AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I’ve got a favorite site that I've frequented many times with my Ace 400 last year. The site has seen activity since at least the late 1800s, but the most activity was probably from the 1930s and later. Not an incredibly old site, but a nice, consistent producer. With the Ace, virtually all of my finds here had been at about 6" or less - lots of Wheats, a couple tokens, lots of relics. Silver was somewhat lacking, though. I only found two silver coins across at least a dozen visits last year. I started to suspect that I needed to get deeper to find the silver here - there were enough finds coming out of the ground to know it wasn't hunted out, the Ace just isn’t capable of seeing stuff any deeper.
So yesterday I brought my new AT Max out to the site for a quick hunt. I only had about an hour to hunt the site, so my time was a little too limited (and the ground was a little too hard) to go into "dig it all" mode. I mostly targeted higher tones, although I still went after a couple lower tones in the continuing effort to learn the machine. Believe it or not, I ended up only walking about 120 feet and only dugging 7 holes in that hour's time, but I couldn't be happier with the results - a silver war nickel, 1918D Merc, a pair of wheats (came out together in a mini-spill from 7" down), and only 4 pieces of trash! Here’s a shot of the full hunt:
That beaver tail pull tab almost had me banging my head against the ground! It was the first signal I dug, and it genuinely fooled me – it actually rang up in the high 70s and indicated 8” deep. Anything at 6” has always been good at this site during previous hunts, so I had visions of great things with an 8” signal. I dutifully dug down, and there was the pull tab, a full 8” deep! Keep in mind - I’m coming from the Ace, where if I dig 6” down, I’ve made a big hole – 8” is a crater to me
I just stared at it in disbelief for several seconds – I even dumbly said “I just dug an 8 inch pull tab” out loud to myself! The tab didn’t ring high once it was out of the hole, so I figure something must have averaged it up, but I couldn’t get any signal with the machine or the pinpointer even after rechecking and digging a little more. A bit of a puzzler on that one!
Soon after the beaver tail debacle, I got a faint high tone in the low 80s, a little scratchy and mostly hitting in just one direction, indicating 8” down. Again, I’m new to digging deeper holes, so doubt started to creep in when I was 7 inches down and the pinpointer still wasn’t sounding off. Perseverance paid off – I kept going and at about 7.5 inches the pinpointer gave me some chirping, and at 8” the 1943 silver war nickel popped out! Yep, the rocks you see in the background came out of the hole as well!
Less than 5 feet from the war nickel, I found another faint, low 80s tone, this one more defined in both directions. Again I dug down, and again I started to second guess as I passed the 7” mark. Just not used to going that far down in a public area! The doubt was instantly erased when the silver rim appeared in one of the dirt clods I brought up – I was ecstatic to have my oldest Merc and my very first double silver day!
Here’s a shot of the coins after a rinse with soap & water:
I’ll be headed back to the same location today – it sure looks like there’s a lot more to be found just a little deeper down than the Ace could reliably see. The small area that I re-hunted yesterday is barely 1% of the total area of the site!
So yesterday I brought my new AT Max out to the site for a quick hunt. I only had about an hour to hunt the site, so my time was a little too limited (and the ground was a little too hard) to go into "dig it all" mode. I mostly targeted higher tones, although I still went after a couple lower tones in the continuing effort to learn the machine. Believe it or not, I ended up only walking about 120 feet and only dugging 7 holes in that hour's time, but I couldn't be happier with the results - a silver war nickel, 1918D Merc, a pair of wheats (came out together in a mini-spill from 7" down), and only 4 pieces of trash! Here’s a shot of the full hunt:
That beaver tail pull tab almost had me banging my head against the ground! It was the first signal I dug, and it genuinely fooled me – it actually rang up in the high 70s and indicated 8” deep. Anything at 6” has always been good at this site during previous hunts, so I had visions of great things with an 8” signal. I dutifully dug down, and there was the pull tab, a full 8” deep! Keep in mind - I’m coming from the Ace, where if I dig 6” down, I’ve made a big hole – 8” is a crater to me
I just stared at it in disbelief for several seconds – I even dumbly said “I just dug an 8 inch pull tab” out loud to myself! The tab didn’t ring high once it was out of the hole, so I figure something must have averaged it up, but I couldn’t get any signal with the machine or the pinpointer even after rechecking and digging a little more. A bit of a puzzler on that one!Soon after the beaver tail debacle, I got a faint high tone in the low 80s, a little scratchy and mostly hitting in just one direction, indicating 8” down. Again, I’m new to digging deeper holes, so doubt started to creep in when I was 7 inches down and the pinpointer still wasn’t sounding off. Perseverance paid off – I kept going and at about 7.5 inches the pinpointer gave me some chirping, and at 8” the 1943 silver war nickel popped out! Yep, the rocks you see in the background came out of the hole as well!
Less than 5 feet from the war nickel, I found another faint, low 80s tone, this one more defined in both directions. Again I dug down, and again I started to second guess as I passed the 7” mark. Just not used to going that far down in a public area! The doubt was instantly erased when the silver rim appeared in one of the dirt clods I brought up – I was ecstatic to have my oldest Merc and my very first double silver day!
Here’s a shot of the coins after a rinse with soap & water:
I’ll be headed back to the same location today – it sure looks like there’s a lot more to be found just a little deeper down than the Ace could reliably see. The small area that I re-hunted yesterday is barely 1% of the total area of the site!
