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Awesome Break for “Your Grandma’s Dream House”

MontyPython

New Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
14
My friend lives at an old house in downtown Salt Lake—just east of the heart of the original pioneer homes—that we all jokingly refer to as everyone’s “Grandmother’s Dream House.” I was telling him about recently getting into MD today, and I asked if I could hunt his house. He was like, “Totally! And the house was built in 1905!”

I didn’t realize quite how old it was, so now I’m giddy to take my gear over! Any advice for combing through the yard?

I’ll be looking through some historical maps to see if any other sites used to be on the property, and what kind of a residence it was—farm or otherwise—and I do know that they did multiple additions on the house over the century, so who knows what could’ve fallen out of pockets and bags in be process?!
 
Ask your friend if any fill dirt has been spread in the yard during the years he's owned the house. Fill will bury some of the older stuff even deeper than it will travel thru natural means.

Back yards can be more productive than front yards, so I might start there, but if you have unlimited time over several visits, by all means, detect the whole property.

Within one foot to 15-20 feet of the house itself, you are more likely to find nails (roofing/siding, etc), copper flashing cut-offs, which might be onerous to keep digging, but goodies will be lying in this range as well.

Look also for slight to moderate depressions in the yard, where a large shade tree may have stood and whose roots are now rotting and allowing the surface to sink a little. People often congregated or lied down in the shade of the large trees, often losing their pocket contents.

If you start hitting a hot area, with more goodies than in other parts of the yard, hammer it hard from several directions.

If you hit a very trashy area, switch to a smaller coil 4"-6" to navigate between the trash items better.

Dig some of the iffy signals... heck, dig a lot of them. there are untold numbers of stories on this forum of rings found in a part of the discriminator spectrum where zinc cents or pull tabs are found.

Post your finds here and good luck !

Jim
 
If you can find where the clothesline was, or is search under there and yes, did all the junk signals you can and get them out of there. They can hide good items.
 
Congrats on your permission.

It's amazing how different things are depending on where you are in the country.

Around here (Rhode Island, but New England in general) 1905 homes are literally everywhere. Heck, my house is 1927 and for metal detecting I consider this pretty new.

I guess living in a city founded in 1642 warps your perspective.
 
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