Tag Archives: empty lot

Some times it just don’t make sense

14 Apr

The scenario was thus: a block of houses from way back then (at least one was turn of the century) was torn down. Seemingly, the school district is expanding one of the local schools. I wanted to detect these houses for at least two years. A soccer field just north of these houses has produced indians and a few very old relics. The houses sat in a area of town most people would not think to look for old houses. I mean, the school in question harkens back to the late 50’s. Then, the houses were surrounded by a wall of trees and vegetation that made it near impossible to see the houses at all.

So, I went there Sunday evening as the opportunity arose for me to shake the dust off Maurice. I got there and most of the ancient trees and shrubbery had been knocked down. Still, there were some open areas to run the coil over. Two minutes into the hunt, I got a nice, shallow quarter signal and I extracted, with no small amount of joy, a 1944 Washington quarter. Nice!

Feeling like I hit the mother load, I spent three more hours in the cold, yes, we got snow in freaking mid April, but all I managed after the quarter were a couple of wheats and some clad. Sigh! I hope that I get to hunt these lots once more after they clear all the tree debris and before they do whatever they are going to do there.
loot

Thank you for looking!

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So much dirt, so little time

20 Sep

After I tweaked my Deus once again, I decided to go over some of the old sites I’ve covered before. At lunch time, I went to some empty lots that the school district bought for future expansions. The area goes back to the turn of the century so finding old coins is possible there. These lots have and continue to be hunted regularly by others in the city but this, as we all know, means very little.

It wasn’t very long before I got a mixed signal. It was a real mess, but, to the discerning ear, the highs in the signal had that something that told me to investigate. Sure enough, along with a nail and an blob of rusted iron, I found a nice 1919 Merc in the hole:

Merc-in-situ

 

merc-in-hand

 

I will have to hit these lots heavily next week.

Thank you for looking!

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Mommy, why can’t I find a coin?

4 Apr

I took my trusty XP Deus metal detector, Maurice, out for a spin at lunch time today. The sun was finally out and the temps hovered in the low 50’s with a brisk cool breeze. Since I have grown in confidence with the Deus, I decided to hit a spot in downtown Wichita that I had hunted before. The site has an interesting history as it is the northernmost part of what was once an island in the middle of the Arkansas river. The island was filled in in the 30’s in one of those famed WPA projects. The island was known as Ackerman’s Island and it was large enough to accomodate a baseball field and an amusement park.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, there were buildings in that lot since the island was filled in and today, there are remnants of multiple foundations and even, I swear, a buried railroad line (although I haven’t dug it up to find out for sure). In other words, it’s tough going if you want to hunt it. But, as I said, since I think I am Mr. Big Deus Bridges I went there for lunch.

After many false starts I finally got a signal that sounded like a coin. It wasn’t very deep and I recovered a 1976 memorial. A little later, I got a faint sweet signal and around 6 inches I found a 1953 wheat cent. Last, before I ran out of time, I got a choppy signal with enough sweetness that it got my attention. I was also getting a VDI in the Indian Head range. With these two things I decided to dig the target. I pulled a toasted Indian Head cent from about 7 inches. **after much effort, I can barely make out the date: 1907**

Trifecta

By the way, this is only the second one cent trifecta I’ve dug up in one single hunt.

The interesting part of this hunt is of course, the Indian Head. Not only because Indian Head cents are super cool but also because of the reason for its choppy signal:

IH-iron

Yep, that’s a chunk of rusted iron stuck to the coin. I am very impressed that the Deus not only presented me with a semi-sweet signal but also with a nice solid VDI. The Deus is a master of iron.

***I posted this picture on a forum and one of the gurus of the hobby pointed out that in this case, the detector will aggregate the signals given by both the coin and the rusted nail and it will likely interpret the signal as a coin. This is because the two metals are touching. So I guess the find is not as impressive as I thought but still it is cool***

Now you know why it’s hard to pull some coins out of the ground!  I wonder if I would have been able to find this coin with any other detector.

Now, where is the silver?!

Thank you for looking.

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One down, 99 and a Seated to go

4 Jan

At lunch time today, I took my XP Deus metal detector to a large and open grassy area in what is possibly the oldest part of town. I have thought of hunting this site since I began metal detecting but for some reason I never had. Well today was the day to do it. The temps were hovering in the mid twenties but the sun was out in full and the wind was minimal.

When I arrived at the spot, I ran into problems right away. First, there was no place to park. I had to get very creative to park even a block away. Then, I found that the site was trashy. Then the ground was so frozen that I could not get the Lesche even 1/16th of an inch into the ground. Still, I came  with the primary goal of establishing if there were structures here some time in the past. None of my resources indicate that anything was ever built here. I have scant information that some sizable human activity took place here way back in the day. It was after looking at maps of the site that it struck me as asymmetrical from a people habitation point of view and so I thought there may have been houses there before.

Ultimately I found the evidence I sought. I found old pieces of metal like the kind I’ve found at other 100-plus year old places and I found some melted lead and other amorphous materials indicating that some very old trash or maybe even a house was burned down. Satisfied and knowing I wouldn’t be able to dig anything today, I began my trip back to the car, swinging as I went. Eventually, I hit a spot with many coin signals (in my opinion anyway :)) and one of them was a solid dime signal, which is a 91 VDI on the Deus running Deus Fast with 12KHz frequency. The depth indicated was three to four inches so I decided to try an extraction. As luck would have it, the ground here had the consistency of hard frozen ice cream, which meant I could slice thin layers of dirt and so after 5 minutes or so, I reached the four inch depth and there it was, shining all pretty like, a 1960 Roosevelt dime.

Rosie_in_situ

First_2013_silver_coin

So there it is. The first silver coin of 2013. I promise I won’t be so long winded on the next silver coin unless it is a Seated :D.

Last year, it took me two weeks to find the first silver coin of the year and I had to take the day off to find it! I have a feeling that 2013 will be a good year for silver and gold finds.

Thank you for looking!

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Auspicious Beginnings

1 Jan

I woke up this morning with plans to explore a site that may hold some good stuff. It was snowing and the temperature was hovering around 24 degrees. No matter; I put on my long johns, grabbed my Deus metal detector and headed out into the white. With no wind, it was actually kind of pleasant outside.

After about two hours of exploring and finding $1.55 in clad and two wheats, I moved on to a large and open grassy area where, according to my research, nothing has ever been built. I began detecting and within minutes I got a nickel signal. I dug the hole and at about five inches deep I got the first gold of 2013:

18K_in_situ

It is a small medallion with the letter S on it. I could tell I had gold right away as there was no sign of corrosion anywhere. In addition, the high yellow color told me this was a high carat gold piece.

I decided this was a good time to stop and headed home. Once home I cleaned the medallion and looked for the carat mark:

18K_clean

Sure enough, the piece is 18K gold. I have found my share of gold since I began doing this a year and a half ago but this is my first 18K gold.

18K

So I begin 2013 with a good find. The medallion weighs 2 grams. That’s a bit over $50 U.S. Not much value money-wise but but I’ll consider it a good sign of things to come.

Thank you for looking!

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End of the world silver

21 Dec

On this fine End-Of-The-World day, Steveouke invited me to detect a series of empty lots in an industrial area of town. It being a beautiful day and all I grabbed my XP Deus metal detector and headed out  to meet him.

The first find of note was a 1929 wheat in fine shape. Then I hit my first ever belt-buckle dump. The darn things kept giving really sweet quarter signals so I dug a dozen or so of them before I gave up. I was carrying them around to take a picture but eventually I got tired of them and tossed them in a pile of trash at the back of one of the lots. I then moved towards the front of the lots where Steve was hunting and dug a couple of memorials before finding this beauty at about 6-7 inches deep. It is worth noting that I first pulled a piece of metal trash out of the hole and thinking that it was the source of the signal, covered it. Before moving on, I re-scanned the hole and sure enough, I got the dime signal again.

End-of-the-world-Rosie

I don’t know if this is the last silver of 2012 because I think Sunday, I am going to hunt a promising location and who knows? My first ever Seated coin could be waiting for me there.

Thank you for looking!

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