Yard of 1953 Home Searched

My sister has a nice little house that was built in 1953.  I had already gone over the yard with my dad's Whites' XLT, but I wanted to try it again with my new Minelabs E-trac.  She gave me the green light so I searched it for about an hour and come up with these coins.  3 of the coins are from the 40's: 1947 wheat penny, 1945 wheat penny, and a 1942 nickel.

I got a little excited about the 1942 nickel. ( here comes a little history/coin lesson).  You see, in October of 1942 the US started minting nickels without any nickel (the metal).  Nickel was needed for the war effort (WWII).  Instead these nickels were made with 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese.  I was hoping that this would be one of those "War Time Nickels".  It wasn't.  War Time Nickels were minted from 1942 to 1945, and the way you tell the difference is the mint mark was placed over the top of the Monticello on the back.  This nickel had no mint mark :(

Sample of War Time Nickel with mint mark:

Mystery Object #3

 This object was a mystery, but google has helped me figure out what it is from.  The text on the head of this bolt says: "Warranted Superior Pat Dec 27 1887".

Turns out it is from the wood handle of an antique hand saw.

Mystery Object #2 - door knob?

Went to South Fork Park with my dad this past Saturday.  I ended up digging up what I thought was a door knob.

It wasn't until I got home and started cleaning it off that I noticed I could unscrew part of it.

I asked around at work to see if someone had any idea what it could be.  Maybe it was a little lamp or something like that.  It was not until I talked with Kurt that I got a suggestion that no one else had come up with.  He said it was a hookah.  So with a little google searching I was able to come up with a picture like what it might have looked like.

Turns out it was someones bong.

Mystery Object #1

 Any idea what this little piece of metal is?  Let me know what you think.

One More Mercury Dime

Went back to the old park in American Fork.  Went back over some ground I had already covered.  I did not find very many things, but did manage to find this nice 1945 mercury dime at about 5 inches.

Random Finds from Lindon City Park

I need to find these watches before that have been in the ground for years.

Neckerchief Slide from Eagle Park

Dad keeps saying that we have covered this park, but each time I go back I keep finding stuff.  My favorites: the neckerchief slide and the key.

Veterans Memorial Park - Pleasant Grove

Just a few finds from the Veterans Memorial Park in Pleasant Grove.

Comparing Coin Dates with Dad

I thought it would be interesting to compare the age of my coins to the age of my dad's coins.  I assumed that mine would tend to be older because I try to recover the deep coins 6 to 9 inches, where my dad wants shallow coins 0 to 3 inches.  The results were surprising, at least to me.  I did have one older coin from 1941, but the ages of the rest were pretty equal.

Silver Ring and Canadian Coin

Okay, I am back from vacationing and ready to get back into metal detecting.  I stopped by my brothers condo and decided to search a little patch of grass next to a basketball court.  I had already found a silver superman ring there.  I spent about 45 minutes and come up with these finds.  The ring was 7 inches deep, it doesn't have a hallmark stamp, but I am pretty sure it silver.

Eagle Park Finds

Here are our finds for our evening hunt at Eagle Park.  I had a great night with a silver ring and the little globe pendant.

One of the pieces was part of a toy gun.  One of these days I would love to find the complete thing.

Reuben and Will Go Hunting

Had a little family get together tonight.  Got to see some family I don't see very often and meet some new ones.  Two of my little relatives, Reuben and Will, have been wanting to go metal detecting, so they talked me into running home and bringing back my metal detector.  For an hour or so, they help me hunt the front yard of my aunt's house.

They caught on quick and we managed to find a few things before it started getting dark.

Unidentified Coin

Anyone know what kind of coin this is?  About the size of a quarter but feels like it is made from Aluminum. Usually I can pull enough text off the coin to identify it.  Found this in a park in St. George over the weekend.  The corrosion is pretty bad on this one.

CTR - Choose The Right

One of Dad's finds: Silver CTR ring

Cool Find #1

I should have put something to give this find some scale. The gold ring around the globe would be about the size of a silver dollar. I must have been some sort of pendant.

Waiting Out The Rain

Last night Dad and I hunted Eagle Park.  It's one we have hunted numerous times in the past.  It amazes me that we can go back there and still find stuff.  It is a nice place to go because the ground is soft without lots of rocks. It makes it easy to recover deep targets.  Some of the targets were over 8 inches deep.

We had to take a break for a while as a thunder storm rolled past.  Dad and I had about 15 minutes to visit, it was nice.  Usually we both have head phones on and don't do much talking.

Silver and Turquoise Ring

Here is a nice silver and turquoise ring Dad found. 

Mid-week Treasures

Dad has been sneaking out on his own a bit lately, because I have not been able to go.  So this is mostly stuff that he has found.  When the ratio of quarters is that high compare to the other coins, I can tell that he is not wanting to get down and dig up all the pennies and dimes.

Hunting Center Street

In our never ending search to find the more productive hunting grounds we keep trying new spots.  This week Dad and I searched the North side of the County building along Center Street in Provo.





I was thinking that it was not a very good place to metal detect, so after lunch at Sammy's we moved to Pioneer Park on 500 N 500 W.  After a couple hours there, I was wishing we had stayed on Center Street.





Here are the highlights.  Dad found a carwash token, a wheat penny, a small basketball, and a small silver ring.  I found a silver CTR ring, a wheat penny, and a key.

Getting a Better Look at Finds

When I go metal detecting, I keep all the metal objects I find. When I get home I separate the coins and keepers from the garbage. Some things require a closer look. The older I get the more help I need. My first line of defense is my reading glasses, but they are not enough when it comes to reading the date on a dime.

I can usually make out the date of a dime with a magnifying glass. Sometimes I like a little more.

 I have a little hand held 45x power microscope that I will sometimes carry with me while I am out hunting.

It does a great job of helping me read the small dates. To be a true geek I needed something that plugged into my computer.

This little USB microscope really lets me take a closer look at objects. For example, I found this ring that seemed unremarkable to the naked eye, but under the microscope, it was much more interesting.