Give me an hour and I give you . . .

There's a park that dates to the 1870's I've been hunting and have pulled many older coins from it. Interestingly I've only found one small 20' x 40' area that's productive (I think the rest of the park has been changed). Three trips ago there I thought it was done for silver, as it had been several trips since silver surfaced, but I still managed to find old wheaties and a few other interesting things, so I kept at it. Two trips ago the ground, which had always been moist on previous hunts, was bone dry. They say dry ground is optimal for hunting around iron as wet ground enhances the halo of large and small rusty iron, and I saw first hand what I was missing in wet ground as I dug several coins in the same hole as rusty nails. Unbelievably I pulled three mercs, two indian heads, and about ten early wheatbacks from the same spot in the course of an hour or so. I couldn't believe it.

Sunday I only had about an hour to hunt it, and my second target was a pristine 1912-S Barber dime! It looks like an uncirculated drop, it's crisp and has much more detail then I could capture, looks like an easy AU50. Bummer it wasn't a key date.



A few feet away from where I got the Barber I dug what I think may be my first love token?? When I first dug it I thought I had a normal trade token, but when I got it home and cleaned it up I saw that it was hand engraved. It's the exact same size as a nickel, which is exactly what I thought it was made of, but further cleaning reveals that it's actually copper. Any ideas on this one?



I was running 99 sensitivity, zero disc and only digging targets that read at 6" or deeper (anything less in this spot is always a newer coin), anything 6" or deeper and you know you got a keeper.

I'm amazed that I keep finding coins at this park, I cover the same small area over and over, but for some reason each trip gives up goodies that I couldn't detect and/or hear on previous trips. It's peculiar, really makes me ponder how much stuff is missed due to the multitude of ever changing variables we face.

Thanks for looking,
Brian

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Brian,
Those are couple of great finds and they in such good shape. Nice pictures with great detail as well. Thanks for sharing the pictures and the story.

Don't forget (or take for granted) your skill level continues to increase. This coupled with a certain mindset........a different coil-swing direction, different moisture conditions......and several other qualified reasons = success.

What did the love token ID as? If it ID'd as a '30' on the F75.....it could very well be a nickel.

Excellent finds Brian! Thanks for the pics!
Aaron

Sweet finds!!!!

Thanks everyone.

NASA-Tom Wrote:
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> Don't forget (or take for granted) your skill
> level continues to increase. This coupled with a
> certain mindset........a different coil-swing
> direction, different moisture conditions......and
> several other qualified reasons = success.
>
> What did the love token ID as? If it ID'd as a
> '30' on the F75.....it could very well be a
> nickel.

The love token is the same diameter/thickness as a nickel, but it ID'd as a dime. I hit it on a polishing wheel for a few minutes and on the edges it has a copper luster where it shined up. Odd I've only seen love tokens made out of coins, but this appears to be a copper slug or perhaps it was made from a trade token, but I don't recall seeing many copper trade tokens, they tend to be brass.

Via conductivity and color.............there's near certainty it is indeed copper.