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Well, I have been a bit lazy about
updating this web site, but I haven't been lazy about trying to find coins. I
have been able to find silver coins each month for over a year now, including
the Winter months. That's saying quite a bit for an Indiana boy. This year I
started off finding a few Rosies, Mercs, and the occasional Indian and a couple
Barber dimes. Most of these were found at homes or at various Parks (most of
which I have already hunted before!) A couple coins were found on the old Erie
Canal foot path in the middle of a woods. That was pretty cool, and it is
interesting to note that the coins I found were very shallow. A 1913 cent at
about 1 inch, and an 1886 Indian at about 3 inches. To my surprise and delight,
I recently found the 1877 Seated Liberty quarter on my birthday. I was hoping
it was only a matter of time that I found one of these. In the past I had found
a few Seated dimes, but this is a first. I think most of the larger old coins
(of the few that were lost) have been found by cheaper, older metal
detectors...
Kevin McCracken 04/28/04 |
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After more than 2 years and 6 or 7 silver
halves found, I finally found a Franklin half. The walking liberties are more
common by far because they made them more years. Most of these coins were found
at an abandoned home, and at a park. Now I just need to find a Barber
half...
Kevin McCracken 05/15/04 |
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I found this nice 1843 cent at an old
church that I have detected many times before with others. I just decided to
swing my detector a little slower and cover all the ground. It was about 1 foot
down. The rest of the silver was found at a 1903 built country home that
friends of ours live in.
Kevin McCracken 06/01/04 |
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This contains various coins found at
various places, including various occupied and unoccupied country homes,
Memorial Park (again!), and a couple court houses. I found one 18K Gold mens
wedding ring at a home and gave it to the owner. I told them that I honestly
wasn't interested in jewelry and would give them any that I found. I have found
and given away 3 or 4 gold rings now. I have half a dozen or so for myself and
my wife too. The worn disk-like object is actually a Barber quarter, and I
almost tossed it. It had just enough silver-like clean properties that I
examined it closely first. It was under grass laid over a gravel driveway
(unknown to me at first) under the gravel. One of the Mercury dimes has
mint-like luster still.
Kevin McCracken 08/15/04 |
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It is hard for me to believe that I actually found this
set of coins. Most of them were found in the same location! I resist the urge
to disclose where I found the better part of them, but this proves that even in
2004 there is still un-detected ground out there. My Minelab faithfully told me
that the Silver Dollar was not a dime or quarter sized object. It put the
cross-hair to the far right side of the display and slightly lower than the
top-most corner. From past digging, I knew that large cents and halves have
come up in this location, so I dug a large plug and didn't scratch it. It's
hard to describe the feeling I got when I saw the "LARGE" reeded edge
of this silver coin in the dirt. I know guys who have detected for many years
without finding one. I feel like I have passed some kind of barrier or
milestone in my hobby. It's not worth that much, but is very rare to find. The
two coins that I still really want to find (and have a slight chance of finding
in this area) are a Barber half, and a gold coin (the white whale). Check out
the detail on the 1914 Barber quarter. It is probably only graded XF-20 or
XF-40, but from my experience, it is the best I have found out of about two
dozen.
Kevin McCracken 08/28/04 |
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I visited three homes around Andrews to
find these. At one home, the adult granddaughter of the home owner was very
interested in what I was finding. She wound up getting a nice 1893 S Barber
Quarter, along with 4 Indian cents - more than I kept from the home - two
Indians and the Rosie. At another home in the country I found the barber dime,
a very fine (but scratched - ouch!) Indian cent, and a mercury dime which I
gave to the nice people who lived there. The other two Indian cents and the
1891 Seated Liberty quarter were found at a beautifully restored older home by
a park in Andrews. The people there were also very kind in letting me check out
their property which was obviously older, original ground. To my dismay it had
already hunted before (likely several times based on how barren it was), but I
managed to find the two Indians deep down, and the quarter right between the
sidewalk and the gravel parking area by the road.
Kevin McCracken 09/24/04 |
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The two Washington's and a couple dimes
came from an Etna St. home in Huntington. The rest came from two different
trips to Ohio. The 1920 quarter was sleeping about 7" down near a somewhat
trashy (metal filled) sidewalk of what used to be an 1870's school in a small
Ohio town. There is only a bell there now to remember it by. I hunted a lot of
this area, but it obviously had been ravaged by people like me in the
past.
These two, large, dark disks found their way to my
pockets while on a fishing trip in Ohio. I actually went to Ohio with my family
to either fish or metal detect, depending on weather. If the weather was snowy
or very wet, I would fish, else I would metal detect. Fortunately for me the
weather was good. I drove to a nearby small town (my favorite type of place to
hunt) and found the site of a middle 1800's school that had been razed about a
century ago. I was a little nervous about hunting the area - it was not private
property, but it was also not the type of place that people with metal
detectors are likely to be smiled upon. I discretely started out by some large
trees and within a minute or so found the 1855 large cent about 5" down.
Then about a minute or two later I found the 1830 cent only about 2 or 3"
down. I was pretty excited - I found what seemed to be an unhunted middle
1800's school yard, with shallow coins popping up! I also found an 1860 token
advertizing Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign. The only problem is I
didn't know exactly where the school was located, and I didn't want to be
visible out in the open. To make a long story short, a police officer spied me
out and politely asked me to leave. I didn't put up any resistance, although it
will be hard to avoid this place next year when the Walleye start to bite
again...
Kevin McCracken 11/28/04 |
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