I returned to the spot I found yesterday at the city’s oldest park. Maurice immediately found me some very deep, very old pieces of metal, mostly lids from bell jars and other assorted stuff. I dug a number of lead seals from all over the area. I can’t imagine what they went to. Eventually I stopped digging that signal but I may at one point dig all of them up. My findings convinced me that I am right and that the spot is the oldest undisturbed piece of the park.
Before I left, I got a deep signal. With the 11″ coil, the deep signals are much louder and sometimes I even get an accurate VDI. This signal was louder than the old whispers I used to get with the 9″ coil and the VDI was that of a wheat or an Indian. So I dug up my usual 7 inch deep plug and at the bottom I got a dim hit with the Garrett pinpointer. Another inch of dirt out and I saw the clump of metal at the bottom. Once I cleaned it a little I thought I could read the word sterling on it but I wasn’t sure. Plus, the word was on the front and not on the back as one would expect.
Once I got home I cleaned it and sure enough, it says sterling. I place this piece at the turn of the century and now I know I can hit smallish silver at 8 inches with no problem and with a good, discernible tone. The Seated coin is still in the ground; for now.
Thank you for looking!
The Dirt Is Good To Me 
Nice clip!
The center design of the clip looks like an ‘L’. Rather than “sterling”, could this actually say Ester Ling? A womans name with her monogram?
Intriguing. Yes, that is an L on the center. The picture doesn’t show this well but the bottom actually says c.sterling which I took to mean ‘coin sterling’ but that doesn’t really make sense since the phrase is actually ‘coin silver’. The clip is made of silver; verified by acid test but you could be right that this whole thing is someone’s name.
Do you have a picture of the back of the clip? It resembles a spoon handle. Perhaps a homemade clip. I remember my Great Aunt cutting up some of her silver to make crafty projects with. 😦
Ms. Kansas Digger. The back of the clip is plain. No markings of any kind. It sure does resemble the end of a spoon and in fact, that’s exactly what I thought when I first dug it up. After removing some dirt however, it became evident that it was a clip. It is very possible that this came from a spoon.