Tag Archives: Nickel

My oldest coin thus far

21 Jul

Wow, I really need to post more often!

I have been looking for gold as I mentioned before but I have found none. I spent four days in St. Louis MO but I didn’t get to take my detector. It was very hard walking around Forest Park and not having Maurice with me. I did see a guy detecting with an AT Pro but since it was our family vacation I didn’t run to talk to him to see what he was finding.

Alas, to top it all off, my friend luckydog1 er, I mean, lawdog1, was killing it finding a NICE Morgan silver dollar, a NICE Franklin half and an assortment of Mercs, Rosies and other awesome coins.

So when I came back home, I was determined to go out hunting.

Yesterday, I decided to visit a nearby town that has produced very nicely for other hunters. The town, albeit small, has a large and very old park. For this hunt I put away the Compadre and dusted off Maurice. I spent three hours there and found only one coin worth talking about:

shield_nickel_with_rays

 

rays shield

 

Yep, that’s my first ever Shield Nickel. It is worn smooth but you can see enough detail. With a magnifying glass the 67 part of the date can be made out faintly. The Shield nickel was designed in 1866. The original design had rays emanating from the center and going between the stars surrounding the number 5. This design was changed in 1867 because of difficulties with the striking of the pattern. Starting in 1867, the 5 was surrounded by stars but no rays were on it.  So the rays were only on coins made in 1866 and part of 1867.

This was a coin long on my list and now I can scratch it off. This makes up for all my failed hunts this year!

Finding this coin made me decide to start hunting on my lunch hour again.

Thank you for looking!

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Nickelodeon and the mystery of the missing gold

28 Jan

I went out with my XP Deus metal detector the other day looking for cool stuff. As usual, I hit one of our city parks. Most of our city parks are hunted regularly so I am not surprised when I don’t find a lot of clad –or any clad, there.

This time however, I found a few dimes, a bunch of nickels, and even a quarter.

nickels

The clad was surprising but the nickels were not. Finding nickels with the Deus is child’s play. And since it seems that no one else digs nickel signals, there are always many left in any of our city parks.

The mystery to me is that with as many nickels as I dig, and 7 to 8 nickels a hunt is not unusual, why am I not finding lots of gold? I guess that speaks volumes about the volume of gold in our parks; that is, there is not much. Still, I will continue to dig nickel signals because Maurice makes it easy.

Oh, and I found my first silver ring of the year. About 6 inches down and gave a strong quarter signal. I’ll take it.

ring1

Because of the increased level of stress at my job this time of year, I find it necessary to resume my lunch hour hunts to clear my head. So much for the walking! LOL!

Thank you for looking!

 

 

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Stress reliever

23 Aug

With all the other things going on in my life, my detecting time has diminished greatly. I decided however, that 30 minutes of hunting at lunch time was better than no hunting at all so I resumed my lunch hour hunts and after a few days of covering the park where I found the last war nickel my XP Deus  hit on two cool coins:

1919

 

The first was a 1919 Buffalo nickel. The Buffs I find usually don’t have a visible date but this one does so I will post about it.  Because of the all iron nails at this park (don’t know why there are so many), this nickel came up as a square pull tab. The signal was sweet however and I opted to see what it was.

1899

 

The second coin was a well worn 1899 Barber dime. This guy was mixed in with some aluminum foil so the signal was a warble of mid and high tones. Again, the sweetness of the high tones made me dig it.

I think this small park has many, many more coins and I aim to dig them all up. Wish me luck.

Thank you for looking!

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Back to silver

29 Jun

I have been trying to make sense of the new software in my Deus metal detector. Honestly, I was beginning to get a little bit frustrated but I knew that it was just a matter of time before things started to make sense. This morning I hit my deep silver park and went over some of the areas I have hunted regularly for two years. Amazingly, I managed to pull some nickels from the 1940’s (no war nickels unfortunately) and then I found this 1939 D Mercurydime:

1939 D

 

A little later, I found a worn Buffalo nickel with no discernable date:

Buff

 

With the new program I am using, I have been finding nickels at every hunt but I also find a lot of square pull tabs and a lot of beaver tails from the old style pull tabs. I don’t mind however, because I am likely to find gold if I keep digging those signals.

Thank you for looking!

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Silver by any other name…

17 Jun

I have been hunting but I haven’t been posting. Here are the finds from the last few hunts:

From my neighborhood park, a silver St. Christopher, a little larger than a U.S. quarter, that got in a fight with a lawnmower and lost:

st-silver

From a private property that I hunted with Stevouke and another hunter from the Wheat State Treasure Hunters came a cool 1913 Buffalo nickel and a 1908 Indian Head cent:

IH-Buff

From my deep silver park, a 1936 Buffalo nickel and an old sterling silver ring that I broke during extraction:

silv-ring

 

1936Buff

No silver coins although I get the feeling many silver coins will forthcoming soon! Why?…

MAURICE HAS A NEW BRAIN!!!!

Yep, the software on the Deus has been upgraded to version 3. I took it out for a quick spin this afternoon and quickly got targets out of a spot in the park that had long since dried up, even with the Deus! Version 3 has a number of improvements and additions one of which may become my hunting standard. Right away I can go deeper. There is a noticeable increase on the strength of the small, deep beeps. Also, the Deus is noticeably better on the iron. Instead of getting my usual iron wrap-around, many of the iron signals actually came in with the VDI of 00. The other thing that just blew my mind is how much faster the thing is! All of that plus a bucket full of new features is sure to increase my silver count.

Thank you for looking!

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A Buffalo for my troubles

12 Jun

I haven’t found any silver coins in the last week. I have been hunting dirt that is likely to produce a Seated coin but I have not found one yet. I did find this cool Buffalo nickel at Riverside park the other day:

Buff

I can’t make the date on it.

Besides this Buff, I have found a number of wheats here and there and a few relics with some degree of coolness to them.

Yesterday, I forgot my Deus (gasp!) but I was lucky to have my Compadre with me. I used it to clean up some pull tabs from a favorite spot of mine and at about the 16th pull tab I found what I thought was gold. Alas! it was not to be solid gold but some gold plated lead-like metal.

At any rate, the XP Deus version 3 update is looming large and it promises to improve an already magnificent machine. World domination is at my fingertips.

Thank you for looking!

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Old Coin Sandwich

18 Apr

I guess this is going to be a two post day.

And I guess I have to do a bit of explaining now. The other day, Tuesday night I think, I read a post on a Deus users forum whereas a well respected and acknowledged guru of the Deus recommended doing a couple of things to the Deus that run counter to popular opinion. What he recommends will kill some of the depth that I have been getting with the Deus lately BUT, the guru contends that being able to unmask the shallow to medium deep targets more than makes up for losing depth.

So yesterday, Wednesday, I took Maurice to the park to try these new settings even though, because of the rain, I wasn’t going to dig anything (couldn’t risk getting muddy as I work in an office and I see clients). In no more than 10 minutes I got 7 to 8 signals in a spot I’ve hunted A LOT that were not there before! I was ASTOUNDED. I was BEWILDERED. I was PARSIMONIOUS. (I don’t know what that last word means). I immediately called Steveouke to share this new thing with him. I know he knows the park I was at and I know he knows what a cruel mistress that park can be. Why, if I mined all the iron out of that park I may become a steel magnate. A rusty steel magnate.

But I didn’t dig any of the signals so who knows?!

Today, although I really didn’t have time to hunt at lunch time, I couldn’t resist the curiosity and I decided to hit the park again. It was cold and cloudy and the wind was probably blowing a good 15Mph but it wasn’t raining. I walked around the spot for a couple of minutes and I couldn’t find any of the signals from yesterday. Argghhhhh!!! Finally, I came upon a shallow signal with a VDI of 92 which at 12KHz on the Deus is a solid silver dime.
I thought to myself “This is not one of yesterdays signals but oh well”. I cut a 4 inch plug and at the bottom of the plug there was this mass with a shiny silver edge. My brain didn’t immediately understand what I was looking at:

sandwich

It wasn’t until I looked at one of the smaller discs on each side of the shiny-edge circle that I saw it was a V nickel! What!!?? This bundle of joy was only 4 inches deep. How did I miss it before? I tell you how: IRON MASKING.

I called Stevouke and since he works only a couple of blocks away from this park, he asked that I come over so he could see the old coin sandwich.

We ran some hot water over it and we could see that one of the coins on the side was a Buffalo nickel and the other was a V nickel. But what was in the middle?

three-oldies

Ta- da! My second Stander of the year. Out of a park that to my knowledge has yielded no coins for a while (except to Maurice and I).

Both the Standing Liberty quarter and the Buffalo have no dates. Actually, you can see the last number of the date on the Buffalo and it is a 9.

The V nickel is dated 1908. That’s two V nickels out of this park in a week.

And I stuck to my guns and pulled silver out of here, which I’ve been telling Stevo I would.

Will this new setting hold? Will I find the other 8 signals that I am sure are coins again? Who invented liquid soap and why?

Stay tuned.

Thank you for looking!

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Another V nickel

18 Apr

On my way to my Karate class on Tuesday, I stopped at the oldest park in Wichita for a few minutes of swinging my Deus metal detector. This park, aside from being the oldest park in Wichita, is also a one-block size park. The implications of this is that this park is one of the most hunted parks in the city and, because of its size, the likelihood that every square inch in it has been detected is high.

HOWEVER, no place is ever really hunted out. I agree with Tom Dankowski when he says that most of the coins ever dropped are still in the ground due to depth and masking. I believe this is especially true in this park. I began hunting this park back in my Ace250 days with no finds. Zero. Nada. Zilch. I found the first coin here with my V3i. It was a wheat; then, nothing.

I returned with the Deus and the place began to pop. I’ve found numerous wheats, a Buffalo nickel, an Indian Head from the late 1800’s, a 3 ring bullet possibly from the Bleeding Kansas days, and a hulking gold chain. This tells me that the stuff is there.

Well this is kind of a long preamble but I have reason for the long winded introduction. Like I said, I stopped here on my way to Karate and after about 45 minutes I got one of my wrap-around signals that was consistent enough so I dug it:

1910V-obverse

1910V

1910

I love V nickels! This is my third one ever and the second this year. 1910. I wish it was in better shape but I’ll take it.

Now, why am I going on and on about this park? For starters, I believe my Seated coin is here. The park is old enough. Then, this very small park is heavily infested with iron which means that many coins could be masked. Finally, I learned something new about the Deus yesterday that, if correct, could prove to be a game changer.

I can’t wait to get back to the park to see if I am right!

***Last minute edit: If you get a chance, visit the website Scintillating Silver. You can find the link on the right under the Blog Roll. This guy posts some very interesting stuff about money. Check it out***

Thank you for looking.

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Where the Buffalo Roam

11 Jan

And the Girl Scouts dropped their bling.

I stopped at my usual after-work spot to give Maurice a quick workout. After digging a number of deep pulltabs and can slaw, my Deus metal detector gave me a wheat/indian head signal. I dug a 5 inch deep hole and I pulled something that made me see dollar signs:

gs_bracelet

The bracelet is bling but it sure looked like gold when I pulled it out of the hole! Still, I usually find Girl Scout Brownie pins around the site. This is the first piece of GS paraphernalia that is different. It is in very good shape except for the bent band. I need to learn how to fix this kind of damage. Maybe I will invest on a jewelry repair kit this year.

After a little while I got a nickel signal. I dug the hole expecting yet another piece of can but I what I got instead was this beatiful Buffalo nickel in near pristine condition. This nickel was dropped in 1937!

1937

1937b

This is my first Buff of the year and about the 5th or 6th from this spot. And I didn’t scratch it! (did I mention that I love my shovel?).

Alas, my 30 minutes went so quickly! It was soon time to continue on home. Before I left though, I paused for a moment to enjoy the dying day. It occurred to me that if I went to bar after work like so many people, I would have missed this breathtaking sky painting.

digs

I capped this perfect evening with a 1/2 p0und hot dog at a neighborhood restaurant with my boys and the rest of the family.

Thank you for looking!

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Then, in the afternoon…

6 Jan

…I went to Riverside park with my Deus metal detector for an hour before the sun went down. I went to the spot I have been hunting consistently for a year and a half. I have seen scores of people detecting this spot. I myself have dug up many wheats, buffaloes, and Indians from here. Still, no matter what, there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of cool stuff still buried here.

Case in point is this really cool 1897 V nickel. It gave a pulltab signal that I decided to dig because it was deep and in this park I dig all signals four inches deep or deeper.

1897_nickel

It is my first old nickel of the year and my first V nickel of the year. I put a big scratch on it and I was so mad about it that I came home and immediately ordered a shovel. This will be my third shovel and hopefully the last. I have taken measures to avoid loosing this one.

Anyway I love V nickels. I found my very first one ever last year. I hope to find many more this year.

Thank you for looking!

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