(Work in progress) My "Digger's Diary" detecting coin finds from 1992-present

Digger's Diary: My Metal Detecting & Treasure Hunting Adventures

by Robertson W. ("Rob") Shinnick (aka "lordmarcovan" in cyberspace)



This is going to be an extremely long process, but I'm very, very slowly working on photographing all my old detector finds, most of which were dug in my pre-Internet, pre-camera era. I have not gotten very far yet. But I figured I'd post what I had so far here, just for fun.



If I ever get off my hindquarters and resume the photography project (or break down in frustration and just send the whole album off to someone else to photograph), I'll post the new photos here.



In the meantime, I'll post some of what I have, and a few stories. Late last year I started something called the "Epic Treasure Hunting Game' to make a fun project out of imaging the coins, and it was indeed fun, but far too labor-intensive for my schedule.



So I'll dribble out photos a few at a time as I create them. This will be a lot of work just to show you a bunch of ugly coins. But many are interesting as well as ugly, and some aren't ugly at all, despite their decades or centuries in the dirt.



I hope you'll bear with my inconsistent schedule as I work on this.



We begin a quarter-century ago, in 1992...

 

Digger's Diary, Coin #DD-001.

My first "keeper" coin was found in my front yard in Swannanoa, North Carolina (affectionately called "Swannanowhere" by some locals).

Here is my memory of the place. It had a tiny front yard, and was on a 1/10-acre lot. There was an old garage outbuilding in the back. I found a 1940 NC license plate and some other interesting old clutter in there. The house had been built in 1930, as worker housing for employees of the Beacon textile mill down the hill. To this day, the neighborhood is still called "Beacon Village", though Beacon is gone now.

During WW2 when the Beacon workers went off to fight the Germans and Japanese, they brought in Mexican laborers to work in the mill. The houses were originally duplexes but ours had been converted into a single-family home. It must have at one time housed at least two families. My first wife and I bought the place for around $50K as a starter home in 1992. Seeing the current real estate values online just now surprised me.

Here is a 2012 Google street view of the place. The landscaping has changed. There were no rock paths in 1992. In my day, it was much more open. The trees have grown. Marked is the approximate findspot of the first coin I dug with my new detector.



My recordkeeping began in 1992 with this coin, after I bought my first modern VLF detector, a Garrett GTA-500. (I'd had detectors as a kid in the 1970s and '80s and even found one or two pieces of silver, but nothing except the memory of those finds remains.)

Initially I kept every Wheat cent, even - anything the slightest bit old or interesting - but after several dozen of those piled up (now about a quart jar's worth), Wheaties don't make the "cut" for inclusion in the Digger's Diary "keepers" album- they go in the jar. Unless of course I find a key date one of these days. Best I've found for Wheaties datewise was a 1911-D, I think.

I do put the best of each Wheat cent date I've dug into a Whitman folder. But only silver or other more interesting obsolete types usually make it into the DD album. Modern foreign coins go in the Wheatie jar, while older ones do make the DD album. I roll up and spend the modern change found.

Anyway, here is that first coin from the album, which began my recordkeeping of detector finds. Interestingly, it isn't even an American coin.

DD-001:

MEXICO: 5 CENTAVOS, 1944-Mo
Mexico City mint. This type is called a "Josefa", after Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, whose portrait is featured on the coin. She was a patriot in the Mexican War of Independence in the early 1800s.
Found: Fall, 1992, my front yard, Dennis Street, Swannanoa, NC.
Approx. depth: 3".
Detector: Garrett GTA-500.

• First coin found!

According to Krause catalog values, even a non-dug UNC example of this coin is only worth a dollar as of this writing. With VF-ish details and environmental damage, as a dug example? Pfff! I'd be lucky if it was worth five or ten cents, monetarily.

However, it was a thrilling find. And it was a tangible link to the story about the Mexican laborers who occupied the house during the war. This is what makes dug relic coins cool in the historical appeal category, even when they have little monetary value in the numismatic sense.

 

Digger's Diary, Coin #DD-002.

For DD-002, the second coin found, I was with my detecting mentor Jim Dalton. There is a juvenile detention center between Swannanoa and Black Mountain, NC. At the time, it was called the Juvenile Evaluation Center. I believe it was and/or still is a minimum-security facility for juvenile offenders, as the name suggests. Doesn't sound like a particularly promising or welcoming metal detecting site, does it? But Jim had worked at the place, and had pretty much exclusive permission to detect there. The site had been a hospital around during the Second World War and thereafter, before its modern use as a juvenile detention facility. It had large grounds and acres upon acres of lawns where we could hunt, well away from the buildings, so we wouldn't interfere with the juveniles or their overseers.

Jim showed me boxes of goodies he had found. Lots of great silver coins, and a surprising amount of really nice gold rings and other jewelry. Naturally, being a coin-hungry novice detectorist, I began to salivate. I really wanted to find a Mercury dime, for starters. A Mercury dime I found in my grandmother's silverware drawer in 1976 was what had launched me into collecting coins. Jim practically guaranteed I would find a Mercury dime if I kept at it on this site. (Spoiler- I never did, though I did find a piece of silver, and did eventually dig my first Merc within a year.)

The site had been the old Moore General Hospital prior to its use as a juvenile facility. That explains the large number of 1940s-'60s silver coins Jim found there. He also found earlier coins like V-nickels and Barber dimes, but those would've been in circulation in the '40s.

Some web-searching revealed this old WW2-era linen postcard from the place.


Source link

Off we went on one lovely fall day, around Thanksgiving of 1992. Jim was popping Wheat cents right and left. Maybe he found a silver ring, too. I don't remember. What I do remember was finding DD-002, my next "keeper" coin, and it was a beauty!



Hi-ho, SILVER!!! This became my first dug silver coin in the record (though I had found two using my childhood machines, back before I kept records).

It was a very nice high-grade piece, too. Photographing it just a little while ago, I noticed it had bands of "cartwheel" luster. So it was fairly new when lost. And in that soil up there, the buried silver can come out very nice.

It was not a Mercury dime. But probably worth as much or more than a Mercury dime would have been. A nice piece of silver. Rather "modern" for a silver coin, and struck late in the silver coinage era (which ended in 1964, as most of you know), but that's OK... I was happy. Thrilled, even.

DD-002:

1956 WASHINGTON QUARTER
A high grade example with cartwheel luster.
Date Found: Fall, 1992
Site: Juvenile Evaluation Center (old VA hospital site), Swannanoa, NC.
Approx. depth: 2-3".
Detector: Garrett GTA-500.

• First Silver Coin Found!
• First Silver Washington!

 

Digger's Diary, Coin #DD-003.

Asheville, North Carolina, August 8, 1993

In the fall of 1992, I was just getting started with my first modern VLF (Very Low Frequency) metal detector. These machines are a bit different than the old TR (Transmitter-Receiver) machines I used as young teen in the late '70s and early '80s. There was a bit of a learning curve, as there is with any endeavor. The trouble with having a new detector and a vivid imagination is that one gets grandiose visions of treasure, but all too soon the disappointing reality sets in. One finds all kinds of trash and finds out this hobby takes real work.

After those first two initial finds, I dug some modern change and doodads, and even a few Wheat cents from the 1940s and '50s, but hit a finds-drought before long. One morning I slipped on a dewy grass embankment and fell, breaking the detector, but fortunately not my leg or back. While the repair was covered under the warranty, it took time to send the detector off to the Garrett factory in Texas, and after I got it back, there were few exciting finds.

Eventually the new machine ended up in the closet, where it remained for about nine months before I decided to give it one more try.

August 8, 1993 was to be a "make or break" endeavor. Had I not made the interesting coin finds I did that day, I would have quite possibly sold my detector and quit for good. As a matter of fact, most of the early part of that day's outing was unproductive, and I was walking back to the car when I got the signal that produced DD-003. That find made me realize that digging the cool old coins was actually possible, and that there was nothing wrong with my machine, or even me- except I just had to be more patient and keep at it.

Before I go into that story, I'll set the scene.

For many of us, our personal stories will end in a cemetery, right? Maybe we don't like to think about that, but that's just how it has been, throughout human history.

Well, strange though it may sound, today's story begins in a cemetery.

And speaking of history, a very historical cemetery it is. Since childhood, I have been fascinated by old cemeteries, as places where "time stands still". I love wandering the grounds and reading the old tombstones. So when thinking of places to go detecting, I decided to visit Asheville, North Carolina's Riverside Cemetery.


(Photo credit: user "Armantia", findagrave.com)

First, let me say this: I do NOT particularly recommend carrying a metal detector and digging implements (no matter how small) into a cemetery! Native Americans are not the only culture who are very protective of their cemeteries. There is a definite taboo there, and I was blissfully (or perhaps stupidly) ignorant of it in those days. In my first year or so, I did sort of develop a specialty in detecting old cemeteries, but nowadays I typically go only to visit them, not swing a detector. And anywhere you detect, you had better be sure you have permission to be there!) I was a bit more cavalier about this in those days. I would just go, and hope nobody threw me out. Can't say I recommend this practice now.

Mind you, Riverside Cemetery is a city park as well, and I was thinking of it in those terms. I had read of such garden cemeteries being places where the living had gathered for picnics in Victorian times, and I wanted to detect along the pathways and lanes for coins and jewelry lost by those once-living visitors. I naturally had no intention of desecrating any graves. My own maternal great- and even great-great-grandparents are buried there, so I had no intention of disrespect. And the digging tool I carried at the time was a dull hunting knife with a 5-6" blade, to cut out plugs of sod; I carried no shovel or even trowel. The cemetery manager at the time later saw me out there, but allowed me to continue, since he saw I only had the small knife and was replacing all sod after digging my holes only a few inches deep. Luckily for me, he was a friendly and surprisingly tolerant person.

On that August day, I hunted for a couple of hours, finding little. Tired, with late afternoon coming on and the shadows growing longer, I decided it would be time to leave soon, and decided to "hunt my way back" to the car. Had I reached the car that afternoon without making any further finds, it is quite likely my detector would've gone back into the closet for good, until I sold it. I was that close to quitting in discouragement.

But as I reached a spot along one grassy path a few hundred yards from my car, not very far from the resting place of Zebulon Baird Vance (1830-1894), North Carolina's Civil War governor under the Confederacy, I got a signal on the detector.

It was a nice, clear, repeatable signal, which read "penny" on my detector's graphic display. As I recall, the depth reading on the meter hovered between 4 and 5 inches. So a solid "penny" reading at 4-5" deep could very well be a Wheat cent, I thought, and worth digging.

It was not a Wheat cent, as it happened. Nor a cent at all. Instead, I saw the flash of silver!

I had finally found my second silver coin!

Prior to the start of my first recordkeeping in 1992, I had dug two silver coins which are not counted in my current totals. One was a dateless Standing Liberty quarter and the other a silver Roosevelt dime from the 1950s. The oldest coin I had found up until August 8, 1993 was a 1926 Wheat cent.

Well, this find, DD-003, not only added to my silver coin count, but was an obsolete type coin as well. Furthermore, it now replaced that 1926 Wheat cent as my oldest dug coin!

A breakthrough!

I had just broken into the 1800s, if only just barely! A surge of adrenaline rushed through me and I sat down in the grass, amazed and excited. All thoughts of quitting for the day (or for good) were banished from my mind. In fact, you could say this find was what "hooked me for life" as a treasure hunter and detectorist. I finally realized I could do this thing.

DD-003:

1899 BARBER DIME
A reasonably decent circulated example; not worn flat like many.
Date Found: August 8, 1993
Site: Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, NC.
Approx. depth: 4-5".
Detector: Garrett GTA-500.

• 
  
  
  • 2nd Silver Coin Found
  • First Barber Dime!
  • First coin from the 1800s!

You will note as we go on that much if not most of my dug silver looks cleaned. That's because it was, often with toothpaste (or baking soda, for the really encrusted cases). I have since discovered gentler methods. Cleaning coins is obviously a no-no, but when you're talking about dug coins, it is often a "necessary evil", and usually a moot point because of "environmental damage". So you mainstream collectors should be aware that, in looking at an album of ground finds, you're just not going to see the pristine surfaces you do with high grade non-dug examples.

That being said, silver does hold up better to corrosion than nickel or copper, in most soils. (Gold holds up perfectly, but as of this writing I have yet to find a gold coin- just the occasional ring. Very occasional.) There have been a few silver coins I was able to pluck from the ground, rinse with water, and pop right into the album, but those were often the exception rather than the rule.

Prepare yourselves for some ugliness ahead, especially with the non-silver coins. Also, since Asheville has rocky soil and coarse little bits of rock or gravel in the clay in most places, you'll see hairline scratches, as there are on the coin above. And then there are the ones I accidentally hit with my dig knife. Ouch. Those are tragic. But I get ahead of myself in the story.

Suffice it to say that when you're looking at dug relics, different standards of attractiveness apply than when you're shopping for coins in a dealer's case.

 

Digger's Diary, Coin #DD-004.

We resume the narrative on the same afternoon, only a few minutes after the previous coin find. After being happily surprised by the discovery of a silver coin from the 1800s and the silly little jig I danced (which, I might add, was markedly similar to my "Aw, man! I have to go to the restroom!" dance), I recovered my wits and calmed down enough to pick up the detector and resume.

All thought of getting to the car and tossing the detector into the trunk were now forgotten, so I strolled past the car, coil to the soil, listening for signals.

I passed the grave of one of America's famous 20th century authors, Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938). Tom Wolfe (the earlier author by that name) was a native son of Asheville, and author of the book Look Homeward Angel: A Story of the Buried Life. (Haha- "buried life" - how appropriate.) The book was set in a fictional town called "Altamont", which was not so loosely based on Asheville. This caused something of a scandal, because the characters in the novel were based on real people. In fact, some of my my maternal grandmother's blueblood relations (including a great aunt of mine, I believe) were the models for characters, and not very flatteringly portrayed. Or so I've heard. I've never read the book, and managed to escape having to read it for school. Tom Wolfe lived a short life, dying at the age of 38.

Just past Thomas Wolfe, I came upon the grave of yet another giant of American literature. In the lane adjacent to this author's family plot, I got a loud signal on the detector. It looked good on the meter, so I dug.

It was indeed good.

Hi ho, silver!

I got "silvered" again!

DD-004:

1941-D WASHINGTON QUARTER
Found near the grave of famous author W.S. Porter ("O. Henry").
Date Found: August 8, 1993
Site: Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, NC.
Approx. depth: 3".
Detector: Garrett GTA-500.

• 
  
  
  • 3rd Silver Coin Found
  • 2nd Silver Washington Found