3 outings with the E-Trac

After three outings with the Minelab E-Trac, here is what I have to show for it. Still no silver rings or silver coins, not even a wheat penny, or anything of any real interest. The E-Trac makes a lot more noise than I am used to. Still don't know how to make a good ID on the targets, so I dig anything that has a semi-solid signal. Hopefully I learn this machine soon.

Best Find of the Night - Necklace

My dad and I managed to get out metal detecting for a couple of hours tonight.  Dad found the first quarter and held it up to let me know the competition had begun.  We both kept an eye on each other as we made our way through the park.  As the sun went down the mosquitos came out, it was time to quit.   Once we were back at the car, we made a quick assessment of our finds.  Dad had 5 quarters, but I had 7.  It looked like I would finally beat dad for once, but then he pulled out some cheesy necklace with a big hammered medallion.  I can't believe that someone would actually wear it.  Dad thought it to be junk.  After taking it home for a closer look, it turns out the chain was 925 silver made in Italy.  Dad wins again.

 

Reno Gaming Dollar

Another one of my Dad's finds from Eagle Park, a Reno gaming dollar.

Cool Find of the Day

Here is one my Dad found.  It looks like a sheriff is missing his badge, but it is just a pin about the size of a quarter.

Not Much to Look At

This quarter is not much to look at, but it was almost silver.  1964 was the last year that the US minted silver coins for circulation.  So I love it when I find coins close to that date, it means I am closer to finding silver coins.

Another Front Yard Surprise

One of the things I love about metal detecting is your never know what you are going to dig up.  Last night, after helping my wife get ready for a trip, I decided I would go over the front yard one more time (I have already done it at least 4 times).  The Garrett ACE 350 said that the target was a dime/quarter range and 2" deep.  I probed the ground with my pick and could feel it about 3" under the sod.  Thinking it was just a modern clad quarter I popped it out of the ground with my pick and in the process put a nice big scratch in the front of it.  Well, it was no quarter it was a $1000 peso coin from Mexico.  You just never know.  I should always be more careful to not scratch them.  Not sure how long that has been in my yard or how it got there from Mexico.

Incase you are wondering if this coin is gold, it is not.  Incase you are wondering if it is valuable, it is not.  But it is cool.

Minelab E-Trac Detector in the Mail

I am a geek, what can I say.  I ordered a new Minelab E-Trac and it is on it's way to my house as I write this blog entry.  Up to this point I have been using my dad's White's XLT or his Garrett ACE 350 detectors.  I have never really wanted to spend the money to get a good detector of my own, but now I have made the jump.  This is the first detector that you can plug into your computer (extra geek points).  From what I have seen online, people who use the E-Trac are finding older coins because of the extra depth it gives you.  I am excited to take this detector to the same places I have been going with the others to see what I can find.  I hope the learning curve is not too bad.

14K Gold Ring - Favorite Find YTD

Of all the finds so far this year, my favorite is a 14K gold band.  This is the reason I dig up all those pop pull-tabs.  To a metal detector, pull-tabs, nickels, and gold rings look the same.  This one happened to be about 6 or 7 inches deep, so it had been there a while.  I bet the ring had been there for at least 40 years, but the wonderful thing about gold is it comes out of the ground looking brand new.

In My Absence - Dad's MD Finds

I have not had the metal detector out for over a week now, but my dad has been out swinging.  Here are some of his finds.  He complains about not being able to get up and down, but from what I see here, he is doing pretty good.

Detecting Dog

Dallas, my dog, is smarter than the average dog.  When I ask her if she wants to go metal detecting she barks and gets all excited.  She loves to come along and smell what the other dogs have been doing at the park.  When my dad has other plans, she is always glad to fill in.  On Saturdays my dad and I usually stop for lunch, but one lucky Saturday Dallas got to fill in.  We stopped by In & Out Drive-In.  The helpful person taking the order suggested I could get her a meat patty without salt for $.70 and so we did, and she loved it.

Birthday Present for the Detectorist

Last week I got a text from my friend's wife.

"Happy Birthday", she said.

"It's not my birthday, but tomorrow is my wedding anniversary", I replied.  I thought it was a nice try even if it was not my birthday.

Later that day, while I was at work, my friend gave me a card that had been opened.  The card originally wished me a happy birthday, but had "birthday" crossed out and replaced with "anniversary."  In the card they acknowledged my love for metal detecting and suggested that I check my front lawn.

Turns out that they had sprinkled my yard with little metal objects for me to find.  How nice.  The said part was that my nephew had already gathered most of the up while he was mowing my lawn.  Oh well, I appreciated the gesture.  Next time sprinkle some old coins in too.  :)

Items picked up off the lawn

Lost Wedding Ring Found

Last summer I got a call from a friend who needed some help to find his wedding ring.  He had been working in his back yard and threw something and his ring went flying off his finger.  He heard it hit a branch of a small fruit tree.  He search for it but could not find it.  Of course I was glad to help search for it, why not I love that kind of thing.  It only took 15 to 20 minutes before I located it.  If I can help you find something, let me know.

Competition Continues - Week 3

The metal detecting competition works like this, recovered objects are worth points:  Garbage is worth the least amount of points, then junk jewelry, next is modern coinage, silver jewelry, old coinage (the older the better), gold jewelry, and gold coinage, and finally gold jewelry with mounted diamonds is worth the most points.  So far we haven't had to worry about points for gold coins or jewelry with diamonds.
I thought I had a strong showing at the end of our Saturday hunt.  I had managed to find a dog rabies tag, a 5 year pin, some junk jewelry, a good pile of modern coins and my 3 wheat pennies.
Dad had a respectable amount of coins, and he found a nice little silver CTR ring.  The competition was going to be close, until a "V" nickel was discovered in his pile of coins.  Dad takes it again.

A "V" trumps 3 wheat pennies

I want to find older coins.  It used to be if the coins were deeper than three inches I would just leave them.  Now I want to find coins that are deeper because the deeper you go the older they are.  Now because I am hunting in public parks I usually don't find any old coins, but Saturday I pulled three wheat pennies out of the same hole.  They were about six inches deep.  I was feeling pretty good about my coins until I started looking at my Dad's finds.  He had a nickel that was so dirty it showed no detail at all.  I rinsed it and took a look at it with the magnifying glass and could barely make out a 907.  The placement of the date was different than both the Jefferson and Buffalo nickels.  A quick Google search reveal the nickel to be a 1907 "V" nickel.  That was exciting!  Brushing the coin with my toothbrush and water eventually removed most of the dirt.  I would have to say this nickel was way better than my three wheat pennies.

Collections

It is funny how collections of different items start to emerge the longer you metal detect.

Zipper Pulls

Pins, barrettes, junk jewelry

Button

Keys

Junk Rings

Tokens

Big coins, foreign and smashed coins

Cars

Lead objects

Bullets and cartridges

My personal favorite: silver and GOLD jewelry

Year-to-date Totals

Quarters = $81.50
Dimes = $55.50
Nickels = $8.50
Pennies = $7.47
============
Total = $132.97

Now if you take that amount and divide it by my hourly average of $.50, you can see how much time I have waisted (about 266 hours?).

Variety of Finds from Memorial Day

The weather on Memorial Day did not turn out to be the best.  We had snow, hail, and rain off and on throughout the day, but the finding was good.  I found a good stack of coins, including the mercury dime, a whistle, watch, keys, buttons, brass fittings, a sacagawea dollar, a pirates island game token, hello kitty charm, and a small silver CTR ring.  Does that look like 8 hours of work?  I had a hard time quitting.

And the Pull-Tab award goes to Dad

Dad's finds are left of the big nail and mine are to the right.

Okay, there is some competition between me and my dad to see who can find the coolest thing.  As you can see from the picture, we also dig a lot of garbage.  We could opt to just dig up quarters, dimes, and pennies because our metal detectors indicate what kind of target it has found, but here is the dilemma: if you want to find the gold rings and nickels, you have to dig pull-tabs.  For some reason nickels, gold rings and pull-tabs all sound the same.

As you can see from the picture, my dad dug a lot of pull-tabs trying to find something cool.  He did find a ring, but it wasn't made of gold or silver.  He also found the biggest lead slide sinker I have ever seen.

My best finds were a couple wheat pennies and a watch.