First up was Lawrence Elementary on the corner of Grandview & Zephyr. My research told me that this used to be the spot of the first Arvada High School. They still had a nice grassy field in the back, and it seemed a logical place to hunt. But as it is around here, I definitely was not the first to the punch. I scrambled around and found a little over $0.30 at best. But I did land this sweet Colossus X-Men action figure and a very small Apple charm with an American flag theme :)
I was actually kind of let down at this point. Such a great spot, been mulled over time and time again I'm sure, but sheesh, throw me a bone here. I made it down to the corner of Ralston & Upham were from what I found out, was located the first park in Arvada, McIlvoy Park. So named from the man Dennis McIlvoy who deeded the city his property upon his death and they turned it into a park. His home is now the meeting place of the Arvada Historical Society... so I was kind of reluctant to get out and hunt the park. But I did without issue.
I sort of meandered along. The only "older" looking trees were in the strip between the park and the street, and those didn't produce. The two large trees in the middle of the park held promise, but that soon faded. I was able to score an above ground $0.50 cent pocket spill made up of a quarter, two dimes and five pennies.
I was able to nudge out a little more clad and ended up with 34 coins @ $1.96 on the day... which some say isn't too bad for two locations that have been pounded.
I headed out just after lunch time and actually ended up stopping at New Loveland Mine Park, which is a block away from the school. It was built in 1996, so I wasn't expecting much, thus I wasn't disappointed by the meager $0.33 I pulled. I did land a neat little monkey charm in the tot lot though.
After messing around there, I headed up the street to the school. I'm not naive enough to think I was going to score tons of silver here... Colorado, and my area especially has loads of hobbyists who get out everyday, and I'm sure this place has been picked over. But I went at it for a few hours anyhow. Strangely, the two tot lots at the school had nothing, no coins, no trash, nothing. But I'd say about 90% of the clad I found here was in the grassy area right in front of the main entrance. Within about 2 feet of the sidewalk on either side dime and quarters just starting popping.
I took a break for a few minutes before tackling the large baseball/soccer field and got this pic of the School of Mines "M" in the side of the mountain. It was originally put there in 1908.
So right, next was the large task of the athletic field. It being a new spot I decided to do the wandering around technique and just hope to score. The area between the two soccer goals seemed most promising, and it did happen to work out. Just outside the far goal I scored a quarter hit, which happened to be a quarter. But then after digging it, I rescanned the area and came up with a weird signal that would not display a VDI, but the signograph on my XLT had a nice grouping of bars in the "gold range". I dug and bam, about 3 inches down I nailed this ring. No apparent markings, and the stones are obviously fake, but it does have a nice gold color to it.
It was a good days take, landed 43 coins @ $3.63.
I spent a little over an hour at the spot with my XLT. Getting used to this Colorado soil is still a challenge. Targets in the ground really seem to hit higher than I'm used to. For example, pennies seem to hit in the low 70's, dimes in the high 80's and quarters right about 90. Comparatively, in the Virginia soil I learned and loved, pennies generally were in the mid 60's, dimes 80-81 range, and quarters regularly hitting at about 86. But with this high mineralization soil, and the high hitting VDI's, a deep silver program might work as an everyday hunt program for coins.
Take for the day was $1.79 over 32 coins.
After that I still had two hours before it was time to meet up in Portsmouth with Hollis (foreverRich on FMDF), so I swung by McDonald's for the first time in forever to eat breakfast. By the time I was finished I headed out to the Portsmouth Rec Center (used to be the old Cradock High School) and was now an hour early for the meet, but decided to start a bit early.
By the time Hollis showed up at 930am I was already a dollar deep in clad. I was pretty hopeful when my first coin hit was a 5" deep quarter... a '65, so close. After exchanging a few words for a few minutes we both went on our way, staying relatively near the football field. I worked all the way around the near side by the tot lot towards the road, then down next to the sidewalk on the street (George Washington Hwy). I dug my fair share of trash, and by the time I was leaving around 11am I hand wrangled up 36 coins @ $3.32.
I left and headed home to clean up a bit, get some dry gloves, and grab a bite to eat. Hollis stayed behind and ended up scoring a '51-S Rosie... good for him!
After brewing up a pot of coffee to take a cup for the road, I made it out to Lakewood Park in Norfolk. From what I had heard from some old timers I was pretty sure this was one of the bigger parks that gets hammered by hobbyists. I was meeting dfxing virginia from FMDF here shortly, and as usual, started a bit early while he was in route.
In the trees above I scored a wheat, my only "old" coin for the day. I was all over this park. Recent silver finds from this location include various silver dimes and even a 1700s 1/2 Reale! I was really hoping to land something good. My last bit of hunting at the park, I managed to swing the coil a bit through the wooded trails in the rear of the park, and then down at the small "beach" which is accessible through the treeline. Actually scored a few state quarters in those spots.
My buddy was hitting coins few and far between until he managed to nail a '50-D Rosie not far from where where he landed a few other silvers in the past.
We spent the last hour and half hitting randomly in a street median and behind a school, not amounting to much. Before we left the park we saw another guy just suiting up to swing for a bit before dark... wonder if he found anything? But it was a nice day of hunting, be it chilly and wet all day. Ended this half of the day with 49 more coins @ $3.49 and a Chuck-E-Cheese token.
I did some quick research and made a list of 7 places in Norfolk to hit up when I have some free time, and decided to head out to one. My location was the small neighborhood park at the corner of Leigh and Westover in Ghent. On the way I texted "dfxing virginia" to see if he could meet there when he got out of work... which he would.
After about 30 minutes of hunting, and scoring a little bit of clad I found my first wheat. I proceeded to text my buddy the play by play, as I pulled 2 more wheats in the next few minutes. Then in the grassy area between the sidewalk and street I scored a 3" +81 I would have sworn was a clad dime, but nope... saw the glint in the hole... a '47 rosie! Sent him a pic to gloat :) One note about the wheats, one of them was a 1919, which is now my oldest dug US coin, beating out my '20 wheatie last year.
It was a very overcast day and there was a slight drizzle when my hunting partner showed up. We chatted for a min and got back to the task at hand. As I was covering the middle of the park, an older woman and her dog came by. She asked if we were filling the holes, as lots of children play here. We were of course. She then told me that a lady had been here a week or so and had not found much... that confirmed my assumption the place had been hit before. It was nearing dark and we decided to head a few blocks down the street to a school.
Here we found ourselves at what I learned was Taylor Elementary School. Surely been hunted, but it has lots of play areas for kids and a decent field that goodies would surely show up in, old or not. We hunted for maybe just under an hour before it got too dark to be efficient without a flashlight (both mine were dead). But for my last signal of the night I swept over a target that bounced from a +89 to +91 and only read about 1.5" deep. Figuring it was either a soda can, or maybe a couple quarters, I dug. I couldn't find the target at first, but eventually wrestled it out of the ground and was shocked to in my hand my first half-dollar coin. I walked over towards my buddy with a smile on my face and said, "Guess what I found?" He had that look on his face that said, "If it's a Walker I'm taking it and running!" I plopped it down in his hand and said, "It's a half, a Kennedy."
And so ended the evenings hunt. Headed back to his place to chill over coffee and chat about MD'ing, met his wife. Great time. Total pull for the few hours was 24 coins @ $2.02 and lots of trash... as usual.
We have had some monsoon type rains so I was hoping for some nice soft soil to sink the Lesche into it. Well I got more than I asked for. The ground was super saturated, and I sank in it while walking. My flip-flops didn't have a chance. Definitely was the day to be wearing some boots and socks as my feet got all muddy and nasty.
The hunt itself wasn't much better. The tot lot was clean, no finds to speak of. The surrounding areas had to have been picked before. I found a recently dropped quarter and a few dimes, but not much else.
I did find one thing of interest and something that I feel better about myself now for finding. An old knife. Many members on FMDF have found lots of these, and well... I never have, until now. 8 coins @ $0.68.
Both the clasp and one of the little hearts is stamped "925 PCDA China." So then maybe plated silver?
This adds with my eye-spy finds... found at least one coin per day for the past two weeks... pretty amazing.
Later this afternoon after going grocery shopping, I spied a tot lot at the very back of Stratford Chase Park off of Kempsville. I knew the park gets plenty of activity for soccer and other sports activities, but had never noticed the tot lot before. I decided at about 530p I was gonna hit it up for an hour, in about 92 degree heat.
Luckily the place didn't disappoint. I hit the tot lot hot, and really didn't find all that much. It even looked like someone had hit it in the past few days as ther were some slppy holes in the chips. Anyway, I got off the chips and starting hitting up the grass surrounding. I also wondered through the field and over by the basketball courts.
Not too bad overall, 42 total coins (6 memorials not in the following picture) coming in at $1.90, well above my quota for an outting.
I actually headed over to an Elementary School tot lot right after, but my machine was so unstable there. There was a constant wrap around +95 to -95 that was just messing up everything and making it impossible to locate anything. I'll try another machine there and see if it can handle the situation better.
I started my search in the grass around the tot lot. I know the playground itself has nothing to offer, so I didn't bother. I also figured there would be tons of trash around hte outside, but was going to give it ago and hope for the best. I landed some coinage, and the occasional piece of trash that sounded too good not to dig.
After that I just started a no rhyme or reason pattern around the fields. It's such a large area to cover, but I was bound to get lucky now and then, About an hour in a scored a 5 nickel pocket spill. None of them old, but it was neat. One thing about this school, if you're looking for old coins, this place doesn't have them.
The hunt continued to go well, getting a few coins here and there. I also landed to small charms. One a butterfly, the other a rather thick, solid heart with the letter "K" inscribed on it. It rang up at about +61, maybe a tad higher, and while digging it, I guessed it was a memorial penny.
I still have a lot of ground to cover at this school, but I figure to really measure up, I'd go over some previously hunted territory to see what might come up. It was a warm night out, the ground was hard... not the best veriables to be dealing with.
I was able to squeak out $1.31 over 14 coins, but I KNOW there has got to at least be some older dimes and some wheat pennies in this place. I have yet to dig one from this area, which is just dumbfounding.
I was able to get some more use outta the XLT which is what the trip was really all about. The signals are much harder to read than they are on the X-Terra 30. For example, on the X30, when I get a +16, I know almost without a doubt that it's gonna be a pull-tab. Or if I get a solid +32 with 3 depth bars, I can almost bet on a wheat penny every time. But with the XLT, items hit within a "range" of numbers, so it's much harder to determine. Getting the depth while pinpointing helps a bit, but when a pull tab is hitting over a 10-20 VDI range, it's really tough to pick out the nickels.
Anyway, So I got it put together, did a brief air test, and then waited for a chance to get out after dinner. Thankfully I have a school in my back yard, the perfect place to test a new machine.
This school is the one I've written about many times before about having this system of drains, and in between them are areas that are lower than everywhere else, so coins and stuff just tend to end up here. I've fished out 100+ coins easily from this section.
I through the XLT into a pre-set Coin/Jewelry mode, ground balanced and off I went. Low and behold, there were still a few coins I had failed to grab with the X-Terra 30 here. About 20 in all, not totalling much, but it was fun finding them.
The star charm you see in the image was my most interesting find of the day. Why you ask? Well it's because of "how" I found it. While scanning with the XLT I got a pretty solid hit, but nothing came up on the VDI. Back and forth, good signals, no VDI. I had read online a nice writeup about the Signograph on the higher end White's models. Reading it really clued me in on something... though no VDI was displaying, a tight grouping of + hits were building... and that hints at a half decent target. So I dug, and about 3" down was that star.
So the fact that I was able to land a bunch of "missed" chances from before really made me happy. Max depth was at about 7".
So naturally, it was my first stop tonight. I hit up the tot lot first thing and was thrown back at how much NOTHING was there. I only landed a nickel and a memorial penny out of the entire thing. Not even any trash.
Things weren't looking so well, but I stuck with it and started aimlessly walking towards the back, all throughout the field. Thankfully, I started landing some dime hits, as well as some memorials. I wasn't expecting too much, the school has only been around since 1961, but the potential for silver exists.
I saw a worn down area of grass that lead to a door on the back of the school and decided along it's edge would be a good spot. And what do you know, first signal is a sharp +36, which to me yells dime... but. It bounced up to +40 now and then, which to me and my detector hints at silver.
Not 3.5 inches down there she was shining back at me in the flashlight illumination, the beautiful Winged Liberty "Mercury" Dime. It's dated 1942, no mintmark, but still has some good detail on the torch on the reverse, which is nice.
It started to drizzle a bit so I left, but the night was a success overall. Scored over a dollar in clad, which always makes it feel worthwhile, and landed the sweet Merc. When I cleaned up my finds I also noticed this tag. It's stamped OKLAHOMA and on one side has a jar in a rose and says, "Tops in Ros..." The other side mentions tea. I know the state flower of Oklahoma is the Rose, and they have Rose Tea... maybe someone can ID it?
Quotes update on refresh :)
