Nailfinder85
Full Member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2019
- Messages
- 155
Made it home this afternoon after 2 days on the road and a nice night in WV to wrap up a 9 day trip to NJ.
I won’t bore you with the family stuff but as a long time relic hunter and local history enthusiast growing up in jersey chasing arrowheads wandering every plowed field I could find and bugging everyone’s grandparents (including my own) over the years I have a pretty good idea of the lay of the land in years past. Old home sites, stores, bars, marinas and shipyards. My time was limited so I went for the BEST. We had a family vacation agenda to uphold and I was chomping at the bit to swing my detector over ANYTHING. I remembered stories of an old home that had a store in the basement, late 1800s, but the home was there first. By the early 1900s there was a small store behind the home with eventually one hand crank gas pump. Heard word of a bank attached to the store or next to it but haven’t been able to get to the bottom of that....yet. Rest assured I’ll keep researching and be to continue my digging. It took me 5 minutes to dig my first mercury dime(1917). Then the wheat pennies, 1 and 2 at a time. 1895 IHP in the driveway near where the gas pump stood. Soil was light and sandy, pure sand in some spots after the grass layer, which had the mercury dimes like you ran them through a sand blaster, clean as could be but very warn. Coins in the sandy stuff was consistently 8” deep. Other areas were gravel/topsoil that held a lot of moisture and produced several warn down IHPs and wheaties. 1913-45 on the wheats, most of them 1913-23. Probably 35 total. All the coins in the top soil/gravel layer was 4” and corroded. I’m sure you all understand this better than me. Mind you this is near the shore and salt probably plays a factor even though this site is inland about 30 miles from the ocean and 1 mile from a bay. I’ll provide more details after another 40 years of detecting it. Most of the coins came from what would have been the store front in the separate building behind the home. Understandably so and it was a blast, my dad is learning a brand new equinox 600 and he is still there digging coins, probably as you read this, he is digging away. Purchased a bounty hunter pioneer 202 off of an old friends garage wall and my 12 year old daughter took a whopping 10 minutes to start digging IHPs and then a really cool broach that we have yet to identify. We spent 45mins-1 hour a day digging 5-10 coins a day and a few relics, an old brass bell, shipyard tool tAg. I wish I could tell you more about the readings of my finds but I use a bounty hunter and it is pretty basic, ihps read like 1cent or s-cap. Merc dimes are 10cent.......I look for solid signals that don’t bounce around and I was borrowing my daughters brand new....I mean old dusty pioneer 202 that reads depth, this is new technology for me::::::insert laughter here::::::: On second to last day after being rained out a few days I head for the old home that has been added to over the years, but two walls are the original foundation and I was not disappointed. I get high silver readings and assume it’s nails or tin from home additions and move on. I find a buffalo nickel at the 8” mark a few feet from the foundation and a few more wheats. Before dark I couldn’t resist the nagging and head back to my silver spot. While my dAd an daughter work away at the out building/store I sink my shovel in next to the home heading for the standard 8” depth(I’m using my bounty hunter SS2) remember, no depth reading and my daughter is over digging ihps as fast as you could clean them off for her, so good luck getting the pioneer for a minute. I dig one good scoop along the old foundation, fairly easy digging in the soft soil and dump it aside not looking because the good stuffs at 8” right? Nope. Nope. I see the edge of a big round coin............
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I won’t bore you with the family stuff but as a long time relic hunter and local history enthusiast growing up in jersey chasing arrowheads wandering every plowed field I could find and bugging everyone’s grandparents (including my own) over the years I have a pretty good idea of the lay of the land in years past. Old home sites, stores, bars, marinas and shipyards. My time was limited so I went for the BEST. We had a family vacation agenda to uphold and I was chomping at the bit to swing my detector over ANYTHING. I remembered stories of an old home that had a store in the basement, late 1800s, but the home was there first. By the early 1900s there was a small store behind the home with eventually one hand crank gas pump. Heard word of a bank attached to the store or next to it but haven’t been able to get to the bottom of that....yet. Rest assured I’ll keep researching and be to continue my digging. It took me 5 minutes to dig my first mercury dime(1917). Then the wheat pennies, 1 and 2 at a time. 1895 IHP in the driveway near where the gas pump stood. Soil was light and sandy, pure sand in some spots after the grass layer, which had the mercury dimes like you ran them through a sand blaster, clean as could be but very warn. Coins in the sandy stuff was consistently 8” deep. Other areas were gravel/topsoil that held a lot of moisture and produced several warn down IHPs and wheaties. 1913-45 on the wheats, most of them 1913-23. Probably 35 total. All the coins in the top soil/gravel layer was 4” and corroded. I’m sure you all understand this better than me. Mind you this is near the shore and salt probably plays a factor even though this site is inland about 30 miles from the ocean and 1 mile from a bay. I’ll provide more details after another 40 years of detecting it. Most of the coins came from what would have been the store front in the separate building behind the home. Understandably so and it was a blast, my dad is learning a brand new equinox 600 and he is still there digging coins, probably as you read this, he is digging away. Purchased a bounty hunter pioneer 202 off of an old friends garage wall and my 12 year old daughter took a whopping 10 minutes to start digging IHPs and then a really cool broach that we have yet to identify. We spent 45mins-1 hour a day digging 5-10 coins a day and a few relics, an old brass bell, shipyard tool tAg. I wish I could tell you more about the readings of my finds but I use a bounty hunter and it is pretty basic, ihps read like 1cent or s-cap. Merc dimes are 10cent.......I look for solid signals that don’t bounce around and I was borrowing my daughters brand new....I mean old dusty pioneer 202 that reads depth, this is new technology for me::::::insert laughter here::::::: On second to last day after being rained out a few days I head for the old home that has been added to over the years, but two walls are the original foundation and I was not disappointed. I get high silver readings and assume it’s nails or tin from home additions and move on. I find a buffalo nickel at the 8” mark a few feet from the foundation and a few more wheats. Before dark I couldn’t resist the nagging and head back to my silver spot. While my dAd an daughter work away at the out building/store I sink my shovel in next to the home heading for the standard 8” depth(I’m using my bounty hunter SS2) remember, no depth reading and my daughter is over digging ihps as fast as you could clean them off for her, so good luck getting the pioneer for a minute. I dig one good scoop along the old foundation, fairly easy digging in the soft soil and dump it aside not looking because the good stuffs at 8” right? Nope. Nope. I see the edge of a big round coin............
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