Interesting situation.

Doc Chocobo said:

I have this piece of land (about 5 acres) that's been around for a long long time. I know that it was occupied back in the forties, and maybe even before that. So what did I do? You guessed it. I began to scan the land, starting about a few weeks ago.

With my trusty new time ranger in my hand, away I went and Guess what I've found. Mostly nothing, well, maybe not nothing. I expected to find at least one quarter or something around where I knew there were houses. I found two 1992 clad pennies, and so far a few pieces of aluminum. Strangely though, not much of even the aluminum. It's as if it was all collected a long time ago.

What I DID find is a lot of is iron. My lord you aught to see all the rusted nails I've found. Tons of drops all over the place in clusters as if they were thrown out of a bag onto the ground. I've also found tons of cut up hog-wire fence bits like little X's. This is everywhere, almost as if the ground was salted with it to stop people from using a machine. It is over the totality of the land, like a well spread blanket. I'm so glad my machine came with a nugget coil. I can at least poke through the stuff from time to time.

The land is yielding non iron metals and artifacts, but it's a tedious process.

I do wonder if someone has been over the land with a detector, due to the almost total lack of anything but iron. It's as if it was cleaned and sabotaged.

It probably wasn't, but who knows. I'm still finding some interesting junk items, so the fun is not lost

No one ever should get into this hobby to get rich quick, because that is not how it works most of the time

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Sorry you aren't finding much... but your first statement "I have this piece of land (about 5 acres) that's been around for a long long time." made me chuckle and immediately think... Oh yeah? How long? Like 4.5 billion years? lol... just made me laugh the way I read it...

You are finding all those nails from the buildings that were there. Most are left to rot and all the nails that were in the structure are now in the ground. Get away from the iron and look for large trees or maybe old trails. Look for the areas where people would have relaxed like under a big tree.

Wish I had 5 acres to hunt for my own. Sector it off in parcels that you could hunt in approximately a day.

imalookin2 said:

You are finding all those nails from the buildings that were there. Most are left to rot and all the nails that were in the structure are now in the ground. Get away from the iron and look for large trees or maybe old trails. Look for the areas where people would have relaxed like under a big tree.

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Oh yeah plan to check all the usual spots I get the nail thing as well. Just seems weird to find so little of anything else. It is very much like detecting in a park that has been gone over. I've probably only gone over a fraction of the place. I am aware of several trails and cut-throughs that people have used when the land was vacant for a time. The property was unoccupied for about nine years since the last person lived in the house.

heheh, I just got through mowing the lawn and obliterating the dog-piles. I've got a day or two to investigate around the old home place before I'm... uh... poop-locked from the yard again.

The weird thing is that I found two 1992 pennies in the deeper, more wooded part of the land. Strange how they turn up in places you would never think a person would go. I also found an overgrown trail that led to an old camp site where someone had placed a couple of railroad ties and had a small fire long long ago. The place is so overgrown. Can you believe I am still finding stuff out there? I found lots of crushed pull-tab type beer cans there. The place is near the railroad, so people still poke around the trails that run along that edge.

The foliage is starting to thin as fall turns late, so I hope to get out there and see what else I might find.

joee5 said:

Wish I had 5 acres to hunt for my own. Sector it off in parcels that you could hunt in approximately a day.

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Shame we live so far apart. It'd be fun to do a hunt together. I'm still finding stuff in these woods. The old man that had this place was a junk collector. It took us a while to get things livable after we bought the place. It was cheap though, so I cant complain. Property in deep east Texas is easy to get and taxes are low.

The people are nice, if not interesting.

shinythings said:

Sorry you aren't finding much... but your first statement "I have this piece of land (about 5 acres) that's been around for a long long time." made me chuckle and immediately think... Oh yeah? How long? Like 4.5 billion years? lol... just made me laugh the way I read it...

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Yeah, I should've phrased that differently

With that much iron in the ground it's going to be real interesting to hunt since the iron will mask the stuff you are looking for. Since it's your own land you can at least take your time and try to clean everything out and the good stuff should start showing up. Get some rare earth magnets and attach them to your digger and it may save you a little time getting all the rusty nail out of the way. Good luck to ya. Sounds like your work is cut out for you.

Doc Chocobo said:

....I know that it was occupied back in the forties, and maybe even before that. ....

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Do you mean 1940s or 1840s ? And what do you mean by "occupied" ? If it was merely 1940s home-site (or mere cultivation? Or some outbuildings of some sort ?) If so, then sometimes a mere homesite (especially if so new as the 1940s) is often times simply not a good place to hunt.

It takes more than people/persons merely having stood or lived in a spot to make it good. The much BETTER sites are places that commercial/retail/traveler/camper activity took place. Such that many people came and went, exchanging $ and/or recreating. Eg.: stage stop, emigrant camp site, saloon, park/camp-spot, picnic site, etc...

an exception to this kill-joy notion would be if you meant 1840s. Then yes: a singular homestead concern is worth checking. Because sure: a single coin from the 1840s is worth some effort

Also I notice you allude to having dug countless iron. Can't you just pass it up with your discriminator ?

Tom_in_CA said:

an exception to this kill-joy notion would be if you meant 1840s. Then yes: a singular homestead concern is worth checking. Because sure: a single coin from the 1840s is worth some effort

Also I notice you allude to having dug countless iron. Can't you just pass it up with your discriminator ?

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I know the place has been a home place since the 1940's. Sorry for not stating that more clearly. Before that, it was farmland or woodlands. I don't have a map that goes back that far. I do know that this part of our area was a logging interest as well, and even to this day, patches of land all around us are logged.

This land has had outbuildings as well as a number of other homes on it. Apparently, there was a whole extended family on it at one time, consisting of several homes toward the back of the property. I know that there won't be fantastic finds here, but it would really make my day to dig up at least one silver quarter The other homes, at least three, as far as I have learned from others who live here, Have all been removed. There was a collapsed mobile home that was still adjacent to this house. That one was here since 1995. We had it cut up and hauled out for scrap value. One of our neighbors was happy to get it. The other homes have been long gone for quite a time before I owned this.

There is the skeleton of what was a small goat barn and also the bones of a big rabbit hutch out there. I will be removing those soon. Yay! another two places I will detect. The old man was into raising small livestock. Still, there are tons of cut up fence wire in the ground. There are lots more than you would expect since the pens and such are still standing back in the woods.

The woods have grown so thick and full of cat briers that exploring is at a snail's pace, hence why not everything is known yet. I found a refrigerator out there this summer; just right out there in the middle of the trees and brush. There's also an old engine block laying out there about two thirds of the way toward the back of the land. Oh, and a pile of tires with the hubs still on them. I found those a year and a half ago.

I believe that human kind has left no place untouched heheh Even the places you have to cut your way through foot by foot with loppers and handsaws are littered at times.

Exploring and detecting is fast becoming an education. I'm not finding many valuables, but man is it fun to find something and wonder what the hack it is and what it was used for.

OH!, something I did find today! Poured lead ingots, sunk in the bottom of a ditch that runs across the easement. I need to post that somewhere It looks like they were made to be counterweights. They may have come out of a window frame. I also found a badly decomposed knob to a camper door. Just the knob, not the latch or any mechanical parts. It seems that ditches and low spots tend to concentrate metal stuff.

Your mention of cut up fence wire being strewn all about has me wondering why anyone would go to the effort to cut it all up, let alone spread it around. Very strange. It sounds almost like someone was deliberately trying to create an environment where metal detectors would get a lot of trash signals and interference, so they didn't find............hmmm. If you find a jar of money buried there someday it might make more sense.

Maybe so. Time will tell. I'll definitely keep everyone informed if I do find something.

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Think I'd clear out the larger junk, cut some of the brush (burn it, Global Warming is a good thing, why else does the government want to put a stop to it). And just hunt random places, just to get a feel for what there. You should still go off property, and hunt some, helps balance the disappointment, until you find the good spots. Several houses on the same land, there has to be some common ground, where they did stuff outside.

It might surprise ya!

Hey guys! Bet you thought I was gone for good

I've had a hard time with the thousands of wire X's I've dug there. Still no real results. We moved away from there and I'm in a place much further north. I've been hunting in the Mineral Wells area lately, but have returned from time to time to hunt again. A previous poster was right. Now that I've cleared a good bit of the iron stuff, I've begun to find something else interesting. Lots of 7.62x54 casings. Someone's been deer hunting in there.

Nearest guess is that someone had an old Mossin
I'm also finding modern clad in places on the land I never thought a person would have been.

It may be a while before I'm able to get back there, so it may be a while til I post again on this subject. I have my Mom and Dad living there now and they're watching the place. They plan to buy it from me if things turn out good here where I am now.

Doc Chocobo said:

OH!, something I did find today! Poured lead ingots, sunk in the bottom of a ditch that runs across the easement.

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Lead ingots? Does one end have a rope tie? If not they could be civil war era since military were given ingots to make round balls. Never know.... half the fun of this hobby is learning about the stuff you've/others have found....

GL & HH