1948 Silver Dime

I haven't had time to get out to go metal detecting in a while. With college, homework, and work, I barely have any time to do what I want. However, last night at the grocery store, there was a lot of coins in the return slot on the Coinstar machine. There was $.80 in Canadian, $.85 in American, and this 1948 silver dime.

Soccer Fields

I went metal detecting at the soccer fields near my house today. I'm not sure how old they are but the town bought the land in 1995 so they can't be more than 16 years old. I knew I wasn't going to find a lot because the fields don't really get used that much. I only spent about an hour there today and I detected in the area in the red box. I only found $0.83 in clad and some junk. I plan on going back again soon and detecting the rest of the sidelines on the first soccer field and the sidelines on the second soccer field.

Beach Hunting

I haven't been able to get out detecting very much lately. I am hoping to go to the beach next week to try a different type of detecting. Normally, I detect old homes. I have only detected beaches twice before but never a beach with a lot of foot traffic so hopefully I will be able to find some good stuff.

The first beach I ever detected was this past February at a private beach at my hotel on a vacation in Florida. I found a couple cents in clad and $11.75 in game tokens for the game room. I didn't know this when I was detecting but I guess the hotel had an activity for the young kids called a "Token Dive" where the kids searched the sand for game tokens. I think I might have cheated on that a little bit.

The second beach I detected was at a party last month on a private property beach on Lake Erie. The owners of the house told me someone in their family lost a ring on the beach last summer but I was unable to find it. The only thing I found there was a very corroded penny.

Some of my Favorite Finds

I got my wisdom teeth out a few days ago so I haven't really been up to metal detecting. I just wanted to make a post about what kind of metal detector I have and some of my other finds that I have found in the past three years of metal detecting.

I started metal detecting in September 2008 with a little kids metal detector that didn't have any sensitivity settings or anything but I still found some interesting things in my yard with it, so my mom got me a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV for Christmas. That is the only metal detector I have right now but I want to upgrade to a better metal detector soon. I also have a Garrett Pro-Pointer pinpointer that my aunt got me this past Christmas.

Here are some of my favorite finds from my own yard. Right now we have about two acres of yard and an acre of woods. I have searched it over and over and I never come back to the house without finding something.

 I found this pin in my backyard. According to my research, the Minute Women were an anti-communist group in the 1950's.

 I actually found two of these U.S. Army pins from World War II. I found one on the side of the house and donated it to the town historical museum along with some other relics. Then, the next day I found an identical pin in the back yard. Only two people that lived at this house were in World War II so it seems kind of odd that they would both lose the same pin.

 I found this pipe in the crawl space under my house. I got the urge to metal detect in the middle of winter when the ground was frozen so I decided to try metal detecting the crawl space. I found this pipe on top of the ground. I also found spoons, and broken plates under there.

 I found this glass bottle stuck in the foundation in the crawl space. It doesn't have any markings or anything on it so I'm not sure exactly how old it is.

 I found this lock near where the barn used to be. The piece that goes over the key hole says "VR" and it says "PATENT" on both sides of the key hole.

This was the only old coin that I found in my yard, besides a few 1920's wheat pennies. This was also my first Indian Head penny and currently my oldest coin. It was in really bad shape and the only way I could clean it up to get a year (1890) off it was soaking it in vinegar and baking soda. I probably ruined any value it might have had but I am still happy with it.

Back to the 1850's Farmhouse

I went back to the 1850's farmhouse two days ago and I didn't find much. The ground is so dry right now that I think I am missing a lot of the coins and smaller stuff. I will go back when we get a good amount of rain. Anyways,  I found a pocket knife in the front yard near where I found the pocketknife yesterday which I forgot to mention and take a picture of for the previous blog entry. I was at the house for about 2.5 hours without finding much other than a 1969 quarter and a rimfire shell casing so I headed down to where the old school supposedly was. I'm not totally positive that it used to be the school because it might have been a little further down the road but there was definitely a structure there at one time. It was a couple hundred feet away from the house so I took my car down and the owner took his tractor to show me about where he thinks the school once stood. I spent about an hour and a half there. As soon as I got out of my car, I saw broken pieces of plates/cups/bottles littering the ground. I thought I had really found a good place to detect but I soon learned that was not the case. The only thing I pulled out of that area was a button and a bunch of broken porcelain. I think the porcelain is very interesting and old though so it wasn't a total waste of time. I'm not exactly sure when that structure was knocked down but it was definitely after 1909 and before 1936, so most of the stuff that I found there has to be pretty old.

1850's Farmhouse

I got permission to metal detect an old farmhouse that dates back to the 1850's yesterday. I went after dinner for almost two hours and I will be going back today. I didn't find many old coins which is to be expected around here. Back then, people really didn't carry around much money because the farmers were pretty poor. This house has just over 100 acres and other houses used to stand on the property along with an old school house that was moved to another location in the 1860's and a new school was built up the road from my house. I spent most of the time yesterday near the house and where the old barn used to be. I think today, I will try to spend more time near where the other houses and school used to be since I didn't find much near the house. Here are some of the things that I found yesterday:

The first shell is from after 1926. The second is from 1898-1932. The last is from 1887-1934. They were all in the same area so they were probably shot sometime between the late 1920's and the early 1930's.

I also found a 1923 Wheat Cent, a 1994 penny, and the inevitable nails and foil.

The Old School House

I obtained permission to metal detect an old school house up the road from me. It was built in the late 1860's and it was a school until the 1950's when the public school district formed. It was converted into a residence and the same man has lived there since then. The first day that I went there, I found my first silver coin, a 1923 Mercury dime.



Also on the first day, I got a solid high-toned signal. I dug down and discovered I was metal detecting a fireplace's dumping grounds. I found a lot of pieces of foil and I continued to dig when I found a burnt ring. It appears to be gold but it is so badly burned that I can't see any markings that would be on the inside of the ring.



I found several wheat pennies with dates from 1910 through 1958.

On the other days that I went there, I found a 1920 quarter (which also appears to have been in a fire), three Indian Head pennies (1899, 1902, 1903), a 1919 Canadian dime, a 1940 Mercury dime, and a "For Achievement" button with the initials JAC on it (appears gold plated).