JackPine Jogged a Memory/Let's Post Some Old Time Stories Here

Hey Jackpine/Tom, Your post on the 1270 jogged an old memory I thought I'd share here but I never bought/used the 1270 -- I went from the 1266x that I had/used for only 1 season (spring, summer, fall) to a CZ but I've heard some guys liked them better than the 66 and some didn't. Hopefully others will add their story/s (or a story) here from long ago back when analog machines ruled!

I still remember the last hunt I ever took my 1266 on (fall of 92) the yr my son was born and before trading it in towards a cz20 in the spring of 93. I had been researching (the old skool way) at the library some local history a bit north and west of where I lived (12/15 miles) that was basically a ghost town left from the early days of lumbering because when the RR came thru about 7 miles south with a stop at another town = it caused the little village I was researching to pretty much fade into history/become just a few scattered houses, a church, and an old school that was in use until just after WWII. Anyway, one lead led to another and I found a soft cover book in the shelves of the library maybe 25 pages long written about the specific village, and in it was mention of an annual end of summer festival of sorts in a wooded area along the river that runs thru the twp a few miles from the village but was well known not only by the local/county folk but surrounding counties as well and where every yr from the late 1870s until the 1940s 100s and 100s of people gathered for the festival. One of the main attractions though was a pie baking contest for the women and in the early days it cost .10 cents to enter the festival as well as .10 cents if you entered into the pie baking contest where you could win some queen pie baking title, bragging rights, and a ribbon of some sort, but, as time went on and it grew in attendance, it also started to cost more for entry into the festival itself as well as the pie baking contest to the point that it was .50 cents for both entries for the last 20 yrs or so that it ran and until it ceased in the 1940s.

So, you can imagine what *I* had in my mind/my sights set upon and why!? I'm thinking seated dimes/and 1/2 dimes, barber coins, mercs, walkers, etc galore if I could only find where this place was! I was 30 yrs old back then and I could walk/swing a machine AFTER working heavy construction all day from the time I got out of work until well into the night and do it all again the next day and the next, on and on! So, I read everything I could on it in that book, looked for more clues/articles/etc in old newspapers/etc but nothing gave me the X marks the spot. The best I could deduce was it had to be on a piece of land the state owns and within a 1 mile strip or so back along the river on that land, so, off I went on my quest/adventure to start to track this place down in that fall of 92. I remember driving into the woods down the dusty old dirt/sand roads after passing thru the village of run down shacks sprinkled here & there, as well as the old church and school having long been neglected and wondering just how many people of that tiny town spent a late summer weekend way back when at the festival yr after yr paying entry fees into the place and how many women paying their fees trying to win the title of queen pie baker as well as just how many of them dropped coins during that time and those transactions! The images of seated coins and barber coins and big ole silver 1/2 dollars being dropped unknowingly or in hurried haste to get into the gate of the festival were running rampant and I was on my way to vacuum up my share if only I could find this place!

Fast forward to the site/area I thought had to be the place of the festivities and I stood there looking upon miles of river bank, dirt road/trails, and woods in all directions. Where to begin I thought to myself. Okay, a walk around the area to scout for any signs of foundations or other remnants to give some clue/s is in order, and off I went with the 1266x and a shovel in hand. Walking and walking and walking and walking thru the woods, over small hills, thru ravines, along the river, on and on and on for hrs and hrs = no luck today/no sign of anything after hrs of work/walking. A week passes and it's a Saturday morning/can't wait to hit the dusty trails again and find this treasure trove of silver coins just waiting to be dug by some lucky sob who's done his research/homework and is hot on the trail of riches few have ever found in that part of the state! Again, I pull into the woods but this time I take a slightly different direction and drive a good 1/2 mile beyond the last parking spot I stopped at the week before. I gear up (this time I have food and water with me!) and off I go along the riverbank heading south for a bit and then back into the woods a 100 yrds or so from the river to scout for more foundations/etc. After about 30/40 mins I finally notice some daffodils in the woods growing in an obvious formation and come upon an old homesite. It was long fallen down/collapsed in on itself but sure enough a house. Bingo I thought to myself/could this be related somehow? So I start to detecting the area widening my search from the cellar hole outwards in a circular pattern but where's all the coins? I'm digging junk, hinges, bent nails, a door knob, bits & pieces of this/that, a teens wheat penny, etc but no silver coins. I keep up the pace as I know I'm hot on the trail/have to be near the place the festival took place. I'm walking up and down hills, thru the ravines and again, I come across another obvious homesite! I start detecting in the same fashion/pattern as the last but again, not much coming to light other than junk but wait, what is this? Large (extremely large and deep) signal. Could it be a cache out here in these woods!? Dig dig dig dig, nothing nothing nothing, dig dig dig dig and what is this? Seems to be the rim of like a bucket or something!? Buried pot O silver coins maybe!? What the heck, this thing is in there/doesn't want to come out,,, dig dig dig dig, and I start to see some fieldstones and the obvious rim of one of those old time galvanized tin tubs the old timers used to wash hound dogs in and use on the farm for various task. Dig dig dig dig, you've got to be kidding me?? Entire tub (like 15/20 gal wash tub) full of fieldstones!? What the Xoxo!!! I spent the last hr diggin THIS BS!? Screw this = I'm heading away from here/towards the river again.

Start walking up the hills/down the ravines again for a good 15 mins, and all of a sudden I see a metal rod thing sticking out of the top of a small hill across from the one I'm standing on with a ravine between them. So down I go, and up the next hill and upon reaching the top, I notice some scrap wood, a small pile of rock, and debri, and the silver colored rod, I start removing the wood, and rocks/junk, and pulling on this rod,,, man this thing is stuck! Keep removing more of the wood/rocks/junk and it hit s me = no way? This can't be a "metal detector"!? Dig dig dig dig and pull on rod and out pops an old Coinmaster 6000/D all beat to crap/had obviously been there for yrs and yrs (a machine of like 1981/82?)!!! So, I'm sitting there thinking = ain't this a load of BS!? Some old timer many yrs before me had the same idea/knowledge I had and was out there looking for the same site I was when his machine must have took a crap on him and he tossed it to the scrap heap in the woods but took the coil! Now I'm thinking to myself = does this site even exist? Did this old timer find it and dig a pile of silver coins/hit the jackpot and just toss his machine while running off laughing all the way to the bank? What the heck is going on!? Getting dark/time for me to go now!

I went one more time out there looking for the site but never did find the place yet I know it's there somewhere. Time moved on quick in those days and we (the now ex wife, and our son) packed it up and moved a 100 miles across state soon after that spring and I never have been back there to look for the site since then (approx. 24 yrs ago) but it still runs thru my mind on occasion to wanna pack up the truck and head over there for a weekend just to see if I could maybe get lucky and hit the jackpot if I could only find the place

Jackpine/Tom = it's probably not too far of a drive for you (near Clare/Midland county lines)!?

Spring of 1993, some friends and I decided one day we should get some gold detectors and head out to the deaert (lived in Las Vagas) at the time and get rich off all the gold we were going to find. We went down to Desert Outfitters store and they bought Gold Bugs and I liked the look and feel of a brand new Bandido2 and talked to the guy about it. He said it was a coin and relic machine and not a gold machine like the Gold bugs but I didn't care, had to have it.lol.
Off we went with our new machines to some old washes with tailing piles we found while quail hunting to try our new machines out. While they were digging small pieces of lead and bird shot, I was digging cool relics. I dug an old pair of Weis snips and my first ever V nickel which at the time I had no clue what it was, just some weird coin with a big V on the back. I was hooked. They didn't care for it but I was out there every chance I got digging up all kinds of coins new to me, seated dimes, shield nickels, indian head pennies. I went to the book store and bought a US coin book so I knew what kind of coin it was that I could possibly dig. Very fond memories of my early days of detecting.

I put mine on the ground to use as the line you could not cross while playing darts. I found it superb.

I made a lot of good finds with the 1266 back in the day. All good memories. But the one that really stands out is a hunt I was invited on by some ole boys that were way more seasoned than me. I'll always appreciate that invite listening to their stories. When we arrived at the site I grabbed the 1266, my pouch and shovel and started swinging. While the other fellows were drinking coffee by the truck I went across the narrow dirt road not wanting to get to far away waiting for them to decide which way we were going. I got a nice solid round hit with the 1266 and dug a nice dropped 3 ringer. Held it up in the air and hollered I got a bullet. Checked the hole again, got another one. Ended up digging 77 3 ringers out of that hole. Most of them still in a perfect stack, all within 20 minutes of getting out of the truck which was only about 75 feet away. I think those fellows got pissed. Never got another invite but still a good memory with that detector nonetheless.

That would be a bit of a drive for me as I'm further north up between TC and Charlevoix.

My story is about an old football field located in a nearby town. While driving by one day I noticed a bunch of heavy equipment in there that was just starting to get to work. Well of course I pulled in to check it out. Since the field was no longer in use having been replaced with a new one in town and closer to the High School the site was being torn out and regraded to install 3 Soccer fields and 2 Softball diamonds. The real kicker as I found out is that the football field was built on the site of a large fairgrounds and Horse racing track from the 1880's!

The excavating crew removed the top 8-10" of soil prior to grading the site for the fields. This soil was piled in large windrows 15-20' and 50 to 75 yards long. I returned the next day or so and got to work with the 1236 which was the only machine I had at the time. First hunting the rows of topsoil where Mercs and Barbers were easy pickins. Once the grading work was done the top soil soil was spread back over the site. Imagine the area of 3 soccer fields and 2 ball fields and you get an idea of the size of this site.

I was right there detecting one row over from the heavy equipment as it re-spread the top soil, so close I had to stop detecting when one trundled by because of the noise. Luckily the crew was a bunch of younger guys and they let me have at it working so close to the machinery and stopping on occasion to see what I had when I indicated another old coin had come to light.

I did invite my new hunting buddy Rick N Mi over to partake in the goodness and many nice finds were made.

Flash forward to today and Rick and I were there once again. This time to check out the Equinox 800.. 17 years of friendship and the occasional honey hole!
Tom

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In a democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

Been a cannon projectile hunter since 72--first detector was my trusty MetroTec. I had total trust in this ole gal even though a 2/3" mine' ball was deeeeep.
My home being Vicksburg I was well familiar with the thousands of 13" mortar balls fired into the city by the Yanks----they weigh approx 225 lbs and would bury up to 50' in the loess soil. My plan was to check in the deep gullies that have washed out over the years.I left early one morning and proceeded to hunt up a long deep gulley,after about a half day of digging junk I got this biiiig wide and smooth signal.The signal was about 4/5' in diameter and perfectly round---had to be a 13" mortar ball. My digging tool has always been my trusty 1943 army shovel and I proceeded to dig the center of the circle. When I had to straighten my shovel,a Sure sign of a deep shell, and the signal was louder than ever I Knew I had a 13incher. I was like the Federal agent in the WildWood Flower song,I dug and dug and dug. Finally when I could dig no deeper with my army shovel I decided to drive the 50 miles home and get a LHS-long handle shovel and return the next morning. When I arrived back the next morning my hole was almost full of water--what to do--I'll dig a trench,drain the hole and dig up my 13 incher.About 3 digs with my army shovel on the rim of the hole and CLANG!! What the heck?? Further digging revealed an iron rim approx. 5' in diameter off a wagon wheel, not my 13" mortar ball.
The ole MetroTec had a quirk,dig a hole that the head would fit in and the deeper the hole the LOUDER the signal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2018 01:05AM by doc holiday.

Good stuff here so far guys

Doc = funny!

MichiganRelicHunter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good stuff here so far guys
>
> Doc = funny!

X 2....love a good story, even if it's exaggerated or made up.

Good stories!!

Without writing one or two..Ill just do a conglomerate type look back..

I wish it was like it used to be .....LOL..

Those days are gone...Once discriminators got good in the 80s and depth got good in the late 80s Sites got a hurt put on them..Especially in this area..The amounts of finds that were made is mind boggling...Especially in relic sites and coin hot spots....

Hundred or more dropped bullets a week and at least a dozen GOOD buttons a week in camps was normal..I remember once just trying to see how many bullets I could dig in a day and I got over 500 from sunup to dark...LOL...Actually used to get tired of digging bullets at times..they could be like pull tabs in a park when looking for coins in my case other non ferrous relics...

Those camps held a lot of old coins too big pennys and seated...Built up quite the pre civil war collection of coins..

If I decided at times to go after silver coins for a change of pace me and my buddy would have competition to see who could dig the most silver in a day..We would knock on doors of 80 year old homes in town and the amounts of silver we could get out of a yard between us was usually over a dozen a piece a day mainly barber and pre 64 but every once in awhile even those yards had a piece or two of seated..

With the old 120 tesoros we could go back into the house sites in the woods and make finds the whites and fishers left in the iron..and the stuff we could pull that was left back then was like they never had been hunted coins civil war buttons bullets..We could even go back to the ironiest parts of camps and get a lot of stuff.

We had weapons of choice back then battlefields...used all metal whites ora 1265 and could dig bullets isolated as deep as you can dig now .I MEAN DEEEEP...Get in iron grab a tesoro...

The guys in the 60s and 70s got alot of the plates out of the camps as they were big and easier to get.. but there were still in there deeper in the 80s and 90s..and at least very third or fourth house site you found had a pretty Buckle in there..always around the well hole...

I saw a major turn in quantity of finds in about the late 90s...The the explorer came along and the depth it had in disc mode that was accurate reopened alot of the camps...A resurgence...not like it was no way...but more finds...and for a few years my 100 bullets a week was back..

the accurate depth hasn't got any better in twenty years now and they have been deep machines for close to thirty years or more now...and been good iron dissectors since the late 80s with tesoro...all of this has put a hurt on sites..

If i come across New to me house site now I can tell what type machine worked on it before me by the finds...and you better hope it wasn't a guy with a tesoro that wasn't lazy and knew how to use it..

We now have better iron sifters and in my areas I've hunted and still want/need to hunt..they make some more finds with work..

Ever wonder why you find so many shotgun hulls in sites..the ID systems 30 years ago were very accurate...pay attention to the hulls unless they are scratchy or intermingled and masked well..the old machines read them fine...and got left..then you could afford to miss the stuff that read like a hull as there was plenty to dig..I dig all the hulls now even pretty sure knowing there hulls and at times they aren't hulls but a button or a relic of close id..same for foil range stuff dig enough foil and you find a keeper but you'll dig alot of foil..

where we are now is depth stalled and having to dissect iron..and the keepers you get out of those sites yu and alot for others have worked on for years is nowhere near what used to be..and they force you to dig that small trash alot in iron...

There's still A LOT of places untouched out there or left alone because of the sheer amount of trash in them But my area I want to hunt around here war sites have really been worked down that are accessible ...and I KNOW there's stuff in iron hiding and stuff deep or even shallow in bad dirt lurking but we don't have the machines to get it in abundance yet!!

We are in a weird period right now...we have always unmasked usually unknowingly. but now we have more target info through audio to tell us we are unmasking..and we have tighter coils higher freqs and better audio..I and many others who have hunted for decades and have evolved with the machines and site depletions on a yearly basis are at an advantage..we know where the stuff used to be and what was there and we know what there like now..and we did that to the sites.We just have to have the tool to get it..and right now its slow go...

One of those sites right now can get graded and its game on and alot of finds can get made..WHY??iron gets moved deep stuff gets flipped up..

If i was new hunter right now in civil war areas Id do what I've started to do in the last couple of years..Look for the multi period sites...like 1850 to say 1920 sites left in the woods...we never fooled with those much...Too much aluminum and other trash...the stuff is hiding in there too and with these tight coils and Good IDs we have you can try and cherry pick solid stuff...you'll leave ton but you'll find stuff..


This Isn't to discourage but to let you know stuff is still there in great quantity hiding..Actually if you find a old site that is hard to get stuff out of there's a reason..Someone worked it hard..and for a reason and that may be a clue..And there's always something left.Maybe the best piece..

I worry about machines to work iron with for the reason I want more..Plain and simple...If I had the machine to rejuvenate sites to 40 year ago standards.. I wouldn't be on here typing right now.

good thread Wayne

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Anybody here remember when White's Electronics came out with the XLT? This was my first metal detector and I remember well the excitement of getting it from the UPS man in the spring of 1994. What a detector for a newbie, with all those adjustments I just stuck with the Factory programs like Coins or Coins & Jewelry. Then as I became more accustomed to it, I began to experiment with settings like Pre Amp Gain, AC and DC sensitivity. I really liked the VCO option for the All-Metal mode.

The guys I hunted with, we worked something out like this, each would find a place to hunt and we all would pitch in on asking permissions to hunt the yards of old houses. I soon gained confidence to cold call and ask for permission to hunt a person's yard. I got turned down on some places but had more success on permissions than you would think. Of coarse, this was before the 911 tragedy on September 11, 2001, after this, things changed. After 911, people in my area was less trusting and I just about gave up on the hobby because I couldn't get in on private property in the towns around me.

Several years later and many hours experience...one yard stood out above the rest. It was a 2½ story late 1800's house with a cut limestone foundation. I went to the door and knocked, then stepped back and waited for someone to answer the door. Pretty soon a little old grandma answered the door, she seemed friendly, and I boldly asked to use my detector out in her yard to look for old coins. She smiled and said "Honey...I don't care if you use your Geiger counter in my yard but you aren't the first, many have come here before you. I doubt that you will find much."

The old yard sat on a corner lot had a brick sidewalk that was along the both streets, making a "L" surrounding the yard. This was going to be good, since I was using my hot program Coins & Jewelry, with the P.A.G. goosed up along with a higher setting of AC and DC sensitivity. I was running a tight pattern with my 9½" stock coil and found a medium depth coin that was reading Zinc penny/screwcap with a VDI of around 60. I knew this was within the Indianhead range and I dug up a 1912 Swiss 2 cent piece at around 6 inches deep. This got me to thinking about finding a US mint 2 ¢ piece and wound up finding a 1866 2¢ at a measured 11 or 12 inches deep. I know some will scoff at that but I found it at the very bottom with green discolored soil surrounding it. The XLT was tuned very hot and they are deep set up the way I had it. That deep find led to some more firsts for me like a shield nickel and another 2¢ piece on edge.

I didn't find any silver coins but finding the lower conductor coins that others had not found made up the difference. They were running too much disc or ignoring the lower conductors....that's my story anyways...........



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2018 07:49PM by Hombre.

Keith, good story. A trip down memory lane to hear about the early days of md'ing. The machines, the sites, the finds, etc...

I started in about 1975-ish, as an 8th grader. So for the first 5 yrs. or so, although I had dabbled in it, yet I had no drivers license. Could only go detecting to wherever my bicycle could peddle me to. Started with a 66TR. My hunting partner (fellow school chum) had a 77b. And the only things we ever hit, were school yards. And some yards of homes. But never had enough sense of mind to research out exotic things (stage stops, defunct picnic sites, old-town demolitions , beach storm erosion, etc...). We simply didn't know any better. Nor would it have mattered much I suppose, since we were at the whims of where our bikes could take us, and didn't know any adults who'd graduated into more serious types md'ing.

So as much as things might have been "virgin" in those days, we wiled away our time at schools yards built only in the 1920s to 1950s. A good day might produce 3 silver coins . Roosies, washington quarters, wheaties, and ... on a good day ... a merc. dime or buffalo, a silver ring and occasional gold ring, etc... Nothing at all special, in retrospect. The depth we could reach was perhaps 4 or 5", if you listened REAL hard.

I recall, in about 1980, when a senior in high school, with my driver's lic. and borrowing mom's car, that I went to where a stage stop was said to have been. Nothing but a cow pasture now. I distinctly recall getting "bullet shells". And I didn't know one shell from another. I just figured that, just like school yards, that bullet shells were "junk". And got some other slag items, etc... Within 20 minutes, I grew disgusted and "left for greener grounds". Because I knew that I could go to school yards and have an immediate chance at silver coins and wheaties. So why oh why should I waste my time here ?

I simply had no concept of "good junk" or "age indicators". And I had some silly notion that it was physically impossible to get coins that old anyhow. Since, as any good school turf hunter knows: The older coins are deeper. Thus if it was EVERYTHING WE COULD DO *just* to hear the 1920s/30s coins, then it logically stands to reason that: It is therefore impossible to find coins older than that. As they'd be too deep. It never occurred to me that that this stratification rule only applies to certain undisturbed turf. And "field" and cow pasture chaparral" doesn't necessarily follow the same rules of depth.

About 20 yrs. later, after I was well-versed in relic hunting mindset, we returned to that exact same stage stop (that I'd left in disgust all those years earlier), and have since harvested multiple seateds, reales, a bust, etc.... Sickening to think how much virgin territory there was in those days, that we simply didn't have the presence of mind to pursue.

Eventually, as the '80s progressed, we wised up to things like old-town urban demolitions (sidewalk demo's, etc...). And beach storm erosion. And to have patience in field hunting, and to value the "junk" once you recognize certain types to indicate that super old coins might-not-be too far behind. A few pioneering types who had gone before us, were coming into the club meetings with older finds, and ... when we became green with envy, we set our minds to figure out how to do it

My first detector was a radio shack Mictonta brand detector. I didn't want it but my dad insisted it was all I would ever need. I had been saving money and working through the summer and such. I think I was maybe 10 years old. There wasn't any internet back then and I didn't even know where to get started in researching and was years away from having a licenses or car to get me places. Most of my leads came from talking to the old timers about where stuff was back in the day. And my only ways of getting to them was via bumming a ride or walking. Anyway, there was the Sears catalog, and it had those Whites metal detectors in it. I would sit and day dream about having one of those, and that's what I was saving up to get when my dad talked me out of it and took me to radio shack. There I spent my money on a piece of crap detector that wouldn't find a vehicle size object over 2 feet away. Dad took me to a guy's house that he worked with, that was into Civil War relic hunting. I brought my detector with me for some reason, and am glad I did. The guy was showing us his collection and his metal detector...so I got mine, and it was so pitiful it couldn't pick up a Civil War bullet unless you scraped the coil on it. Whereas dude's machine could pick it up a foot off the ground. He had a Fisher 1265. I think my dad felt so bad for talking me into that radio shack machine that he bought the guys 1265 for me.

---------------

Anecdote stories --

A buddy of mine were hunting this property one time with a creek on it. There wasn't much water in the creek bed itself but it was just wide enough you couldn't safely jump across it without falling into the water...not the best thing to do in the winter time. There was a log that went part ways out over the creek and from there, we were able to jump to the other side. It never dawned on us of how we were gonna get back across, since there was no log to help us clear the extra distance. Well there we were stuck. I told my buddy I thought I could make it across. So I get a running shot and lept...and cleared the water itself and landed on a mud flat on the other side. Which from the momentum and my weight...I promptly went in that nasty stinking mud up to my knees. If I wouldn't have had on boots with laces and had been wearing those Muck style boots like I do most of the time now, I would have probably had to leave them in the mud. My buddy went about 200 yards down the creek banks and found a shallow rocky spot where he just walked across....which is what we were looking for on the site anyway, a fording spot.

---
When the AT Pros first came out, me and another buddy were one of the firsts to get one and we had a long list of places to take them to and water hunt for relics. On the way, he kept talking about snakes. He is terrified of them and with it being summer time in TN, you are gonna find snakes near the creeks. Guaranteed. In one such site, we were out in the creek walking up stream and we hit a spot of deeper water, so we were going slow trying not to step off in a hole and go over our heads. I happened to look up and seen a water snake coming down with the current and I said "hey Mike...snake". I had been crying wolf with him all morning when there really wasn't a snake, but this time there was and he didn't believe me. Until the snake saw him and decided to come investigate. It was then that he saw I wasn't kidding and I swear I saw a miracle of Biblical proportion take place with him nearly walking on water, which made the snake more interested in him. He sold his AT Pro, quit water hunting, and has no desire to ever go give it another try.


BTW...if you enjoy these kind of anecdote stories, there are a couple books you might want to buy. Name of them are "Never Mace a Skunk" part 1 and 2. If you haven't read them, they are worth having and reading!! The books in their entirety are about metal detecting and anecdotes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2018 03:10PM by Daniel Tn.

Funny Daniel

You can keep those snakes!