AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
I’ve rediscovered park hunting after having some good success in my last several hunts - I find myself seeking out older parks in the local area with renewed interest now that I’ve proven to myself that I really can still find some very interesting and fun targets in these places that I’ve been avoiding. Plus, they’re perfect for when I only have a couple hours to hunt and other permissions aren’t available as an option. Today was one of those days, and I decided to try a park in a nearby town that I’ve hunted once or twice before with previous detectors. Never found much on those previous hunts except a couple of Wheats and clad.
This hunt started out pretty mundane also...some clad and the standard park junk. But then a Wheat spiced things up a bit, followed by a deep signal that ended being a piece of an old oil lamp about 9” down...interesting! But then I went back to clad and not many diggable signals.
After a little while I decided to move to a section of the park I knew I hadn’t hunted before...yep, straight behind the Port-o-potties!
There were a couple old trees there, and I knew from old aerial photos that this was likely once an active part of the park.
My very first signal after walking up a short embankment was a hard hit in the copper penny range...it indicated shallow, so I cut a small plug expecting a copper Memorial, but was surprised to see Wheat stalks from just a couple inches down! But the real surprise was on rescanning the hole and realizing there was more!! And that's when I popped out a 1942 Merc! Cool old shallow spill...and it produced a winner for my “Guess my next silver” contest! Congrats to Stiffwrists on the winning entry!!
I slowed down to a near crawl, but didn’t turn up much other than more clad and one other Wheat, but it was also literally just below the surface...less than 2” depth.
After an hour, I was ready to wrap up and head home, but I realized I hadn’t detected around the last old tree immediately behind the Port-o-pots yet (subconsciously avoiding the smell, I’m sure!). “Ehhh, may as well give it a quick scan,” I thought to myself.
Well, right at the base of the tree I swept over a clear, no-doubt-about-it quarter signal, and it was pretty shallow. Fully expecting a modern quarter, I turned over a scoop of soil, and immediately saw the rim of the quarter sandwiched between two dirt clods....and it was clearly not clad!! Considering the 1940s Wheaties and the ‘42 Merc I had already dug, I assumed it was going to be a Washington, but I allowed myself a brief hope that it might be a Standing Liberty.
Rinsing the coin down with my spray bottle, I was incredulous to see the distinctive Lady Liberty of a Barber begin to appear as the dirt slid away!!
I actually had to spray so much, I ran out of water!! That was a lot of caked dirt, and quarters have a deceptively large surface area! 1894 Barber quarter, with some really nice detail!
I’ve suddenly caught fire with quarters - I had never found a quarter older than a Washington in my 2 1/2 years of detecting, and now I’ve added a Seated and a Barber in less than a week! And boy am I glad I took the extra couple minutes to swing around that one last tree!
This hunt started out pretty mundane also...some clad and the standard park junk. But then a Wheat spiced things up a bit, followed by a deep signal that ended being a piece of an old oil lamp about 9” down...interesting! But then I went back to clad and not many diggable signals.
After a little while I decided to move to a section of the park I knew I hadn’t hunted before...yep, straight behind the Port-o-potties!
There were a couple old trees there, and I knew from old aerial photos that this was likely once an active part of the park. My very first signal after walking up a short embankment was a hard hit in the copper penny range...it indicated shallow, so I cut a small plug expecting a copper Memorial, but was surprised to see Wheat stalks from just a couple inches down! But the real surprise was on rescanning the hole and realizing there was more!! And that's when I popped out a 1942 Merc! Cool old shallow spill...and it produced a winner for my “Guess my next silver” contest! Congrats to Stiffwrists on the winning entry!!
I slowed down to a near crawl, but didn’t turn up much other than more clad and one other Wheat, but it was also literally just below the surface...less than 2” depth.
After an hour, I was ready to wrap up and head home, but I realized I hadn’t detected around the last old tree immediately behind the Port-o-pots yet (subconsciously avoiding the smell, I’m sure!). “Ehhh, may as well give it a quick scan,” I thought to myself.
Well, right at the base of the tree I swept over a clear, no-doubt-about-it quarter signal, and it was pretty shallow. Fully expecting a modern quarter, I turned over a scoop of soil, and immediately saw the rim of the quarter sandwiched between two dirt clods....and it was clearly not clad!! Considering the 1940s Wheaties and the ‘42 Merc I had already dug, I assumed it was going to be a Washington, but I allowed myself a brief hope that it might be a Standing Liberty.
Rinsing the coin down with my spray bottle, I was incredulous to see the distinctive Lady Liberty of a Barber begin to appear as the dirt slid away!!
I actually had to spray so much, I ran out of water!! That was a lot of caked dirt, and quarters have a deceptively large surface area! 1894 Barber quarter, with some really nice detail!I’ve suddenly caught fire with quarters - I had never found a quarter older than a Washington in my 2 1/2 years of detecting, and now I’ve added a Seated and a Barber in less than a week! And boy am I glad I took the extra couple minutes to swing around that one last tree!
