Metal Detector’s Blog

On October 22, 2006 I was relic hunting near Fredericksburg, Virginia. I had just dug three Confederate Gardner bullets and received another signal on my Explorer XS that sounded and IDed like another bullet.

After dumpung my second shovelful of dirt I was surprised to see a small silver coin on top of the dirt pile. I thought I had just dug a piece of Spanish silver but when I picked up the coin I knew I was wrong.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was holding a worn 1792 half disme! I knew I had found something special but it wasn’t until I went home and did some research did I realize how special it was. The 1792 half disme was the first coin minted by the United States.

There were 1500 minted of which around 250 are known to exist today. It is reported that the silver used to mint this coin came from George Washington in the form of his silver serving set. Thomas Jefferson hand delivered the freshly minted half dismes to George Washington and he dispersed them to dignitaries and friends. Some found their way into circulation as is evident by the wear on mine and others. Estimated price on my find is $10,000 .

I am thrill to have found this piece of our nations past. In October 2004 I dug a 1916 D mercury dime. I never dreamed I would ever top that find but I did. Thank you Minelab!

Marc Sciance

Last summer a friend and I were detecting a site when I found this 1773 Spanish reale in shockingly good shape. It was about 4 inches down. This was at a site along the El Camino Reale trail in central CA. We knew that there was a small and short lived trading post on the spot in the mid 1800’s and there were a lot of corresponding seated coins found. However, we also knew that it was in the area of one of D’Anza’a camps as he mapped the inland trail of California in the spring of 1776.

In those days there was really no such thing as coin collecting and therefor the reales that we did find were extremely worn and very thin. I know that the same night I found this one my friend found an 1812 reale but like the other reales found, it was extremely slick and you could barely read it. Being as the reales weren’t made very well to begin with, we can say with almost certainly that there is no way this coin could have been carried around for the 80 years necessary to make it to the era of the trading post and still look so detailed. The picture doesn’t even do it justice. The fact that it was most likely dropped from one of D’Anza’s party makes sense perfectly with the amount of wear it has. Further excursions found other relics from that earlier time period but we didn’t find anymore coins.

That’s not surprising however, as we know from the journal entries that they only camped there for 1 night and there were only around 12 men in the entire party at this point in the trail. It’s just soooo cool knowing almost without a doubt that in all likelyhood this coin was dropped less than a year after our country existed. And the possibilty that this coin travelled with D’Anza as he was the first to map the inland trail of California just overwhelms me. I purchased this Musketeer Advantage detector in December of 2001.

Thanks for letting me share my story.

Carraig

I have had my new Fisher Coin Strike for about 3 weeks now, and I continue to learn more about it each time I take it out. It is a bit different to operate than any detector I have used in my 35 years of detecting. That said, I do like a challenge!

For the past few years, my brother and I have spent most of our coin hunting time at old home sites and old fair grounds in a four county area. With high gas prices, limited time, and extreme hot temperature, I decided “why not learn my new Coin Strike close to home”? The city park where I live is only about 3 blocks from my house. Spending most of my recent detecting time in open spaces, detecting in a park setting with modern trash would require some getting use to.

I’ve detected this park several times over the past 20 years and have found quite a few old coins. But I’ve been at this hobby long enough to know that the possibility of finding an oldie or two still exists. The first outing with the Coin Strike was a real eye opener as I wasn’t in the habit of digging bottle caps.

Digging them made me realize why there are still could be old coins there. The trash and bottle caps are doing a fine job of masking some good targets. Not wanting to leave any old coins behind, I decided to dig bottle caps as well. That evening, I dug a few wheaties and memorials and several bottle caps. Being a persistent individual, I went back a few days later with the small coil on my Coin Strike. I set the machine with full discriminate for iron 99. I notched out foil, nickels, and tabs, set the threshold at -5 and sensitivity at 3. Within 15 minutes I dug a 1897 O Barber dime and a 1891 Indian Head. I continued to detect, being a bit more excited (and optimistic) now. I continued for about another 45 minute and recovered some modern clad dimes, 2 more wheaties and 10 memorials. A couple days later I got to thinking about that dime and decided to look up the value in the Red Book. Lo and behold it was a RARE dime I had found with only 666,000 minted!!

I must admit that after the first time using the Coin Strike I was a little disappointed, but each and every time out I learn something new.I would be willing to bet that by fall, when the crops get out of the fields, the Coin Strike and I will be out there in some of our old favorite spots finding some goodies we’ve missed in the past.

Bill

Somewhere in Tennessee police searched a muddy city parking lot where workmen discovered a (container-pot) of gold coins that may have been buried during the Civil War. The U.S. gold pieces are worth (conservatively) up to $3,000 each but it’s unclear how many were found since the workmen made off with most of them. “We have accounted for 177 and that’s just by talking to people who said that they had possessed some,” said the Mayor. “There may be a good bit more than that.”

Many of the coins already have been sold to gold dealers. The coins were unearthed by city workmen resurfacing a downtown parking lot and other people apparently have visited the site since then. Word of the discovery spread through the town of 42,000 residents and the Mayor ordered city employees to seal off the area.

A policeman with a metal detector began the city’s official search of the parking lot, which was cordoned off with yellow tape saying “Crime Area. Keep Out.”

“I’ve asked the court to determine who the owner of the coins would be,” the Mayor said. “You can get as many different opinions as there are lawyers. Every lawyer has a different version. “One guy says if it’s money, it belongs to the finder. Maybe that is true. I don’t know,” he said.

“One guy says if it’s a treasure trove, it belongs to the property owner. What is a treasure trove? I don’t know. One guy says that the finder in this case is the city because they were in the employ of the city at the time they found it,” he said.

If the money belongs to the city, the Mayor said he will take legal steps to recover it, although he noted such as undertaking would be complicated. The coins were $2 1/2, $5, $10 and $20 gold pieces. “The face value is not very important” said the Mayor. “The value of the coins is much more than the face value. “The latest mint date was something like 1857, something like that. I may be off a year or two. Some of them were back to the 1840’s and the 1830’s.”

Union soldiers occupied Jackson, Tennessee during the Civil War. “Probably somebody buried that money in 1861 or 1862 when the troops came in to keep them from getting it” he said, “and then died before they recovered it.

I was part of a tour group that was hunting certain properties in the U.K..  This was my second trip as I usually go for two weeks at a time. 

It was the second week of the tour that we came to this selected hunting field.  There are several fields to hunt and Chris leaves the decision where to hunt every day to the fellows in the group, so thats what we did.  As several of us arrived to the chosen location I began my particular search pattern.  About two hours into the morning hunt I got a nice signal and unearthed this 50 B.C. Celtic Stater.  As of now, the 2000 year old coin is currently at the British Museum undergoing further study for it is a rare, one-of-a-kind coin.

Found in the U.K. by George W. from Copper Center, Alaska