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Metal Detecting.

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
Not sure who else here kicks around with a metal detector but I've recently been dabbling in it. It's pretty fun digging up old stuff. I still don't have a lot of experience figuring out the tones but that comes with experience and just digging stuff up. After the 10th beer can you learn pretty quick what tone they make and skip over them, but then you second guess it and dig yet another beer can. lol.

Alex and I were out listening for turkeys this morning and I took my detector along. After sun up we walked over and I hunted this old homesite for about 30 minutes. Dug some trash like nails, various metal fragments, a pop can, a shovel blade and then this beauty. It was located on the back side of the house close to the old outhouse location. It's a stirrup off a horse saddle.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1459717706.260660.jpg


Post up some cool stuff you found. I'm going to use this thread to post various stuff I find through the summer. Some of it I may need help identifying.
 

Joel

Senior Member
3,049
113
Centerburg, Ohio
My 8 year old daughter wants to try it and it sounds fun. We will just rent one for the weekend sometime soon when we get some good weather.
 

Buckmaster

Senior Member
14,362
191
Portage
We partially own an extinct coal village. The remnants are old rail tracks, tunnel through a hillside, creek, open well pits, and some old business and homestead foundations that date back to late 1800's and early 1900's. Danmann's buck dropped in this very spot last fall. I've got a client that hunts the available lands of Gettysburg every weekend with some high end equipment. Last week I invited him down to Deer Camp for exploration during turkey season. I have no idea what he could find. It should be an interesting event for Tony and I.
 

JOHNROHIO

Participation Trophy Winner
2,824
136
Levi and I have one that we play around with. Most of the time we will get into it for a week or so, then we lose interest and move on to something else. Lots of clad coins and junk. Some of our best finds have been a men's gold ring, a cast army guy and a old brass makeup compact.
 

5Cent

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
12,291
212
North Central Ohio
Looking forward to seeing what you guys find! There are a few times where I wish I had one to find something I dropped or missed the target with lol.
 

at1010

*Supporting Member*
4,944
139
IMG_1569.JPG
We partially own an extinct coal village. The remnants are old rail tracks, tunnel through a hillside, creek, open well pits, and some old business and homestead foundations that date back to late 1800's and early 1900's. Danmann's buck dropped in this very spot last fall. I've got a client that hunts the available lands of Gettysburg every weekend with some high end equipment. Last week I invited him down to Deer Camp for exploration during turkey season. I have no idea what he could find. It should be an interesting event for Tony and I.

that is super interesting!

I will be following. I have a plot I call stonehenge because you can see there used to be an old barn there. Just this weekend I found another foundation to something. It was old and cool. Here is the picture.
 

bigten05

*Supporting Member*
3,675
151
knox county ohio
My uncle is into it bigtime hes found some awesome stuff. I keep wanting to go look where an old homestead was on a property I hunt house is completely gone. Just a stone foundation and an old silo in the middle of the woods. Same property where we found 70 arrowheads in one summer.
 

RedCloud

Super Moderator
Super Mod
17,381
193
North Central Ohio
I have my dad's old detector and play around with it from time to time. I'll post up some of the stuff we have found over the years. Some old coins and dad found a bird cage stand once. Couldn't believe it when we dug that sucker up lol.

Great find Joe. It's pretty cool to find things like that and bring history back to the surface.
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
Cool stuff guys! I looked for topo maps today and the farthest back I could find on the USGS site was 1914. I would like to find some older ones to try and figure out when the house was built. Does anyone have any ideas for how to find old plat maps besides physically going to the courthouse.
 

RedCloud

Super Moderator
Super Mod
17,381
193
North Central Ohio
Cool stuff guys! I looked for topo maps today and the farthest back I could find on the USGS site was 1914. I would like to find some older ones to try and figure out when the house was built. Does anyone have any ideas for how to find old plat maps besides physically going to the courthouse.

Might be able to look on Google for the counties historical society or historical maps. Here is one I found for my county. http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/9553/Crawford+County+1873/
 

Redhunter1012

Senior Member
Supporting Member
I have my Dad's metal detectors. One is a pretty nice one he bought just a few years ago. My father in law has one we bought him for Xmas 2 years ago. We are gonna hit up some old homesteads in the area and the old city parks around our area as soon as it gets warmer
 
Here is a photo of some of the treasures I found in 1988. By the mid 80's I hunted mostly only in the water, very little coin hunting at that point. All the jewelry except the two class rings is gold. This photo is just a small part of what I found over the years. I'd venture to say I dug around 30-40 thousand coins in a 15 year period. Many of these coins were silver, but I never found a gold coin.
 

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To be honest giles, that is probably a pretty conservative estimate. I did a lot of my coin hunting in Pennsylvania. After all PA was one of the first places to have a good population of people. Lots of old schools, churches, parks and homesteads were in PA. Like I stated in my earlier post, I was addicted.
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
Here is a photo of some of the treasures I found in 1988. By the mid 80's I hunted mostly only in the water, very little coin hunting at that point. All the jewelry except the two class rings is gold. This photo is just a small part of what I found over the years. I'd venture to say I dug around 30-40 thousand coins in a 15 year period. Many of these coins were silver, but I never found a gold coin.

Awesome stuff man. Lots of rings there.
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
Wow! 30-40 THOUSAND!!! Dick is the reason you can't find anything Joe, lol.

Wow! 30-40 THOUSAND!!! Dick is the reason you can't find anything Joe, lol.

He no doubt cleaned up a ton of it however there's still plenty to be found. Detector technology has improved greatly in the past 30 years to where even a midlevel unit today will out hunt a top notch detector back then. He was using a whites detector who even today make some top notch gear. The signal signature for a lot of things actually overlap quite a bit and the old detectors did not have the discrimination range to weed them out. A good operator good usually tell but they also skipped over a lot of things thinking it was trash. For instance the tone for a aluminum pop can and a silver coin is very similar. Back then you had two options, you could dig it, or skip it. After digging up four or five pop cans or pulltabs a lot of guys started skipping stuff. Today's detectors have a lot of discrimination and you can notch out that pot can to where it doesn't read them anymore.

A lot of it has to do with where you hunt to. An old homestead from the 1800s isn't likely going to produce much coinage. People were poor, and if they did have money it was usually inside tucked away somewhere for safekeeping. Money was something to cherish as it was hard to come by. They didn't do much work on the homestead with change in their pocket or wearing jewelry. Typically you'll find a lot of things you would expect to find on a farm nails, pieces of chain, horse stirrup, etc.

To hunt coins and jewelry you usually have to hunt gathering places like old churches or schools. Churches seem to be very productive because people would wear their fancy dresses and some jewelry and have tithes in their pocket. Schools are great because kids play and they're notorious for losing stuff.