ToySoldier
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UPDATE IN POST #15
I went to a spot I had noticed a few days earlier where the town had scraped up some old neighborhood public dirt into a big pile just waiting to be hauled off or spread out. The rest of the site was ready for concrete, and I wasn't going to risk messing up their forms or string lines, so I stayed outside of the roped off area and turned my attention to the dirt pile.
Sensitivity at 50% to just focus on targets shallow enough to pop out with the tip of my pinpointer. I didn't notch anything out. I could have done this hunt with any detector that can signal low versus medium/high conductors.
I hit a couple of memorial pennies, then a wheat, then a a nickel so badly corroded I could only tell it was likely pre-Jefferson. Then, with a few minutes to spare, I hit a "too good to be true" shallow signal. But, in this case, that's what I hoping to hear. Out popped a Barber half. It was completely black with tarnish and I could only see the outlines.
I had to go, but I came back the next evening and popped a few more wheat pennies and a decent looking Buffalo. No more silver.
I cleaned the 1897 Barber just enough to leave some tarnish to show detail. It's pretty smooth. The line across the face is a weird pattern in the tarnish and not a gouge. She ain't pretty, but she looks good to me. You can see some recent scratch marks, but that must have been from when the dirt was scraped.
The unknown nickel was as corroded as I've ever seen. I tried gentler measures to ID it, but resorted to something more drastic and it turned out to be a buffalo. I've censored the results to protect sensitive viewers. The better looking buffalo barely gave up the last two digits of the date. 1924.
I went to a spot I had noticed a few days earlier where the town had scraped up some old neighborhood public dirt into a big pile just waiting to be hauled off or spread out. The rest of the site was ready for concrete, and I wasn't going to risk messing up their forms or string lines, so I stayed outside of the roped off area and turned my attention to the dirt pile.
Sensitivity at 50% to just focus on targets shallow enough to pop out with the tip of my pinpointer. I didn't notch anything out. I could have done this hunt with any detector that can signal low versus medium/high conductors.
I hit a couple of memorial pennies, then a wheat, then a a nickel so badly corroded I could only tell it was likely pre-Jefferson. Then, with a few minutes to spare, I hit a "too good to be true" shallow signal. But, in this case, that's what I hoping to hear. Out popped a Barber half. It was completely black with tarnish and I could only see the outlines.
I had to go, but I came back the next evening and popped a few more wheat pennies and a decent looking Buffalo. No more silver.
I cleaned the 1897 Barber just enough to leave some tarnish to show detail. It's pretty smooth. The line across the face is a weird pattern in the tarnish and not a gouge. She ain't pretty, but she looks good to me. You can see some recent scratch marks, but that must have been from when the dirt was scraped.
The unknown nickel was as corroded as I've ever seen. I tried gentler measures to ID it, but resorted to something more drastic and it turned out to be a buffalo. I've censored the results to protect sensitive viewers. The better looking buffalo barely gave up the last two digits of the date. 1924.
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