Baby Boomer silver...in a Boom Town

[Wyatt Earp]

Those who have followed my boring and relentless posts and seen my relatively common silver finds have probably noticed that most of it was probably lost by kids in the 50's and 60's. That's because this town was booming in that time period....the economy was good, and coal was king... folks had lots of kids to deposit the coins in the ground, and they did a fine job of it.

During the baby boom, this little town had a hotel (gone) a movie theatre (gone) and 3 mom and pop "candy" stores (2 are gone), not to mention a ferry to import kids from across the river. I just obtained permission to hunt a lot that's adjacent to one of the old mom and pop stores that has been closed only in recent years. I thought there had been a house removed from this corner lot....but come to find out that nothing was ever standing there (note: I didn't grow up here). I'm told that kids used to play and hang out in this field all summer long. I'll bet many a game of marbles and jacks were played on that lot....as well as football, stickball, kick the can (hillbilly soccer) and just about anything you can imagine.

As promised, it's raining here today.....so I'll have to "maintain" until I can get a dry spot in my schedule. There could be some silver waiting for me there...and who knows what else, maybe even something a little less common.

Being a corner lot..it was probably popular to cut across the corner rather than walk the sidewalk. It's seen lots of traffic...and it's probably been hunted, but that doesn't stop me from being optomistic. My machine finds lots of silver dimes that others have left behind. I once got 13 from one small area that had been hunted previously. I have found 18 silver dimes and 3 silver quarters since Oct 1st. Deeper dimes are often missed, especially by earlier machines and my machine is very adept at finding them. While it'd be nice to find more big silver....I'll have to get a bit more creative in locating sites that haven't been hunted....or at least some less obvious places than I'm hunting now.

I've something of a conundrum...my machine's not working "up to snuff", but I'm finding coins anyway. After it's trip to the service center (once the snow starts flying)...I'll have to hit all of these places again to see if I've left anything behind. I'm sure that I have.

Wyatt

[GySgt USMC]

Best of luck to you man... Sounds like a excellent place to hunt. Keep us posted on your finds!

Gary

[Wyatt Earp]

The thing I forgot to mention about the store.....is that it dates back to around 1900 or a little earlier.....and the other defunct mom and pop store was at the other end of the next block. There might be barber or even seated or bust coins in this field. You just never know. The town is certainly old enough. There's only one way to find out....when it stops raining.

The bad news is that I'm almost certain I won't be the first to swing a coil there, so odds of any larger coins are diminished as it is most places these days.....oh well, I'll take what I can get until I find some virgin territory. If, on the other hand, this turns out to be untouched (the previous owners might have kept folks out) then it could get real interesting.

You're at a real disadvantage when you're not originally from the area you're hunting in. There are things that I would know had I hailed from here...that I just have no way of knowing. I've been here 15 years....but still don't know what went on here like the locals do. I got this place on a tip from a "baby boomer" who grew up here.

Wyatt

[Wyatt Earp]

I went and gave this place a quick "once over" after supper......and I suspect that there's been some fill added over the years, as the soil is far too soft. I found a few clads not more than a few years old that were already 5 inches deep. Anything old is probably beyond the reach of my machine. The ground is firmer right by the store, but I didn't spend a lot of time there. Dug a few more recent aluminum screw tops that were flattened....and started to get that "greener pastures" feeling.

I did recover a wonderfully ornate Victorian icebox hinge next to the old store. Too bad there weren't about 5 more just like it. It's a great relic...and I'd build something to use them on if I had more of them. It was about 8 inches deep and registered as a quarter at 6 inches. This place is great for somebody with one of the newer detectors like the minelab that has greater depth capability than my old whites.

Like anybody looking for success, even if modest, and faced with this disappointment......I was weak and returned to the scene of last night's crime....and pulled a 52-D rooselvelt dime and a 64 plain roosevelt dime from the other side of that same yard. I also unearthed a 1945-S war nickel pretty close to where I pulled the mercs from the ground last night. Total modern coin take on the evening was about a buck eighty five.

The last decent thing I found was an old skeleton key made of brass. Pretty cool.....maybe the start of a new "collection".

Wyatt