<p><strong>I'm still in shock.</strong> After 20+ years of detecting I've made some pretty nice finds, but this one ranks right at the top of my list!</p> <p>This all started about a week ago when I was telling my 83 year old grandmother about getting a new detector and getting back into this great hobby. I had never bothered to do any detecting on her property because her house is fairly new so I didn't figure it would have anything old around it. But she told me that I should detect there because shortly before my grandfather died, he had found a silver dollar lying right on top of the ground. So this immediately got my interest. I asked her where he found it... She replied "I don't know... he just said he saw it on the ground while riding his tractor"... So I'm thinking it’s most likely the garden area then! I packed up my detector last Friday and went to search the garden. After spending most of the day detecting, all I had found was some iron junk and a new penny. Bummer, I gave up and went home.</p> [split] <p>That night I was lying in bed wondering where else he might have been riding a tractor... Then it hit me! I remembered several years ago that he had been using a bulldozer to clean off a patch of woods on their 25 acres! Maybe that was the tractor she was referring to?</p> <p>So the next day it had been raining but I didn't care... I went back and found the area that he had cleared. After about 3 hours of finding absolutely nothing, I finally had my first good signal. The ID on the V3i was bouncing back and forth between quarter and dime at 7" deep. So I dropped to my knees and started digging in the soft muddy ground... After taking out a few big scoops of dirt, I saw something that will put a big smile on the face of any THer. It was the rim of a silver coin... a Barber Quarter! I knew right then I had stumbled onto the right area!</p> <p>So I continued swinging and within no more than 5 minutes I had another signal... This time a seated dime at just two inches deep! As I was filling in the hole I saw another coin a couple of feet away just sticking half way out of the ground! It was another Barber quarter! Man was I excited!</p> <p>I continued sweeping the area and within another 30 minutes or so I got a loud (big) signal. I looked down at the Spectra's display and saw the $ symbol. Sure enough, at just an inch or so deep was a beautiful silver Morgan dollar! By the end of the day I had found two more dimes (a seated and a really early merc), an early walking liberty half, and a seated quarter which was almost worn smooth.</p> <p>I went home that night and tried my best to get some sleep, but was just too excited. I ended up staying awake all night and leaving at first light to hit the area again. It was raining and very muddy, but I didn't even care.</p> <p>After about two hours of not getting any signals (other than junk), I was starting to think maybe I had already got all the good stuff the day before... So I went back to the exact area where I had found the silver dollar and started rescanning it from a different direction, hoping that I had missed something. Sure enough, I got a signal (72 on the VDI I think) that was solid in one direction and broken in the other. I pulled the trigger to pinpoint and just got a really low "growl" from the VCO. It said 11". So I dug out a big plug from the mud and then used to Sunray to try and pinpoint it, but didn't get a signal. I dug down a little deeper and was finally able to pinpoint it. As I pulled it out of the dirt, I first thought I had found another half dollar. But then I cleaned a little more of the dirt off of it and saw something that I had never seen before! It wasn't silver at all! It was GOLD and it was HUGE! My hands were trembling like crazy at this point! As I cleaned off more dirt I could clearly see the words "TWENTY D." on the coin! Flipped it over, saw the 1861 date and almost fainted!</p> <p>I had never found a gold coin in all of my years of detecting and I would have been thrilled just to find a small one. So I'm sure you can imagine how happy I was to be holding this huge gold coin in my hands! Hell, the excitement still hasn't worn off and it’s been a couple of days now! I did continue detecting and found another half dollar and a barber dime, but somehow they didn't seem to excite me nearly as much anymore. All I could think about was that big $20 gold coin in my pocket!</p> <p>The really funny thing is, just a few weeks ago my wife called metal detecting a "silly hobby". You should have seen the look on her face when I showed her the coin! Priceless! I said to her "how silly is it now" with a big grin on my face.</p> <p>So totals for the weekend were a beautiful Double Eagle (a first for me, of course), a Morgan dollar (also a first), a walking liberty half, a Barber half (first), 2 Barber quarters, 1 seated quarter, 2 seated dimes, 1 Barber dime, and 1 Merc. All coins dated before 1920. I also found some nice little relics, like a thimble and a few other things but didn't take pictures.</p> <p>I'm still baffled as to why so many big coins are in this area. Unless someone buried them there, and maybe the bulldozer had spread them out? I don't know, but I'm sure glad I found them! Up until last weekend I've always preferred relic hunting over coin hunting... But after this experience, I may just become a coin shooter!</p>