A Weekend of Metal Detecting and Friendship

[Tony Two-Cent]

Me and DaddyDigger took our second annual metal detecting road trip this past weekend. On Saturday morning we headed to northern Illinois and met up with Ill Digger and his friend Ted. We tried several different sites, 3 parks and 3 schools. I am embarrassed to say that I went silverless for the day, but we still had a lot of fun! The other guys all got multiple silvers. Oh, the humiliation! lol

Me and Dave got a horrible hotel room at a Quality Inn in Bradley, Illinois that had soggy carpet and a phone that didn't work. At least we had a good dinner in the sports bar that adjoined the hotel.

On Sunday, me and Dave hunted our way across Indiana. At every site we encountered very soft, loose soil. It made for easy digging but it seems that the old coins sink too deep in this soil. I did finally get a silver Rosie that kept me from going completely silverless on the trip. At the end of the day we both decided that we're never going to detect in Indiana again. I think my favorite find on this day was an old embossing stamp that says November Election 1909 on it. When it got dark we drove to Dayton, Ohio and got a hotel room and retired for the evening.

On Monday morning we got up early and met Bell-Two at his house near Dayton, Ohio. We spent a little while admiring some of Tony's recent finds, then headed out to do some field hunting. Tony brought along his hunting buddy the Doug Man whom we had seen in many of Tony's videos. We arrived at the field at about 8:00 a.m. and hunted it for almost 5 hours. Field hunting was a new experience for me, and Tony showed me how to set up my E-Trac for Two-Tone Ferrous. None of us got any old coins on this day but we did find some old stuff. I got a cool button, a Zippo lighter plus a couple of watch winders. Me and Dave bid farewell to Tony and Doug at about 12:30 p.m. and started our long drive back to Illinois.

Here is the Illinois Crew after our long day of hunting on Saturday. Ted, Ill Digger, DaddyDigger and Tony Two-Cent:


Here are my finds for the weekend. Rather sparse, but we had a lot of fun and laughs anyway!


Nothing too exciting in the way of old coins, just 18 wheat cents, one Rosie, a 1954 Italian 5 Lire coin, and a 1942 nickel.


I found this old store token on Saturday at an old park in Streator, Illinois. It says, Good for 5 cents in trade



I found this old embossing stamp in Kentland, Indiana. It was almost a foot deep.



Here it is with the image mirrored so you can read it:


I found this object in a park in Indiana on Sunday. I guess it might be the tuning pegs off of a guitar.




Here are the watch winders I found in the farm field in Ohio on Monday:


This Zippo lighter also came out of the farm field. It is engraved To David.


Here is the button I found in the farm field. I'm not sure if it's old, it feels like aluminum.




We had a great time even if we didn't find much! I want to thank DaddyDigger for driving us across the Midwest and for providing good company. Thanks also to Bell-Two for letting us hunt that farm field with him. A good time was had by all!

Thanks for looking and happy hunting!

[Johan K]

Cool finds though ! Going out with friends and share the same hobby is the best. You've got lots of coins. I've the E-trac as well, great machine. Found 2 silver-hoards and gold with it. I Always use the Roman site pattern you can download this pattern from the internet. I think it was created by a guy in the UK. Greetz from Johan, the Netherlands

[aloldstuff]

Tony, even though the finds were sparse it sounds like everybody had a great time. That's what its all about.

Always great to see forum members getting together for a hunt. As you said this was your 2nd annual hunt with Daddydigger.....hope to see the 3rd one.

[Bell-Two]

Thanks for your kind words Tony, you guys are always welcome, I wished someone would have found an old coin but that is the way it goes. I guess I get the prize for best old coin for the day, after you guys left I got a 1941 Wheatie happydance02 I really like that embossing stamp you dug and I have not gotten a watch winder yet even though I have dug about 20 other watch pieces out of that field!

[Full Metal Digger]

Great post Tony. I also had a great time and like you, finds were a bit scarce. That Indiana soil is a digger's delight but I got tired of finding memorial cents at 8 inches deep! I agree that all the old coins must have sunk too deep for us to pickup with our e-tracs. Next time we'll rent a grader and scrape about 10 inches off in the parks and see what we get then!

I ended up getting sicker after I got back and missed some work. I been too sick to even clean my finds or sort through them. I'll try to get a post up later this week. I do hope we get more road trips in the future! Thanks and HH, Dave.

[milco]

Sounds like an awesome time! Those trips are great fun I'm sure and finding stuff is just the icing on the cake if you come away with keepers, the election seal/stamp is very cool!

[coinnut]

That sounds like a super time. It's always nice to meet some of the people here. Great post thumbsup01

[Fire Fighter 43]

It is not your usual pile of silver but you still had a good three days hunting with friends. WTG |

[giant056]

Congrats on the memorable detecting venture and the silver rosie thumbsup01 you didn't get skunked for sure

[dave in iowa]

great hunt m yes those are tuning keys off a guitar

[z118]

Sounds like a good time Tony. You got at least on silver and some pretty cool relics to boot. If you guys ever head east towards New York I hope you give me a shout!

[Epi-hunter]

Great post Tony. I love the photo of all of you!

So what did you think of TTF? I've used it only a few times in certain sites and it certainly is different than conductive with multi-tones set to the max.

I had been thinking about a detecting trip to Indianapolis someday (about 3 hours from me) but maybe I should re-think it based on your observations of Indiana...

[Tony Two-Cent]

So what did you think of TTF? I've used it only a few times in certain sites and it certainly is different than conductive with multi-tones set to the max.

I didn't really like TTF but maybe it was just because I wasn't used to it. I'm also not 100% sure that I had it set up correctly. Nevertheless, I was finding stuff with it, including tiny watch winders at about 8 deep.