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2 men, 2 days, 33 Montana Silvers, Peace Dollar Buffs Mercs!

LovestheShiny!

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Jan 1, 2018
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Had a chance to head north of town with my detecting buddy to a smaller Montana town, and we had probably the best couple of days detecting that both of us had ever done!

I met my friend, who uses the Nox 800, at this town. I arrived a bit earlier and decided to hop out and try a quick check of a curb strip. The second coin found with my AT Pro was a 1920's Merc Dime, so I got pretty excited! My friend arrived a short time later and we started on the curb strip. I did catch a couple of folks home and got permission on two yards. Amazingly, the yards produced very little silver, but the curb strips were loaded with goodies!

I started out hot, as I had a silver quarter and two silver dimes, when I got a great 92-93 signal on the Pro, and deep. I was shocked to see Big Shiny in the hole, and called my friend over to see a beautiful 1925 Peace Dollar looking up at us! Rechecked the hole and pulled a Silver Rosie and a Silver Merc out of the same hole, a very welcome 3 silver coin spill! At that point my friend had a couple of silver dimes, but then he got hot and found 4 more silver dimes in short order, on the curb strip across the street. The curb strips were amazing, wheaties, buffalo nickels, and lots of clad were everywhere. The strips were kind of hit and miss, some areas in front of the homes had very little, while some individual home strips produced 15 wheaties, modern clad, and 6-8 silvers! Kind of like what it must have been like back in ca 1980 when the first Ground Balance machines came out.

It was totally fun to anticipate that the next target would be another silver! We ended up the first day in great shape, with dozens of wheaties, some buffs, and lots of The Shiny. I ended up with 10 silvers, and my friend ended up with 11 for the first day.

The next morning we started beep-beeping around 10 am, and the good fortune continued. We did get some private yard permissions, but the vast majority of the shiny came out of the curb strips. My friend started out hot, with 4 silver dimes right away! I wasn't finding any silver, but tons of wheats, when I finally hit a hot spot that produced 3 silver dimes out of 4 coins found, the other was a wheatie. I found a couple of nice Silver GW quarters, more dimes, and my friend found a worn Standing Liberty quarter, a nice Indian Head cent in a wheatie spill, and more dimes. We ended up that day with 5 more silvers for my friend, giving him 16 total. I ended up with 7 silvers for the 2/3 day that we detected, giving me 17 silvers total. Grand total of 33 silvers for about 1 2/3 days of hunting!

Pics below are of my friends better finds first, followed by my better finds. Found tons of clad, but you've all seen that before! :)

Am blessed to have had such a great experience, a kind of "throw back" to the old days of rich and loaded curb strips! Thank you for your interest!
 

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Nice bunch of shiny silver.

I heard that Montana was the last state to switch from silver dollars, to paper dollars. D/t it was a silver mining state. And legislators there wanted to keep the demand for silver high. So they somehow kept paper money out of circulation, in favor of silver dollars, all-the-way up to 1964 ?
 
Thanks Tom, not sure about lack of paper money in circulation, as I am positive it was heavily in use. But... you are correct about silver dollars, kind of a classic Montana coin that remained in use into the mid 1960's. I have found 4 Peace Dollars now with my AT Pro in 2 1/2 years of detecting here, so they are definitely out there!
 
Congrats on that Peace Dollar. My grandpa gave me one before he died, but I've never found one detecting. Few have.
 
brncofan - thanks and yes, I do like the big silvers!

Wolf-Dog - thank you!

HDMontana - thank you and yes the silver finds were incredible!

ToySoldier - thank you, was delighted to pull that big shiny coin!
 
MrLostAndFound - am using the stock coil, the 8.5 x 11" - it does really well for me!

NCToad - thank you, yes, a couple of days I'll remember for sure!
 
Memories you will cherish for a very long time David. That is a lot of shine and it was well earned by you both. Congrats on all the Silver, the Buffalo's, the horde of Wheat's and all the rest. Trapper

David on the bottom of each post box in the right hand corner is three boxes. The first says quote so if you comment or thank a individual it aids the reply. The middle is for answering multiples of post so if you answer or thank more than one you click this and it turns orange capturing the post. Do it again on the next you wish to answer, etc, You still need to click the last poster with the quote button though. Hope this is of help.
 
Thanks Trapper, appreciate your comments and kind words! Will play around with that quote system and see what I can figure out in the future!

K&T thank you, and yes, best hunt so far in a couple of years detecting here!

REAL RAT FINK - thank you appreciate your comments, and yes, I do like those big Silver Dollars!

LandOLincoln - thank you and yes it was a blast to find some areas that were completely unsearched!
 
.... But... you are correct about silver dollars, kind of a classic Montana coin that remained in use into the mid 1960's. ....

If I recall, it was Idaho and Montana both (silver producing/mining states) that had some sort of legislation restricting the circulation of paper money (or .... perhaps just $1 bills, and not affecting 5s, 10s, 20s ?) . Because the legislators there wanted to foster their state's silver production.

And so as you say: Silver dollars there circulated longer than in any state (with the possible exception of casino towns like Reno and Las Vegas where they still ran slot machines up to 1964 ?).

There are stories of the first md'rs, in Montana and Idaho racking up incredible counts of silver dollars. By merely going to any sandboxes that were older than 1964-ish. Counts of 50 to 100-ish silver dollars in their career tallies.

Granted, they'd most likely be common and worn (ie.: not key dates nor stellar shape).
 
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