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Here's a tip on how to find when/where old-town demolition sites will occur :

.... and was denied by the school days before the dig, denied by the construction company and denied by a security guard that found me attempting to get into the grounds at 0500.....

I can understand the "denied by the security guard" who found you attempting to "just go".

But Re.: the: "... denied by the school days before" and "denied by the const. Co.". Are you saying that you tried to get permission ? Then of course you know the obligatory answer. Perhaps that's why they stationed security there. Because maybe they figured, after your inquiries: "Maybe someone's gonna try to metal detect" .

Because , at least where I'm at, live security is very rare for const. sites. Almost unheard of .

In the next post, I will relate how a similar school demo. went down in my city (and which gave me callouses to this whole discussion of "permission", etc...)
 
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Buellride's school experience (except for the being booted by security part) reminded me of one of the formative experiences in my md'ing, that cemented my callouses. To the issues involving demolition sites . So here's the true story:

One of several deal-breaker callous-causing experiences for me is an occurrence in the very early 1990s:

The local news paper ran a blurb about how the oldest high school in our city (blt. 1919) was slated to undergo renovations. The article mentioned how a part of the plans called for the inner court grassy quad to get an all-new layout.

As I read the article, dollar signs popped into my head. I knew this inner court grass quad. area was spongy thick crab-grass . Thus had never had any md'ing pressure. And for 70+ yrs: hundreds of kids a day sat to eat their lunches. Hence obviously, if tractors scraped off 6 or 8" off, it would be "Christmas come early", eh ?

At our next club meeting ......... sure enough ...... someone else brought in the article. Several others had seen the same article. So the focus of the club meeting , among the 25-or-so attendees , was that this could be a good hunt spot. But then ......... sure as heck, someone else is sure to bring up the logical question: "How are we going to get in?" (seeing as how it would probably have obligatory fences).

So the club strategized that we would send a nice letter to the School district offices. Asking for group permission. We put it on nice club letterhead. And detailed how our club has liability insurance, helps the police dept. , will donate any item of historical interest, etc....

Then we sat back and waited for the reply. This was in the era before email. So as club secretary at the time, I would check our club's P.O. Box prior to the next month's meeting. By the time of the next meeting : No reply. But not to worry, since the project hadn't even broken ground yet. By the time of the NEXT meeting, STILL no answer. :wow: So I volunteered to go personally to the district offices. To track down the person to whom our request had gone, and seek to get the ball rolling.

I went there the next day, and was shunted desk to desk. Till eventually, I found myself standing at the desk of the district person to whom our request letter had landed on. He recalled the letter. And said that it was "pending review @ the board of directors" or "their legal counsel" or some such answer like that. I thanked him, peppered him with more assurances of our liability insurance, good-will for the community, would go at a time as-not-to-interfere (like a Saturday when they're not working), blah blah. And told him we anxiously await their decision.

By the time of the next meeting, STILL no answer. :no: I'm starting to get a bad feeling about all this. Because the demolition wrecking ball had now arrived. The job has started ! The ground turf scrape portion might not be too far away. I let the club know that the school district is pending/considering our request. And .... it's just a matter of waiting for the answer. Then I left a reminder voice-mail to the school person: "We're still looking forward to your reply" blah blah.

Each night, on my way home from work, I'd drive RIGHT BY the demolition site. Craning my eyes to see if the turf scraping had started or not. And every few days, checking our P.O. Box for an answer letter.

Then about 3 days before the next montly club meeting, I was driving by the demolition site, and .... from the street, in the distance, I could see a man swinging a detector! But he was too far away to tell who it was. So I parked, went to the cyclone fence, un-did the bailing wire that held the gate panels shut, and walked out into the site. When I got close, I recognized who it was : A local md'r, who had not recently been at club meetings (d/t conflicts in his work schedule).

I approached him and and said: "John, what you doing in here ?". To which he he said "what does it look like ?" doh! :roll: I then said "how'd you get in here". Again, looking at me like I'm from outer space, he says "The same way you did. I walked right in ". Doh :roll:

So I spelled out the story of how the club has pending permission to have a group hunt. And we're waiting for the reply, blah blah. To which he said : "This is a public school last I checked". Then opened his apron and showed me all the silver coins he was finding. My heart sunk . I was green with envy. As we stood there shop-talking about md'ing, a janitor came out of one of the unaffected buildings and started chatting with John. Asking what John's latest night's finds were. Apparently these 2 had been conversing on prior nights, and John had been showing him the nightly finds.

That was all I could take! I couldn't stand it anymore. I went to my truck, grabbed my machine, and joined in ! For the next few days we got lots of silver coins, wheaties, etc... Even a silver dollar, a 2 cent piece, etc... We were in full-view of Main st. traffic, in full view of after-hours school employees, etc... It was obvious that it was a non-issue. I phoned another hunting buddy that night, who also joined in the fray the next night with us.

Then , a few nights later, I stopped at our club's post office box to pick up the mail on the way to the meeting. I could see a letter with the school district's return address on it ! I reached the club meeting, opened it and read it aloud:

"We are sorry to inform you that we can not grant you permission. Thankyou for your inquiry. Sincerely yours, blah blah".

There was dead silence in the room. Everyone was bummed. But .... by then ... word had leaked out that "Tom & another club member has been in there". Murmurs arose. The obvious question on people's minds was: "If the school said "no", then why are you going ?" To which I tried to tell them how I'd seen another guy, and no one cared. But .... that went over like a fart in church :(

I could see how our club had been the victim of "no one cared till you asked" psychology.

From then on, I said screw it. I will never again subject myself to the obligatory "safe" answer. When in fact, no one might have cared less. I suppose I've even become more brazen since then. (there are endless degrees of type-sites). But that is just an example of how I began to develop callouses on the subject. Ie.: the bee-in-my-bonnet subject was born out of these type hard-knocks experiences. I could choose to be relegated to sand boxes, or I could grow a set.
 
Uh ... in this litigious age we live in: You can ask till you're blue in the face, and guess what the answer will be ? :roll:


When it comes to sidewalk demolitions (for instance) , I just go. I'm sure there's orange cones and "sidewalk closed" signs. But after 5pm, when the workers have gone home for the day, just go.

I realize this sidewalks example doesn't answer the more hardcore scenarios of something like: Bleacher demolitions, building demolitions, park scrapes, etc..... If you or anyone wants commentary and examples on that, I will extend the post to methods and examples (from personal experience) on those type things.

I was on a sidewalk the other day and this older, larger lady approaches me.
I thought she was going to tell me off, but she actually asked me where she could get a permit:lol:
I told her you don't need one, this is public property, just like walking on teh sidewalk (even tehough thte sidewalk is gone).
She said she always wanted to try detecting, so I told here to check out Hobby Lobby.
 
I can understand the "denied by the security guard" who found you attempting to "just go".

But Re.: the: "... denied by the school days before" and "denied by the const. Co.". Are you saying that you tried to get permission ? Then of course you know the obligatory answer. Perhaps that's why they stationed security there. Because maybe they figured, after your inquiries: "Maybe someone's gonna try to metal detect" .

Because , at least where I'm at, live security is very rare for const. sites. Almost unheard of .

In the next post, I will relate how a similar school demo. went down in my city (and which gave me callouses to this whole discussion of "permission", etc...)

Short Answer is "Yes" I decided it was the right thing to do because this was a private school and private grounds. That said I have hit the curb strip on multiple occasions (Walker half, SQL, Washingtons, 1929 Canadian "Wheat", etc.) and was even engaged by the night/swing shift watchman (thus security) while on the curb strip and explained it was public property infront of their private property.

More to follow on your next post Tom_in_CA.

Buellride's school experience (except for the being booted by security part) reminded me of one of the formative experiences in my md'ing, that cemented my callouses. To the issues involving demolition sites . So here's the true story:

One of several deal-breaker callous-causing experiences for me is an occurrence in the very early 1990s:

The local news paper ran a blurb about how the oldest high school in our city (blt. 1919) was slated to undergo renovations. The article mentioned how a part of the plans called for the inner court grassy quad to get an all-new layout.

As I read the article, dollar signs popped into my head. I knew this inner court grass quad. area was spongy thick crab-grass . Thus had never had any md'ing pressure. And for 70+ yrs: hundreds of kids a day sat to eat their lunches. Hence obviously, if tractors scraped off 6 or 8" off, it would be "Christmas come early", eh ?

At our next club meeting ......... sure enough ...... someone else brought in the article. Several others had seen the same article. So the focus of the club meeting , among the 25-or-so attendees , was that this could be a good hunt spot. But then ......... sure as heck, someone else is sure to bring up the logical question: "How are we going to get in?" (seeing as how it would probably have obligatory fences).

So the club strategized that we would send a nice letter to the School district offices. Asking for group permission. We put it on nice club letterhead. And detailed how our club has liability insurance, helps the police dept. , will donate any item of historical interest, etc....

Then we sat back and waited for the reply. This was in the era before email. So as club secretary at the time, I would check our club's P.O. Box prior to the next month's meeting. By the time of the next meeting : No reply. But not to worry, since the project hadn't even broken ground yet. By the time of the NEXT meeting, STILL no answer. :wow: So I volunteered to go personally to the district offices. To track down the person to whom our request had gone, and seek to get the ball rolling.

I went there the next day, and was shunted desk to desk. Till eventually, I found myself standing at the desk of the district person to whom our request letter had landed on. He recalled the letter. And said that it was "pending review @ the board of directors" or "their legal counsel" or some such answer like that. I thanked him, peppered him with more assurances of our liability insurance, good-will for the community, would go at a time as-not-to-interfere (like a Saturday when they're not working), blah blah. And told him we anxiously await their decision.

By the time of the next meeting, STILL no answer. :no: I'm starting to get a bad feeling about all this. Because the demolition wrecking ball had now arrived. The job has started ! The ground turf scrape portion might not be too far away. I let the club know that the school district is pending/considering our request. And .... it's just a matter of waiting for the answer. Then I left a reminder voice-mail to the school person: "We're still looking forward to your reply" blah blah.

Each night, on my way home from work, I'd drive RIGHT BY the demolition site. Craning my eyes to see if the turf scraping had started or not. And every few days, checking our P.O. Box for an answer letter.

Then about 3 days before the next montly club meeting, I was driving by the demolition site, and .... from the street, in the distance, I could see a man swinging a detector! But he was too far away to tell who it was. So I parked, went to the cyclone fence, un-did the bailing wire that held the gate panels shut, and walked out into the site. When I got close, I recognized who it was : A local md'r, who had not recently been at club meetings (d/t conflicts in his work schedule).

I approached him and and said: "John, what you doing in here ?". To which he he said "what does it look like ?" doh! :roll: I then said "how'd you get in here". Again, looking at me like I'm from outer space, he says "The same way you did. I walked right in ". Doh :roll:

So I spelled out the story of how the club has pending permission to have a group hunt. And we're waiting for the reply, blah blah. To which he said : "This is a public school last I checked". Then opened his apron and showed me all the silver coins he was finding. My heart sunk . I was green with envy. As we stood there shop-talking about md'ing, a janitor came out of one of the unaffected buildings and started chatting with John. Asking what John's latest night's finds were. Apparently these 2 had been conversing on prior nights, and John had been showing him the nightly finds.

That was all I could take! I couldn't stand it anymore. I went to my truck, grabbed my machine, and joined in ! For the next few days we got lots of silver coins, wheaties, etc... Even a silver dollar, a 2 cent piece, etc... We were in full-view of Main st. traffic, in full view of after-hours school employees, etc... It was obvious that it was a non-issue. I phoned another hunting buddy that night, who also joined in the fray the next night with us.

Then , a few nights later, I stopped at our club's post office box to pick up the mail on the way to the meeting. I could see a letter with the school district's return address on it ! I reached the club meeting, opened it and read it aloud:

"We are sorry to inform you that we can not grant you permission. Thankyou for your inquiry. Sincerely yours, blah blah".

There was dead silence in the room. Everyone was bummed. But .... by then ... word had leaked out that "Tom & another club member has been in there". Murmurs arose. The obvious question on people's minds was: "If the school said "no", then why are you going ?" To which I tried to tell them how I'd seen another guy, and no one cared. But .... that went over like a fart in church :(

I could see how our club had been the victim of "no one cared till you asked" psychology.

From then on, I said screw it. I will never again subject myself to the obligatory "safe" answer. When in fact, no one might have cared less. I suppose I've even become more brazen since then. (there are endless degrees of type-sites). But that is just an example of how I began to develop callouses on the subject. Ie.: the bee-in-my-bonnet subject was born out of these type hard-knocks experiences. I could choose to be relegated to sand boxes, or I could grow a set.

I did the exact same thing with this private school. Sent a letter, even engaged the school president. My wife was applying for a Chemistry Teaching position at the school so I had even more access to the board, etc. The teachers there even petitioned for me to detect because of the history component to what I was/could find (if I was to do a history lesson on my finds). Everything was lining up perfectly to get permission right after school was done for the year and right before the construction was set to take place....alas, a few days before construction was supposed to start I got told NO by the school.

The construction company (I engaged the foreman for the construction site), told me that he was going to engage their legal team and "get back with him in the afternoon", that too was a NO due to liability issues. I even asked if when they dug the first 6-8"s of soil could I get it dumped off of school grounds so I could run my detector through it....I was told NO because the soil was contaminated by a smelter from back in the early 1900s that had essentially polluted the entire Tacoma basis with toxic chemicals (I call BS on that)….regardless I had tried all legal and "polite" routes to get to this history-filled ground. I didn't want the Tacoma police called on me (by a night watchman/security guard) for trespassing on private property. So I let it go...VERY disgruntled and sad that a EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION that has been in operation since 1895 refused to see the possibilities and history under their own feet!!! ACK!:mad:
 
.... because this was a private school and private grounds. ...

Well that explains the difference. *Technically*, you're right. That would need permission.

The only thing I can add, is that even some private schools are pretty much open to the public. Ie.:, like a shopping center: You can walk around, etc... But still though, yes, your response is the technically correct one.

I attended private parochial Catholic school up till 6th grade in my town. Then in about 7th grade (13-ish yr. old) I got into metal detecting. And it was just a natural to try the very schools I had gone to up till that time.

This private parochial neighborhood school (blt. mid 1950s), was sort of open grounds. Eg.: it was where we'd go fly kites after school, play on the swings, etc... So when I got into md'ing, it never occurred to me I couldn't likewise detect there. (perhaps the mid 1970s was more-innocent-times).

I only remember one time, a nun walked out to see what I was doing. When she got close, she recognized me as a former student. And then walked back into the buildings. Not sure whether or not that made any difference.
 
I attended private parochial Catholic school up till 6th grade in my town. Then in about 7th grade (13-ish yr. old) I got into metal detecting. And it was just a natural to try the very schools I had gone to up till that time.

Is this when coins first started being milled vs. hammered? Interesting times you lived in Mr. Tom! :shifty:
 
Is this when coins first started being milled vs. hammered? Interesting times you lived in Mr. Tom! :shifty:

Hey there Mr. Greg, you aint too much younger than me. You're gonna be on the ugly side of 50 pretty soon too. So you'd best shut up.

I challenge you to a duel !! Git yer b*tt up here. So I can show you how the *real* men hunt. :digginahole:
 
This thread is twofer awesome!!

Great advice on finding tearouts ahead of time, which I will start to use. I could have had more accurate info the past couple months as they tore out large parts of old downtown. I got a little of the action, including my first Barber dime, but missed the sidewalk tearout around the old courthouse (1912) and a few other spots.

In this thread we also got a huge bonus- The history of Tom's evolution as Friendly's most famous pirate detectorist! I've been reading his threads for over 4 years, so it's cool to finally know.
 
.... The history of Tom's evolution ...

Yeah. This one cited here, and 3 or 4 other such incidents, gave me the "aha" moments. The unhealthy bee-in-my-bonnet was formed. Doh! :laughing:

Back in those days, there was another hunter not far from me in CA, who had amassed quite a collection of seateds, reales, a gold coin or two, etc.... At the time, I was still angling for merc's in parks. So... looking at his track record of finds ... I was green with envy. I studied his method of finding hunt locations. And sort of woke up to "timid" versus not timid.
 
That's great, you've been inspiring. I always naturally gravitated toward the philosophy of "It's easier to apologize (and/or play dumb) than to ask permission" lolol
So I enjoy your posts and especially your slightly heated (yet still Friendly) disputes with the more straight-laced detectorists here.

Yeah. This one cited here, and 3 or 4 other such incidents, gave me the "aha" moments. The unhealthy bee-in-my-bonnet was formed. Doh! :laughing:

Back in those days, there was another hunter not far from me in CA, who had amassed quite a collection of seateds, reales, a gold coin or two, etc.... At the time, I was still angling for merc's in parks. So... looking at his track record of finds ... I was green with envy. I studied his method of finding hunt locations. And sort of woke up to "timid" versus not timid.
 
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