Rocky Mountain Prospectors & Treasure Hunters Newsletter The News v. 15, n. 10 October, 2011 Going for the Gold Visit RMPTH On The Internet At http://rmpth.com Some Coin Hunting Tips Contents By Eric L. Nielsen 1 Some Coin Hunting Tips ecause many people engaged in the hobby of 2 About The News treasure searching have chosen coin hunting as 2 Book Review B their primary activity, it seems like a good idea to 6 Huge Silver Haul pass on a few tips that could help to increase their suc- cess. As with any activity, the more you learn about it 7 Rare Roman Coin Recovered and the more you practice, the better you become. 7 Local Treasure Tales There are a few basics that must be considered before 8 Recognizing A Stroke more advanced techniques can be applied. 8 Tales Of Gold Hill, Colorado 10 Calendar of Events Most important is the choice of the metal detector neces- 11 Calendars sary to be adequately successful. Although most detec- 12 The History Of Gold tors manufactured today will detect coins at shallow depths, it takes a very good detector to reach the good 14 Rhodochrosite old coins buried very deep. If finding a lot of clad coins 16 Trading Post and zinc pennies is all you care to do, just about any 17 RMPTH—Varied Interests discriminating type detector will suffice. In most locali- 18 2011 Schedule of Events ties the top 4 inches of soil has been pretty well depleted 19 Contact List of older coins. To reach the depth where the remaining coins reside requires a detector that has excellent ground balance capabilities to minimize the effect of minerals on the electromagnetic field of the detector coil. The field must reach deep enough to detect the coins. The detector must also be sensitive enough to provide a good signal at that distance from the coil. The general rule is that if it won't detect it in the air at that distance, it won't detect it in the ground. To qualify this, it is nec- essary to do air tests in a location that doesn't have elec- tromagnetic interference in the air. This can sometimes be a challenge. To make the choice of the right detector you must take into consideration the locations you will primarily search. Mountains may require a different detector than the prairie or farmland. Red iron rich clay soil will probably require a different choice than black humus rich farmland. Alkali soil, salt water beaches, clay rich soils, and abundant black magnetic sand all create their unique problems for the coin detector. "Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things." - Unknown (Continued on page 3) Advertising About The News Classified advertising for topic related items is free he News is the official newsletter of the Rocky for non-business ads. See the “Trading Post” section Mountain Prospectors and Treasure Hunters for donation pricing of camera-ready display ads. Do- T Club (RMPTH): our mailing address is P.O. Box nations for ad makeup from sketches, etc., are avail- 271863, Fort Collins, CO. 80527-1863. able on request. Opinions expressed in The News are those of the About RMPTH authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the club or its members. Publication of information in RMPTH is an independent nonprofit hobbyist social The News constitutes no guarantee of accuracy. Use club, open to anyone interested in prospecting, detect- of any information found in this publication is at the ing or treasure hunting. Its purpose is to provide an sole risk of the user. Neither RMPTH, nor its coordi- educational and social forum of mutual benefit for nators, nor The News, nor its editors or contributors members. RMPTH holds a monthly meeting and con- assume any liability for damages resulting from use ducts various field outings, as well as offers special of information in this publication. presentations and seminars. Active participants have voting privileges. The monthly newsletter, The News, Submissions is readily available on the Internet. Persons wishing to receive the newsletter in hardcopy, mailed format are Articles, letters and short items of interest on pros- required to provide the amount of $24 per year re- pecting, detecting and treasure hunting topics are quired to print and mail. Otherwise, no annual dues welcome and encouraged. All items submitted for are charged as the social club functions strictly by publication are subject to editing. Submittals for pub- donation. lication may be made in writing or, preferably, in AS- CII text format on IBM-compatible disk. If you have questions about a submission, please contact the edi- tor for information. Copyright Unless otherwise noted, other nonprofit groups may reprint or quote from any articles appearing in The News without prior permission, provided that proper author and publication credits are given and that a copy of the publication in which the article ap- pears is sent at no cost to RMPTH at the above mail- ing address. Clubs wishing to exchange newsletters with RMPTH are invited to send a copy of their news- letter together with an exchange request. Book Review By Paul Lange his month, I am taking you to school. I received a catalog in the mail entitled The Great Courses Fall 2011. It enables one to enjoy brilliant college lectures at home, on a laptop anywhere or in your car. Looking through the many course offerings there is one entitled The History of the United T nd States, 2 edition covering 84 lectures and The American Civil War covering 48 lectures. The best part of these courses is there is no homework, tests or grades. Learn from the best university professors and experience the pure joy of learning, any time, anywhere. Choose CD’s or DVD’s. Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed and your purchase is replaceable if the product breaks, warps or gets damaged as long as the course is in production. Check them out online at www.ordergreatcourses.com Review their privacy policy and other benefits of enrollment. You might find other course offerings that are to your liking. Learning doesn’t get any more fun than this. Page 2 The News, October 2011 (Continued from page 1) the holes, double checked depths and verified that they Some form of circuitry to discriminate the desirable tar- were properly placed before the holes were backfilled. gets from the undesirable is essential, unless you are Positioning some coins oriented vertically or at and angle searching an area with minimal junk metal, or you are in is also a good idea so you will know how your detector an area where it would be productive to dig every target responds to these situations. Coins can be oriented at to make sure you miss nothing of value. When search- any angle in gardens and lawns that were roto-tilled be- ing, it is a good idea to set the discrimination level to fore being reseeded. Deep vertical coins can be very dif- reject rusty nails and small iron pieces. Any more than ficult to detect. that and you will probably miss small gold coins and rings. It is a good idea to hear the signal trash targets Also, be aware that sometimes, at some locations, one give so that you can learn to discern the difference be- direction of search will detect coins better than any other tween them and good targets. Remember, it is not un- directions, so if you can determine a difference, always common to have a coin below or beside a trash target. search the area thoroughly going the direction that Hearing both can allow you to make the judgment call on works best. I don't know what causes this phenomenon, whether to dig or move on. A hunting partner of mine but occasionally it occurs. If time is available, I search found a nice Walking Liberty Half Dollar at a depth of in all directions including diagonals in order not to miss about 4 inches, a couple inches below a large rusty nail, targets. at an old fairground which we were searching years ago. It had been If you choose to not leave good tar- worked hard by coin hunters over the gets buried in the ground, a metal years and there were very few old pipe corresponding to the same size coins left that were not very deep. He of PVC pipe (no larger than 2 inches had recovered a few Barber Quarters OD) can be driven into wet ground at at depths of 9 inches there. He said a shallow angle with the surface to a the signal sounded like junk, but gave vertical depth of 12 to 14 inches or an “almost” good signal when scan- more to the bottom end in a place ning it from the other direction. He that contains no metal. I suppose the decided to check it out and was glad hole could be drilled with a very large he did. Other coin hunters had left bit or small auger. When the pipe is that nice old silver half dollar be- carefully pulled out by twisting it, the cause it didn't give a good signal. It is soil should remain inside the metal absolutely necessary to know what pipe leaving a hole in which the PVC your detector is telling you. pipe can be inserted. By placing your gold coin or whatever else you may It is common knowledge that some of want to experiment with in a small the most successful coin hunters of- plastic bag and attaching it to a ten set up what is called a test plot to string, you can push it with a dowel experiment with their detectors.