Every time I go to southern Illinois to visit my family, I kind of half jokingly suggest to my brother that he's supposed to be finding places for me to metal detect down there. His father-in-law owns about a million acres of farmland down there (or so it seems) including many sites where 1800s farm houses once stood. Well, it just happened that we had some time to kill on Christmas Day after opening gifts and having dinner, so my brother suggested that we take my metal detector to a spot that is now a cow pasture but was known to be a popular picnic area starting in the late 1800s.
My dad and my nephew decided to tag along, so we all piled in my dad's extended cab pickup truck and headed to the site. We made a quick phone call to my brother's father-in-law just to make sure it was OK, and he said that we could hunt there any time unless the cows were in there.
I must admit that I was skeptical about finding anything at this site, I guess because it's out in the middle of nowhere. It's a fairly large wooded area that is fenced and gated, and the grass is kept close-cropped by the cows who inhabit it part of the year. My doubts were soon put to rest though, as I found a 1914 Barber Dime after being there for only ten minutes.
We only had about an hour and a half to hunt before it got dark, but we made good use of the time. It soon became apparent that there were old coins to be found at this site, as I started finding Indian Head cents and Barber Dimes on a fairly regular basis. I was the only one with a detector, but every time I got a good signal all four of us would gather around to see what popped out of the hole. I think I impressed the others with my ability to predict what the target would be, Indian Head, Wheat Cent, Barber Dime, etc., but the E-Trac should get all the credit for that. These were very clean signals and the numbers were right on target every time.
By the time it got too dark to hunt any more we had 4 Indian Heads, 2 wheat cents, 3 Barber Dimes, and one Rosie. The remarkable thing about this site is the average age of the finds. This place has the potential to be a terrific honey hole, as I have only hunted a tiny portion of it so far. Could my first Seated Liberty coin be waiting there for me? Only time will tell.
The only minor down side to this site is that the soil is not kind to copper coins. The Indian Heads and wheat cents are pretty toasted, it took some work and a good magnifying glass to get dates off of them. Also, two of the Barber Dimes were very worn, now I know how the saying one thin dime originated. lol
Mostly it was just a lot of fun to hunt with my family, especially my dad just like the old days. My brother was very happy and proud that he was able to find this incredible site for me that has a ton of potential.
Here are the finds for the day:
Not the prettiest Indian Heads, but it was a blast finding them!
Two of the Barber Dimes were really worn:
Thanks for looking and I hope everyone is having a great holiday season! thumbsup01
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) You are on to something quite beautiful here. 
:->
lol 
...by finding some awesome keepers at a new site with your family. Dang, what a way to enjoy the holidays! Great job! 
Originally Posted by serega link=topic=8328.msg94332#msg94332 date=1324934754
