Tag Archives: War Nickel

The Conquest of Henry Park

23 Nov

A long time ago, I foolishly declared that I would find silver coins in every old park in our fair city. By sheer luck, I’ve managed to do that at almost every old park except for one; Henry park.

I got the information about Henry park’s founding from a city web page that no longer exists. If I recall, the park opened in 1886; a neighborhood park the size of a city block. Today, the park is a flat piece of land with no trees in it. The oldest trees on its periphery, could be from the 1940’s. Only recently, the city put some modern play equipment on one of its corners.

I hunted this park once or twice in the last five years and didn’t find any silver coins. Today, I wanted to give it another shot and took my XP Deus metal detector and two hours in an incredibly beautiful day. For the first hour and half, the park behaved exactly as before. I found nothing but aluminum foil and a few pieces of rusted wire (there are lots of wire at this park for some reason). However, towards the end of my hunt, the park began to act its age. At about 6 inches down I found a 1942 War nickel. A few minutes later I pulled the bottom of a shotgun shell known around these parts as a head stamp. Last came a small silver earring.

Henry park loot

Henry park November 23 2016

henrypark02earringdetail

I see that I need to spend more time at this park. It is incredibly trashy for not having any amenities and for not being used very much. I also suspect that sometime after the Second World War, this park was filled and graded, putting the coins from the turn of the century out of reach. I could be wrong. I aim to find out.

Thank you for stopping by.

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Yay! A Silver!

12 Aug

I actually found this little guy a week ago while doing a noble job for a church here in town. The Wheat State Treasure Hunters metal detecting club met at a local church to do a bit of community service and help them locate some lost items. They kindly told us we could keep all the coins we found and I think by the end of the day, 8 or 9 silver coins were found by various club members.

For me, it had been a while since I found my last silver coin. I can’t even take a whole lot of credit for finding this coin with Maurice as I saw it before I ran the coil over it. The 1943 War Nickel was laying all naked and pretty at the foot of a very old tree, obviously washed out by the rain.

Be that as it may, finding this coin got me all excited about metal detecting again, so hopefully there will be more of these in the future.

yay-a-silver

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First silver of 2015 and a remarkable hunt

18 Jan

The weather finally turned enough to dust off Maurice, my XP Deus metal detector, and head to my favorite deep silver park.

At the very end of 2014 I added depth to my hunts by increasing the sensitivity and lowering the speed. Also, I learned about a phenomenon that probably kept from finding some deep old coins in the past. With those two things in mind, I returned to a spot that I cleaned in preparation for the Blisstool v6 later this Spring (fingers crossed). I was thinking I would dig some old iron as I was sure that I had done a fairly good job cleaning all signals. Boy was I wrong!

First I found a bunch of pull tabs, beaver tails, and tiny foil. I was somewhat shocked. Upping the sensitivity got me a bunch of those super small pieces of aluminum. Eventually I hit a nice repeatable deeeeep signal. At past 10 inches deep I found what looks to be a brass accent for a purse or something. It says Russell Co. in old english gothic font. Then I got a fairly loud signal that according to the target I.D was a coin. Instead I found a square electrical doo hickie that says Delco REMY on it. I was shocked that I missed this before. Some clad followed. Crazy! Then I hit a 1945 wheat. Really?? It was the next target that floored me. A 1944 D war nickel. By then I had dug almost 20 targets between trash and the non-ferrous stuff. The spot was supposed to be clean!! But I wasn’t done yet; next I found a transportation token from the 60’s. The last target I dug was a 1940 wheat.
Hunt

Was I hunting on deaf mode before?! I swear the spot was clean! I thought I had dug all obvious targets. I am still reeling from this hunt.

1944D

Well I can’t wait to go back to this spot. I will have to re-grid it now.

Thank you for stopping by!

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Thousands of silver coins redux

30 Nov

Friday morning after Thanksgiving promised to be a beautiful morning. I got out of bed early and decided to spend a couple of hours hunting the oldest park in the city. I got there at 7am and immediately was accosted by a couple of 8 year-old boys and their puppy boxer. They shadowed me for an hour of digging clad and deep trash. Eventually, after a vicious puppy attack on one of the boys and my subsequent rescue of such boy, they left me alone to peace and quiet. I decided to move back to the spot in the park that has produced 7 silver coins. Last time I hunted this particular spot, I dug up some cool relics but no more coins. Still, the spot is choke-full of old iron and I was hoping I had missed something.

Sure enough, not five minutes into hunting there, I got a nice coin signal, not too deep but with a confusing VDI. Still, I hunt by ear so I deemed this signal diggable:

wnickel

 

At about 4 inches of depth, I pulled this 1943P war nickel, my 8th silver coin from this relatively small spot. Soon after that I dug up a couple of very shallow wheats from there as well; a 1927 wheat and a 1944 wheat. I just cannot get over how many coins have come from this spot. It reinforces my belief that there are thousands of silver coins left at our city parks, all masked by iron or trash.

By the way, the boys returned to the park, this time tagging along their 2 year old brother who began imitating me by stomping the dirt on the holes I dug and, sometimes stomping on the holes even as I was digging them! LOL! He was very funny in that he got very excited every time I dug up a worm from the ground. I asked one of the boys where they lived and he pointed to a Victorian era house across the street. Next to this house, there is a another equally old house that has been abandoned for a few years now but which we cannot hunt due to the fact that the father of the boys always calls the police on anyone attempting to detect it. I don’t think I go to far in thinking that I may have a way to gain permission to hunt that house. We’ll see.

Thank you for looking!

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Third war nickel in a row

7 Aug

I went out for just a few minutes during my lunch hour and hit a park I’ve been working with the Deus metal detector. This park has a long history and at one point, thousands of people came to it every Summer, to swim in the swimming hole (later a municipal swimming pool) nearby.

The site is HEAVILY contaminated with iron and I have been targeting the very deep stuff. This nickel was eight inches down and it came in as an iffy iron wrap-around signal. It’s a 1945 D.

1945D

 

Thank you for looking!

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Another War nickel

5 Aug

I stopped by my deep silver park this morning to give my XP Deus metal detector a workout. I spent about one hour and after digging a number of old milk bottle foil caps, I hit on my 5th war nickel for the year; 1945 S.

1945S

This beauty came out of the same spot that has yielded about 10 silvers and about 50 wheats plus a number of kid related relics. It seems to be a never ending sweet spot.

Thank you for looking!

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Hard 40

21 Jul

As you may know, I had a bit of trouble figuring out the new upgrade to the XP Deus metal detector I own. However, I stuck to my guns and finally got the beast tamed. I’ve been out a couple of times since then and found a couple of Buffalo nickels and a few odds and ends but no silver.

Today, I went out this morning to my tried and true park and the very first diggable signal was a 1944P war nickel:

1944P

 

This makes silver coin number 40 for the year. It sure has been a hard road to number 40. I am way off my pace for 100 silver coins this year. I am 16 coins behind to be exact. The upgrade really set me back but now I think I can catch up.

The damage to the coin was there already, provided I am sure, by a lawnmower of days gone by.

Thank you for looking!

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The XP Deus Is King!

14 May

Today for lunch, I returned to the park where yesterday I found a Roosevelt dime. When I got there, I remembered that there was a spot where I found an Indian Head cent almost exactly one year ago.

At that spot, there was a house back in the day and I thought I had the front yard and the back yard all figured out. After I found the Indian Head, I gridded the area carefully with the AT Pro and found nothing else. Later in the year, I returned to the same spot with my White’s V3i and again, found nothing more.

Curious to see if Maurice could do better, I began swinging and in a space of a couple of minutes I had two shallow wheats. Wow! I continued and in less than 10 minutes I found my first silver of the day:

1943-obverse 1943-reverse

A 1943 D war nickel at about 6.5 inches deep. Incredible.

I hunted the same spot carefully although not gridding and bam! I got a very faint whisper that repeated nicely from all sides. I cut the plug and at around 8 inches and on the side of the hole I found a 1928 D Mercury dime:

1928

I just cannot believe it. I missed all these coins (by then I had four wheats in my pocket) with the Pro and the V3i.

But not with the Deus!

Towards the end of my hunt I found what I believed was a token but I was wrong. It was a 1918 10 centimes French coin:

10-centimes

10C-back

This coin was first minted in 1917 and was last minted in 1938. A cool coin of a common date. I always wonder how coins like this come to be in our fair city.

So at the end, I ended up with a number of coins that I COMPLETELY missed with my other detectors. This is why I am having to re-hunt every spot with Maurice.

hunt

Thank you for looking!

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Silver; finally!

17 Feb

I went out today with my Deus metal detector and with the express goal of ending my two week silver slump.

The first target worth mentioning was a  cool Buffalo Nickel with no visible date. I love finding these. I didn’t keep count of them last year but I will this year.

Buff

Before I covered the hole, I stuck the pinpointer in to check for additional targets and I got another hit. I was hoping for a silver coin but what I got was pretty cool too.

pony

I feel bad for the little boy who lost both his nickel and his cool pony badge. After I cleaned it, it still had some of the golden gild on it.

After a little while I got a sweet signal mixed with mid tones with a jumpy VDI. I almost didn’t dig it but the sweet part of the signal convinced me to go for it and I am glad I did! Had I kept on walking, I would have missed a 1943 war nickel.

A few minutes later, in a section I’ve hit many, many times before. I got a strong dime signal. Expecting a clad dime, I got a 1961 Rosie instead, only about five inches deep. I sure do love to see that dirty silver disc poking through the dirt!

in-situ

It’s unusual for silver coins to be this shallow at this park and I sure don’t understand how it is I missed it before.

silvers

cool-stuff

Not too bad for a 2.5 hour hunt.

hunt

Not pictured here are the pulltabs (I was looking for gold as well) and the wine screw caps that sound ever so sweet when they are deep.

Thank you for looking!

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Deep War Nickel

25 Jan

At lunch time, I took Maurice, my Deus metal detector, to my deep silver park. I am convinced that most of the 100 coins I’ve decided to find this year will come from this park.

If you have read my blog for a while, you already know about the deep silver park. For some reason, the soil at this park is severely unstable and things sink very deep very fast. Also, recently, I discovered that Maurice reads some of these deep coins but barely makes a peep when it does. To make matters worse, when Maurice finds a deep coin –7 to 9 inches deep, it gives a VDI of 98, which normally indicates iron wrap-around. By the way, the reason why it’s called iron wrap-around is because the VDI scale is actually a wheel. This wheel starts at 00 which is iron and moves up from there to 99. As you know, high conductive targets such as silver and copper, read from the high 80’s (mid-80’s sometimes) to the mid 90’s. The iron wrap around thing happens when the detector detects rusty iron and it assigns a VDI of 98-99 which, in the wheel, is right next to 00. Get it? Well, enough theory for now.

So, Maurice tells me with a faint and sometimes fuzzy high tone that there is something down deep. Then it assigns a VDI of 98 to the thing. Sometimes there is no VDI.  As long as the signal is repeatable I dig it. Until today, I had not dug a coin with this signal but today I dug nine and a tax token (one wheat didn’t make it in the picture). I also dug up some rusty iron items and, as always, trash.

hunt

dirty_wn

obverse

reverse

All objects dug were in the seven to nine inch depth range, with the pocket knife being the most shallow at seven inches. I know there will be people who doubt my depth claims but so be it. I am the only one interested in the depth of my coins as it allows me to gauge the capabilities of my machine in my Kansas soil. XP is working on an 11 inch coil and when I can buy it, I will own this park. Right now, the Deus comes with a 9 inch coil.

Meanwhile, I am as giddy as a, well, let’s not be sexist here. Let’s just say I am super stoked. The only thing that will drive me to drink is the wheat to silver ratio at this park. I know the silver is down there; deep. I just need to figure out how to get to it.

Thank you for looking!

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