AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I’ve not had a lot of time to detect for the last several weeks - although I don’t have any significant work activities thanks to shelter-in-place, I’m now a 5th grade and kindergarten teacher for my two girls, instead. Plus we took in a new puppy just before all this started, so a lot of my remaining free time is spent training and caring for her. I’ve been getting out for 1 or 2 hours at a time every few days, but all I can really hit is the local parks and some of my tired out existing permissions.
On Monday I had about an hour to myself, so I decided to do a few coil swings at a nearby park - not a lot of high tones left there of course, but patience can still wring out some occasional goodies especially if you aren’t afraid to go after the Zincoln signals. Didn’t end up with much but it was still fun: 34 cents in clad, plus a key, an interesting Wheat cent, and my first silver ring in over a year and a half! Not a hugely productive hunt, but not bad at all for an hour in a pounded park!
The first good signal rang up sort of like a Zinc, but a little more variable - mostly 20 to 21, but a few 22s, 23s, and 24s sprinkled in on the EQ800 as I circled the target. It was showing up too deep (4 arrows on the depth meter) for the usual Zincoln, but could easily still be a crushed up metal twist cap. I had to dig down further than I expected - a full 8” - before I finally popped out the key. It was a little bent, and I imagine that, plus the non-round shape, accounted for the variable VDI readings. Neat thing is, I’ve now dug two of these keys, and both times, I recognized them immediately - my wife currently has one exactly like it for her office! I found the first one about a month after I started detecting:
The Wheatie came next - a somewhat inconsistent, iffy high tone at first until a couple of investigative sweeps made it clear that I was dealing with a slightly masked target. Tightening up my sweep, I isolated things down to two individual targets separated by a couple inches - a pretty good high tone, and a junky mid tone. I still couldn’t turn completely around the high tone target without it getting mucked up by the mid tone target, but I had quickly gathered enough info to know I had a potential coin - but indicating 3 arrows down, I wasn’t expecting anything more than a copper Memorial or maybe a clad dime. Sure enough, from only about 3-4 inches down, out came a greenish penny. I could see Abe’s head right away, but as soon as I see that green color, I suspect Wheatie! Flipping it over on its back, I confirmed it - cool! Wheat stalks! I did a little wiping in the field to try and get a date, just trying to clear the area to the right of Abe where I knew the date should be, but it was pretty slick. “No worries”, I thought, “slickies are usually oldies”, and I popped it into my “good coin” pouch. When I got home, things got a little more interesting as I slowly realized that I might have a pretty neat grease-filled die error on the obverse of the coin! During my initial cleaning at home I was still focused on the date which was almost completely unreadable, I presumed because of circulation wear. But as I continued cleaning, it dawned on me that “LIBERTY”, “IN GOD”, and the entire rim of the coin were still quite crisp, but “WE TRUST” was completely missing, even more so than the date. The reverse seems normal other than usual circulation wear. Overall, the pattern seems to suggest a grease-filled die rather than normal wear - pretty neat!
The best I can make out using oblique lighting is that it might be a 1909 Wheatie - I think I can make out the “0” after what looks like the first “9” in the date, and the 0 seems to match the orientation, shape, and size for the zeros on the 1909 Wheatie examples I’ve seen online. I still have a little work to do cleaning the back, but it doesn’t appear to be a VDB - oh well...can’t have it all!
The best find of the hunt came near the end, though - pretty solid high tone, right in the Zincoln range on the VDI. The depth scale only showed 3 arrows, so most likely just a Zincoln as advertised - but I dig them. Ironically, as I cut the plug, I tried to stay positive by thinking “you never know when it might be a ring”! As soon as I flipped the 4” plug, there it was...a small, delicate silver ring! I couldn’t see the stamp in the field, but it was unmistakably silver - I could also see that there were setting spaces for stones, but my eyes weren’t good enough and the dirt was clinging too well in those spots to see if the stones were there. Clean up at home revealed three small but beautiful stones still firmly in place, along with the “Sterling” stamp and at least one makers mark. There’s a symbol in front of “sterling” that I assume is the makers mark, but there’s also some partially worn away script lettering after “Sterling”. I’m not sure if that’s also the makers name, or if that was some sort of engraving on the ring done by the owner? Best I can make out is maybe “Ridd _ _ _ _ n”? If anyone has any ideas or guesses, I’m all ears!
On Monday I had about an hour to myself, so I decided to do a few coil swings at a nearby park - not a lot of high tones left there of course, but patience can still wring out some occasional goodies especially if you aren’t afraid to go after the Zincoln signals. Didn’t end up with much but it was still fun: 34 cents in clad, plus a key, an interesting Wheat cent, and my first silver ring in over a year and a half! Not a hugely productive hunt, but not bad at all for an hour in a pounded park!
The first good signal rang up sort of like a Zinc, but a little more variable - mostly 20 to 21, but a few 22s, 23s, and 24s sprinkled in on the EQ800 as I circled the target. It was showing up too deep (4 arrows on the depth meter) for the usual Zincoln, but could easily still be a crushed up metal twist cap. I had to dig down further than I expected - a full 8” - before I finally popped out the key. It was a little bent, and I imagine that, plus the non-round shape, accounted for the variable VDI readings. Neat thing is, I’ve now dug two of these keys, and both times, I recognized them immediately - my wife currently has one exactly like it for her office! I found the first one about a month after I started detecting:
The Wheatie came next - a somewhat inconsistent, iffy high tone at first until a couple of investigative sweeps made it clear that I was dealing with a slightly masked target. Tightening up my sweep, I isolated things down to two individual targets separated by a couple inches - a pretty good high tone, and a junky mid tone. I still couldn’t turn completely around the high tone target without it getting mucked up by the mid tone target, but I had quickly gathered enough info to know I had a potential coin - but indicating 3 arrows down, I wasn’t expecting anything more than a copper Memorial or maybe a clad dime. Sure enough, from only about 3-4 inches down, out came a greenish penny. I could see Abe’s head right away, but as soon as I see that green color, I suspect Wheatie! Flipping it over on its back, I confirmed it - cool! Wheat stalks! I did a little wiping in the field to try and get a date, just trying to clear the area to the right of Abe where I knew the date should be, but it was pretty slick. “No worries”, I thought, “slickies are usually oldies”, and I popped it into my “good coin” pouch. When I got home, things got a little more interesting as I slowly realized that I might have a pretty neat grease-filled die error on the obverse of the coin! During my initial cleaning at home I was still focused on the date which was almost completely unreadable, I presumed because of circulation wear. But as I continued cleaning, it dawned on me that “LIBERTY”, “IN GOD”, and the entire rim of the coin were still quite crisp, but “WE TRUST” was completely missing, even more so than the date. The reverse seems normal other than usual circulation wear. Overall, the pattern seems to suggest a grease-filled die rather than normal wear - pretty neat!
The best I can make out using oblique lighting is that it might be a 1909 Wheatie - I think I can make out the “0” after what looks like the first “9” in the date, and the 0 seems to match the orientation, shape, and size for the zeros on the 1909 Wheatie examples I’ve seen online. I still have a little work to do cleaning the back, but it doesn’t appear to be a VDB - oh well...can’t have it all!
The best find of the hunt came near the end, though - pretty solid high tone, right in the Zincoln range on the VDI. The depth scale only showed 3 arrows, so most likely just a Zincoln as advertised - but I dig them. Ironically, as I cut the plug, I tried to stay positive by thinking “you never know when it might be a ring”! As soon as I flipped the 4” plug, there it was...a small, delicate silver ring! I couldn’t see the stamp in the field, but it was unmistakably silver - I could also see that there were setting spaces for stones, but my eyes weren’t good enough and the dirt was clinging too well in those spots to see if the stones were there. Clean up at home revealed three small but beautiful stones still firmly in place, along with the “Sterling” stamp and at least one makers mark. There’s a symbol in front of “sterling” that I assume is the makers mark, but there’s also some partially worn away script lettering after “Sterling”. I’m not sure if that’s also the makers name, or if that was some sort of engraving on the ring done by the owner? Best I can make out is maybe “Ridd _ _ _ _ n”? If anyone has any ideas or guesses, I’m all ears!