![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.puzzlemaze.org\/df\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/101813.jpg\" "\\"101813\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo, it seems to be all about the dirt thing, as ducktrapper suggested in the comments on the previous entry.\u00a0 What’s with that?\u00a0 Generally, in my experience, hard bare dirt with no grass is good (this clause officially approved by the department of redundancy department).\u00a0 That’s cause all dirt is is decomposed grass, cycled by earthworms, grubs, and so forth.\u00a0 The cycling of the earthworms, et. al., cause the sinking.\u00a0 So, if you have no grass, and the dirt is hard (meaning nothing lives in it), things should never sink.\u00a0 Think about it.\u00a0 And, that’s been my experience in general; I’ve pulled plenty of 100 year old coins in shady areas with no grass and hard dirt just an 8th of an inch below the surface.\u00a0 While I am no soil scientist, this common sense approach to why stuff sinks and not has always worked for me, and has always lead me to seek out the hardest, grassless dirt I could find, and has always lead me to silvers.<\/p>\n
But, today, and on previous days, it has been a struggle.\u00a0 Whenever I move from the edge to the middle where the dirt is grassless and hard due to athletic activity, the deep targets have dried up.\u00a0 Why is this inconsistent with my previous results, and consistent with ducktrapper’s results?\u00a0 I don’t know; I’m an economist, not a soil scientist.\u00a0 As an aside, the athletic use patterns at this site have changed since the 30’s aerials.\u00a0 Not sure if that is useful or not.\u00a0 All I can say is that the grassy areas continue to have a decent auto rec (20+; less mineralizaion), while the hard, grassless areas have a crappy auto rec (19-; more mineralization).\u00a0 Why is that?<\/p>\n
The rosie was a struggle.\u00a0 It was in a 19 auto rec zone at 4 inches.\u00a0 Wasn’t sure it was a silver, and generally, I usually am before I dig.\u00a0 As a tell on this problem, I dug 15 clad dimes today, when usually, in much longer hunts, I dig much much fewer than that.\u00a0 That is how hard it was to read this ground.<\/p>\n
Why does any of this matter?\u00a0 Now I get to be an economist.\u00a0 Its cause if you can read large parts of the site as worthless (loaded with silver, but undetectable due to these reasons), you can write them off, and move on.\u00a0 That may be what I do with most of the rest of this site. or, I may grid it out, just in the interest of science, but I have not gotten one old coin in any hard, bare zone.\u00a0 But, the other problem is that the hard, bare middle is, well, in the middle,\u00a0 Remember the middle is always hunted out before the edges.\u00a0 Sheesh, what is one to do to optimize?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 Is it dead cause it is the hunted out middle, or dead cause of the hard, bad auto rec dirt?<\/p>\n
Yikes, what a horrific entry.\u00a0 I don’t like not having the answers, but at least I think I am asking decent questions for those who wish to optimize.\u00a0 I think it may come down to tracking silvers by auto rec; I suspect there is an auto rec (and I’m thinking that number is at about 18 or so), where which, if the terrain is giving you that, you won;t find silver, and that may be the way to simplify the problem.\u00a0 Of course, this simplification doesn’t account for the earlier observations that old coins don’t sink in hard, grassless dirt.\u00a0 Sheesh.<\/p>\n
And people think metal detecting is easy — it beeps, you dig.\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 It actually prolly the hardest thing I’ve ever done.<\/p>\n
And, BTW, I wish I had time to comment on the research on that pendant.\u00a0 I don’t, really, but I think it is cool.\u00a0 It would be cool to give the thing to someone who thinks it is valuable in a non-monetary sense, but that research seems like a rabbit hole.\u00a0 I’m due to send off some silver bling to the refinery; I think I’ll hold that one back and think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, here’s today’s take from the site of the last couple of days.\u00a0 As they say, any day with silver is a good day.\u00a0 In all fairness, I did lose over an hour at lunch for Farewell Farewell Friday, and … Continue reading