Favorite CZ Story - The Twilight Zone

I recently did some digging around in some old detecting records and found a Record Sheet that brought back some very fond memories and a Twilight Zone Experience.

March 6, 1999 I was in downtown Salt Lake City trying for the umpteenth time to get permission to hunt an old 1888 home that looked like it would be a great place for old coins to be hiding. Every time I had stopped by, nobody was home.

I pulled up and parked in front of the single story wood framed house that sat in the middle of the block and saw an older gentleman and his wife walking around in the backyard. Introducing myself, I asked if it would be a problem to hunt the yard with my coin detector. Well, come to find out, the owner had recently passed away and the house was being sold.

The owners son said it would be ok to hunt but that I wouldn't find a thing in the yard. The late grandfather had been a huge metal detector buff and had hunted the yard many, many times over the years and there weren't anything signals left to dig. I told him I didn't mind at all. Permission was granted. And to make matters more interesting, the original owners of the house shared my same family name and had lived there up through the early 'teens until this family bought it. According to my dad, my grandfather's family lived on that street. Strange coincidences?

Well, I went back to the truck and out came the CZ-6 w/8" coil and I set about business. The house was set back from the sidewalk about 30' and had a front walk leading up to a front door. The walk split the front yard 1/3, 2/3 left and right. A gravel drive went down the right side of the yard to a rear garage. The yard was only about 60' wide and looked old.

The old man had done a fine job of removing all of the coins and trash down to just past 6". He left only 8 coins all between 6" and 9". I found almost nothing on the left side of the front walk. The right side was by far the best.

After finding the first coin deep, I started hunting much more carefully, overlapping each swing, working from the sidewalk toward the house and back again. An old 1917-S mercury dime came up first from the very dark dirt. A 1916-S wheatie, an 1891-S V Nickel, a 1916-S merc (I checked the mint mark a couple times on that one). A shallower 1971 nickel popped up that was somehow missed.

I changed directions and crossed the yard at 90*. A 1926-D wheatie came to light and then another 1917-S mercury dime. All the old coins maxed out my hole hog that is capable of taking a 3 1/4" diameter, 7 1/2" long core, nice and neat, and had me digging a couple inches past that.

Because of the depth of the coins, I decided I should hunt the yard diagonally as well. I turned up a few bits of trash and that was about it. I felt confident I had found it all.

Feeling pretty good about things, I turned to the parking strip that was a good 15' wide itself and decided I should search it as well. I started working back and forth and it was quickly obvious the ground wasn't original. I was recovering a target right up against the sidewalk when I looked up and noticed a very old white haired man walking very slowly towards me on the sidewalk with the help of a cane. We caught each others' glances and immediately I KNEW he was going to stop and talk to me.

Now this area of town has plenty of bums and beggars that frequent some of the soup kitchens, but this old man didn't look like one of them despite his long hair, old clothes and fedora style hat. He had faded blue eyes. I usually get a little uncomfortable when folks stop and start peering over my shoulder at what I'm doing especially in some areas of town. Yet, I didn't have any of these feelings as I watched this old man shuffle down the sidewalk towards me.

As I knew he would, he stopped a few feet in front of me and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was hunting for old coins and trade tokens. He smiled big and said that he had lived a few blocks away in the same house he grew up in and that when he was a very small boy, he remembered digging out in the garden in front of the house with his mother and he found a gold coin. (this immediately captured my attention) No, it wasn't a gold coin, is was a coin with an Indian on the front of it, one of the old Indian Head pennies. It was an 1898 Indian Head Penny. And then he looked at me with those eyes and a smile and said, "maybe if you're lucky, you'll find one too".

With that he turned and started shuffling down the sidewalk. I immediately knew that I would find an 1898 Indian Head Penny. I covered the hole I was digging and stepped back into the center of the yard I had just hunted from 3 different directions and immediately had a deep target under the coil. How did I miss that? Out came the hole hog, up came the plug and staring back at me from the very bottom of the hole was an 1898 Indian Head Penny. No way.

I looked back down the sidewalk to find the old man and he was gone. There was nowhere that he could have gone. There wasn't enough time for him to have shuffled down the sidewalk and gone around the corner. I looked around again and he was nowhere to be found. I tucked the 1898 IH penny in the find pocket and thought I had been do some more checking. Nothing else was found. How did I miss that easy target from 3 different directions? I could see my footprints where I had worked my way back and forth across the lawn. Where did that Indian Head Penny come from?

That house is gone now, along with a couple others adjacent to it. In it's place is an apartment building. Not much to look at compared to the neat old homes that used to stand there. But definitely a great memory for my CZ-6 and an episode of the Twilight Zone.

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Just one more good target before I go.

I enjoyed your story very much. You have a great writing style, one that conveys perfect imagery of your story, captivating your audience.

Rich,

All kidding aside. That one is WELL worth publishing. You should contact Rosemary (and/or) Steve Anderson of Western & Eastern Treasures magazine.
THANKS for you taking the time to type.........and share!

Tom

Very kind comments from both of you. That hunt was a very memorable experience because of the age and depth of the finds and the visit from the old man.

I'd love to read some of the fun or memorable stories from the other hunters out there.

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Just one more good target before I go.

...........and we wonder what's even deeper. Out of reach of current technology.

Great story, I agree with Tom, you should get Western & Eastern Treasures a copy of it, they'll probably want to publish it.
I truly enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing this with all of us.

Grant

I too enjoyed the story.
Yes, Definitely send it in to be published.
mark

Are you on Meds or visit the local pub before detecting?
Honestly just kidding and life is stranger than fiction and one wonders how far coins fall and how many have we walked over. Thanks for sharing with the forum...

Very good story, Rod Serling would be proud!
I have a really weird detecting story, just happened this week except it didn't have a great ending like yours. Maybe I'll post it later. Thanks for sharing
Aaron

Cool story life can do that I had a lady that came into my store and wanted to have medicare pay for some of her equipment she asked if I could guess her age. And I told her no. I was filling out her paperwork but I had to leave and take my lunch. I had another employee take over for me. I went and hit an old park a few blocks up the street and got a deep hit. I dug about 9 inches down and out pops a 1920 wheat penny...I found a few more coins that were from the 1970-2000.

When I got back to the store I was looking at the paper work and saw her DOB was 1920 that was a bit strange?

LowBoy

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Great story...it may sound wierd to some, but this stuff happens...
An extremely similar hair raising story with a slow walking old man there, then seconds later impossibly gone...except it was at a racetrack and the penny would be the winning horse...if he wasnt gone so freakenly fast i wouldnt of made the bet, but it was so eery how he was there then vanished i had to make the bet, and i felt that i was going to win, like how u felt about knowing you'd find the coin...and sure enough this semi long shot (12-1) won by like 4 lengths.