<p><strong>As the year winds down, I was 1 away today from my goal of finding 30 silver coins for the year.</strong> I decided to head out about 40 minutes from my home, to a park in an old town that was established in 1887. The town sits on a lake surrounded by several counties and was once a camp site for Seminole Indians.</p> <p>I detected the main park for 3 hours and only came up with a 1945 wheat cent. I finally gave up and decided to head a few blocks away to the lake front. About an hour of swinging added .75 cents to my bag. After talking to a local, I asked about another piece of land I saw on my way in and he said that is the original park that sits behind city hall.</p> [split] <p>I walked around the 3rd location for about an hour with even less success than the other two places in town. I was actually getting a bit depressed I had driven that far and couldn't even say I had found enough clad to cover the gas there. While doing the zombie walk back to the truck, I got a nice sounding beep from the detector. I looked down and could see a dime on the ground but it looked weird. I stopped down and I said out loud "There is no way". On top of the ground was a 1942 Mercury dime, making my goal of 30 silver coin finds for 2012. I figure the new nature trail they put in, perhaps they moved some dirt around and that is how it ended up there. I have seen others find surface silver but very rare.</p> <p>Having found my silver I set out to find, my spirits were renewed, and it was like I was in Nitro mode so I decided the E-TRAC should join in. I moved my sensitivity to the max, instability be darned. As I was scanning next to a tree I got two signals, neither sounded very good and the numbers were even worse. I decided to dig them both just to be able to get some better swings in that patch around the tree. The first signal ended up being a 1971 quarter with a nail in the hole with it.</p> <p>Now to that other pesky signal. It was now sounding way better and was so-so on the number. I dug about 4-5" and then my pinpointer went to work. I immediately got a beep so put my digger in and hit what I thought was some scrap metal. I wedged the item loose and out pops what looks like an antique Police badge. I am not sure exactly what it is at this time but it is well made, old, heavy and has a cross in the middle and not in English. I will have to do some more research but I do believe I have found one of the neatest badges ever found, at least by me.</p> <p>Happy Hunting & Thanks Minelab!</p>