Well, I will be going metal detecting this weekend. I have obtained a nice white's metal detector, and will checking for stuff on my dad's property. I am excited, as I found a 3 cent piece, simply by moving rocks on his property. There is an old mine on his property (will not be entering it), there was a tannery on his property, and there were two houses built in the early 1700's there. I hope to find some interesting things. I figured I'd start it now, before the ground freezes. Any good tips on searching?
Yea, I'll be over just let me know when and where!! Always find out where the outhouse was, that is a hot spot on old properties. Also check around where clothes used to hang (either to dry or grandads favorite hangin' spot). Don't forget to look where they had their mailbox (used to attach coins to letters as postage). Stand at the back door and find the most direct path to the barn or other buildings and check all along that path (that path was always the most traveled). And always check around large shade trees where residents might have stopped to catch a snooze on lazy afternoons thus loosing that pocket change. Just ask yourself where you might have lost some change if you lived there and check it out. Good luck and have fun!!!
My wife has one of those expensive White metal detectors. We also have an old gold mine on the property. We have found old buggy parts, a carbide miner's lamp, metal tools, and a few sluice-hoes. Lots of old cans and square nails. Whereas there may be a fair amount of gold still on the property, we have been unable to find any nuggets or veinlets with her fancy detector. We get a lot of ground interference from natural mineralization in the bedrock. The gold is here because of the mineralization, but the pyrite and iron oxides get in the way of easy detection. Serious argonauts use metal detectors with substantial success to find gold nuggets in California. It can be done. In fact, a friend of a friend recently found a stash of placer gold on the property adjacent to mine. He undoubtedly benefited from a major construction project that is taking place. Dozers have moved a hundred thousand tons of rock and old alluvium from the bottom of a very productive Tertiary channel that was discovered in 1848. This guy was in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment. Guys that know what they are doing, and work hard, find gold throughout the Mother Lode.
There are 2 rules to metal detecting to ALWAYS follow: 1. Always have permission (in your case, I am seriously envious b/c of the site(s) you can freely search 2. Always leave it like you found it. Meaning, don't leave trash and fill in your digs when your done. Practicle advise is to never dig right ontop of your hit. The last thing you want to do is gouge the coin you've worked so hard to find. Also, go to your local library and town hall and research the property. You may be able to cheaply obtain copies of the old site surveys of the land. There may have been other structures on the land that you and your dad may not even know about. Good luck and have fun!!!!
Ooh, I forgot to mention the barn, which was built in the 1700's as well. I'm going to check on the ground in there. I'll post anything I find. Thanks for the advice.
Now your talkin! Iam an old metal detector guy,I used the old army folding shovel these work great. If your hunting that period, look for the blue& green "feather-edge" broken plates in the field and area,that will put you right on top of a period sight,Ive found many sights in wide open fields that you never would know some house was there, good luck!, Whites is a great machine!.
My wife's detector appears to have gone South. I need to determine what is wrong with it. About 40 years ago, which is shocking in itself, a friend and I traveled to west-central Nevada in a dune buggy to examine a site proported to have been a way-station owned by two brothers who were involved in the Comstock Lode discovery. My friend found an 1860-something coin in the foundation area. As I recall, without evoking the 5th Amendment, it was an American three-cent piece. Is there such a coin? It was no bigger than a dime, and I thought it was silver. Now I feel like a subject of an old Grand Jury investigation. I can't remember.
That's definitely it. It was a very cool find. I have explored, and or, mapped hundreds of old mines throughout the West. I have found lots of neat stuff, but never a coin like that. The ghost towns and old prospects that I have seen are mostly gone now. I wish that I had taken pictures of the things that I have seen. I have seen mining cabins totally outfitted as if someone just walked out the door. 50-year-old newspapers on the floor. I once discovered a quarter-mile long, 1-inch-diameter, water pipe hammered from thin pieces of wrought iron. It stretched from Quail Sping near Death Valley to a tiny miner's cabin.
