A Hunt Up North with a Bit of Success

I just wanted to post some pics of my finds from my vacation up north in central MA over the 4th of July. Down here in the Atlanta suburbs, mostly what I do is hunt school yards and parks in neighboring counties since the county I'm in has several ordinances against metal detecting (which I still can't understand why). Anyway, I figured I would take my detector on a road trip over the 4th to visit family up north in MA. After asking several family members where the best place to hunt in their town would be, I settled on an old abandonded high school which I read was in use from 1909 to 1963. Since this was quite different from the schools I hunt in the Atlanta area, I was pretty excited to get out early the first morning I was there. Though the grass at the site hadn't been mowed in quite some time, it didn't deter me from swinging the coil for several hours that morning. I was excited to find wheat pennies as my first and second coin hits because I don't even find many of them down here where I hunt. I found a number of clad coins that morning as well as (what I thought were) two more wheat pennies but the dirt on them was so packed I couldn't make out any features. One of them also had a ton of caked on white patina which was making it even more difficult to identify. I put them in my find pouch and continued on. After about 2 1/2 hours, I ended the hunt and headed back to my parents house. While in their kitchen talking to my wife and one of my sisters, I began to wash the dirt off of my "wheat pennies" when I realized what I had and let out a big "YESSS". They thought I was crazy when I started doing a little dance and showed them two Indian Heads (1890 and 1907). Sorry, but that's a pretty good find for me. My oldest previous coin was a 1951 wheatie . Anyway, I'll end my novel by saying that I tried another park in a neighboring town a few days later and came up with the St. Christopher medal. I was actually teaching one of my brothers how to use the detector when he came upon the medal, his first find! (Not a pull tab, Zincoln, can slaw but Sterling. All I could do was shake my head. He's hooked now BTW . Oddly enough that find came two days before the 14th anniversary of my brother Chris' death. It was almost as if he was telling us he was out there with us. The only other items of interest were a 1973 5c piece from the Netherlands, an old play token, and (what I think is) a gold plated earring. I know you're not supposed to clean your good coins but it was killing me that I couldn't make out anything on that 1907 plus it wasn't a key date or anything. The last two pics are the finished (cleaned) product. Thanks for putting up with my long winded post and HH!