My First Real Hunt

And it was a great one!

I finally feel familiarized with my metal detector.  So I headed out for my first two days of “real” hunting yesterday and today.

I was hunting a small church yard (a relatively new building – 1950’s maybe) and the next-door house (World War II era construction). I hit a huge signal on the property line, in an area where the rocks of the church driveway were built up. I dug through about eight inches of rock and earth to find this awesome cap gun – a Kilgore Pal, circa 1953-55. It came out of the ground with this beautiful finish … and the hammer still cocks and fires!

About twenty minutes later I dug this badge from the back yard of the house, about fifty feet away from the pistol. It says, “Junior Police.” Could they be part of the same set? Could be …

Here are the locations and their proximity to one another.

The next afternoon I dug this beautiful 14K “mother’s ring” at about two inches, right next to the sidewalk. My wife modeled it for me.

I also found two silver Roosevelt dimes and a silver Washington quarter, a 1945P (partial silver) nickel, six wheaties, and about a buck in clad … plus lots of miscellaneous junk. Not bad for my first two “real” days out. I’m hooked!

More Practice

I’ve been doing some more practice runs.  No serious hunting.  I’ve  just kicked around on the land that our church owns, as well as the old church building where our youth ministry is located.  I’ve also practiced around the yard some more, but I get frustrated – especially near the road.  I’m discovering that large pieces of aluminum sound off just like a coin on my MD.  I haven’t found much … about 40 cents in modern coins (from the youth building), lots of iron junk and nails, and what appears to be an old cattle or hog ear tag.  That’s about it so far …

Here’s the tag … front and back.

Got My Metal Detector

I got my first metal detector today.  It’s a Bounty Hunter Quicksilver.  I bought it directly from the company, along with headphones, a digging pouch, and a digging tool.  I kicked around the yeard a bit, trying to figure it out.  Found lots of iron junk around the pond.  The coolest thing was an old horseshoe that I found with Katie.  Still don’t know what I’m doing yet, though.

Here’s a picture of the Quicksilver …

I’ve discovered that it’s very much an “entry level” detector.  One site says it’s for kids only.  I may have made a mistake.  We’ll see.