coin with just X passes and then the probe and a digging knife I pop coins with hardly a cut in the grass. Only scratched a couple coins so far, though nothing old or nice.
I'm thinking I might go out tomorrow. Maybe hit the sand boxes for coins and hopefully jewelry.
-X
- Thread starter
- #32
Here's the probe I made, soft mild steel shank, hand hammered copper ferrule and turned handle. No glue, just tight fit and the cross pin.
-Xander
-Xander
Nice. And a good idea. Sandboxes at playgrounds are a great place to search. My daughter found a gold and diamond tennis bracket when she was building a castle.
- Thread starter
- #34
I always start at the play equipment when hunting parks, low hanging fruit theory. Getting ready to go out in a few. We'll see what's in the ground!
-X
-X
Just for fun, let's meet back here after the weekend with a photo of the best thing we dig up. No matter what we find, be it a Pine Tree Shilling or a rusty can of Billy Beer, we show it.
Anyone in?
Anyone in?
Hmm, I'd love to, but this is the one upcoming weekend I wasn't really planning to go anywhere. If I do end up going somewhere, I'm in.
How about now until end of the month. I we get enough people interested. I'm very curious to see what people are finding in different parts of the world. I'll likely find more rusted beer cans from the 1970s.
- Thread starter
- #38
I tend to just go coin shooting. I do find other stuff, lots of beaver tail pop tops which ring up exactly like a nickel and crushed liquor bottle tops that ring up like you found a 10 pound silver ingot. But if your not finding trash, your not digging enough! Dig all solid signals!!!
Oldest coin yet is a 1920 wheat back cent found in my own front yard, and my house was built in 1920! Also found a 1921D wheatie in the same hole.
Dug a early 20th century cufflink in my front yard too.
Best item is still the silver ring I posted in the opening of this thread.
Dug a modern gold dollar the other day, that rung up high silver and sounded huge too.
Love to see some others finds and we could also do some ID work for each others "whatsits."
-Xander
Oldest coin yet is a 1920 wheat back cent found in my own front yard, and my house was built in 1920! Also found a 1921D wheatie in the same hole.
Dug a early 20th century cufflink in my front yard too.
Best item is still the silver ring I posted in the opening of this thread.
Dug a modern gold dollar the other day, that rung up high silver and sounded huge too.
Love to see some others finds and we could also do some ID work for each others "whatsits."
-Xander
When I was a little kid my grandmother had an apartment overlooking the beach. Late in the evening, and at sun-up I would watch the old men with their metal detectors sweeping the beach for lost treasure. That really appealed to my imagination as a child, all the cool things they might find.
That works for me. Only problem is I do not know how to run one of these newfangled contraptions called a "digital camera" very well, but maybe I can beg my wife into taking some photos for me if I find anything.
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