Chasing Time - Silver At The Old Park

[CyberSage]

Sometimes I wonder where the time goes...

Life rushes by and we do our best to grab what little magic moments that are within our reach. The last month I have seen very little hunt time. It was traded away for end of summer chores such as harvesting and canning the goodness from our garden. When caught up on chores there were fun filled days spent with family and special anniversaries. Don't get me wrong here. All of these things are welcome and enjoyed. This is life. Not having time to hunt I spent time in my coin garden every chance I got. I recently acquired a new SEF Butterfly Coil and was eager to have a go with it. It tested out nicely and made easy work of even the deepest targets in the coin garden. This past week I finally found myself standing in the old park by my house. The headphones felt almost foreign as I placed them on my head. The new coil was strapped on the V3 and I chose a very popular spot in the park to swing it for the first time. Now this part of the park was an old turn of the century campground and was popular about a hundred years ago. Now it lays quiet and undisturbed in the corner of the modern day park. The modern day visitors aside from the Fox squirrels are largely made up of people on there way to somewhere else and other detectorist. I have stopped and chatted many times with fellow metal detectorist who like others before them knew that this was an old campground. I have found a few Wheat pennies here myself and figured I was doing good for such a hard hit area. I talked with one old timer who had just found a beautiful Mercury dime with his SE. He said that over the years he and his buddies had pulled some nice coins from this area. Happy to have a few hours to hunt I started slowly hunting the old campground with the new coil. First nice hit was a deep Wheat penny. I began to circle outward from the find and received a very nice tone about 4 feet away. What came out of the ground over the next couple of short hours was an exciting surprise. This video is comprised of 2 separate hunts in the same location over a 3 hour period of time.

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The coins as they came out of the ground...



And after cleaning in a warm soapy water bath...



The Barber was well worn, but the Mercury Dime was detailed and had a beautiful luster.

The old campground was surrendering a lot of coins and I was having a lot of fun. Here is a shot of the first dig site (Barber Dime)



You can see the old bath house in the background. In the 80 year old picture below it looks much the same.



Here is another angle of the campground from another equally old photograph.

As it was then, and as it is present day...




The tracks you see are from a modern day train ride for the kids. As the sun went down the second day of the hunt I sat for awhile and watched it get dark. I tried to imagine the campfires and family get-to-gathers that happened here. The good times, there must have been a few here for sure.. I became melancholy suddenly. May be it was just the brisk wind that blew through the old trees that was signaling that summer is over and winter is on it's way that made me a little sad... May be it was knowing that most of the folks that camped here are long gone... May be it's just that...

Sometimes I wonder where the time goes.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[devros]

Really nice merc you got there, so jealous of it, still waiting to find one myself. that barber is a good score too. good luck with the new coil.

[z118]

Great post! I've been wondering what an SEF coil would be like on my Sov... Anyway congrats on the finds!

[SeabeeRon]

Another great hunt and shared in another great post!!! Thanks Jack!!

[xzlr8n]

Jack,

I think if you don't stop sometimes and contemplate the experience you just had or think of the past history of the place you just enjoyed then time does seem to blurr bye. For most of us we just want the workday to be over, this or that meeting to end, some monotonous task we've delved into to be done, just wanting the day to be over with period. Well, those days turn into months, months into years, years into a lifetime. Before you know it your kids are grown up, your house is paid off, your onto your tenth car, your retirement is upon you, you've just celebrated your 60th wedding anniversary, on and on and on.... Where does all time go?? Hats off to you for taking in the moment and making time slow down just a little in your busy life. Enjoy all that you do and keep on contemplating all the untold stories of those who have left parts of the past for us to find!!

Nice hunt and story too!! I enjoy reading your posts..

[angellionel]

Wonderful post Jack. I enjoyed the read, and I sure love those dimes. Nice hunt!

[xhunter30]

Beautiful Merc, something I like about them. I wish I could find just one.

[milco]

Cool post, congrats on the finds in that well hunted area! I bet you have all sorts of sites you want to get back to now! Too bad the cold and snow is just around the corner. HH!

[NiagracountyNY]

Great Hunt.Grats on the Dimes and wheaties..I love the S.E.F coils on my Minelabs.Glad to see they are working Well for the Visions also.Thx for the video,I enjoyed reading your post..HH

[TimB35]

I like the videos Jack Keep'em comin' . I've been thinking about a new coil for the DFX ...What size is your new SEF? Thanks in advance . Congrats on the finds

[tularetokens]

And great post with history, and good pics
Congrats on the hard work and research, looks like it paid off


Tim

[emdees]

Very nice AND DEEP finds, Jack! If only coins could talk...

emdees

P.S. That old bathhouse is where I currently am taking a pottery class!

[Beefcake]

Nice hunt Jack.. Nice new coil! ... Are you trying to make that thing look like an ET ...LOL Nice video buddy!

[mini swinger]

great post and nice pics!

[Lowjiber]

Great post and pics Jack...as usual.

Are you using the correlate program that you developed?

I'm ready to learn more...teacher.

[Bearharold]

Nice post Jack very nice finds and video . Thanks for sharing with us.



Harold

[SteveMN]

I really missed seeing your posts Jack and am glad to see you were finally able to get out. You are definately a master at telling a great story to go along with some really nice finds! Keep it up!

[Digger Magoo]

Congrats on the hunt with the new coil, if you go any deeper you'll need a long handled shovel The Merc looks like it was just minted.

[Rudy]

Great post Jack. Looks like that new coil is performing well for you.

[CyberSage]

Thanks friends. I appreciate all the nice comments and shared thoughts. Every once in awhile I have one of those hunts where I really feel myself relax and truly enjoy this crazy hobby for what it is. I can honestly say that sharing it here with you is a big part of the enjoyment for me. Thanks again.

I should mention that the idea of using the SEF Butterfly coil on the V3 stemmed from watching all the wonderful videos a forum member by the name of NiagracountyNY took the time to share with us. If you are interested in the SEF coil be sure and check out this members videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/NiagracountyNY#play/uploads

I believe the SEF coil in use is the 15"x12" version mounted on an E-Trac. The one I am using on the Spectra V3 is the 10"x12".

Keep Swing'in
Jack