From the Webmaster's Desk...

    I've had to make a few changes on the web site so please bear with me.  My ISP provides me with 20 meg of disk space which has been exceeded, so I have made an HDWT Archives site on xoom.com.  Both sites are linked together as well as the guest book.  I have removed a lot of the .gif files on HDWT  so the home page loads faster now.  The web site is written with Netscape Composer and looks it's best when viewed with Netscape.  If you use Internet Explorer there will be some minor discrepancies on the main page.  If you experience any problems, please send me an email or let me know through the guest book.

     I recently purchased a Lortone double barrel rock tumbler from Northwest Treasure Supply. Total price with shipping was $82.95.  They are fantastic and I wish I would have gotten one a long time ago.  They clean clad coins very well.  No more tedious cleaning of clad coins with a brass brush one by one.  Now they can be done by the handful while I relax!!!   I clean just about everything in it.  Keys turn out just fantastic.  I will soon be putting some pictures of keys on the web site.  They are something that all of us find and a lot of them are very interesting to look at.  I also tumbled some of the brass W.W.I items that I found at Fort Bliss, Texas.  They turned out great.  I could not believe what a difference tumbling "junk" could make.  Now they make for some really interesting conversations.

     Do you ever wonder how to store or display some of the items you find?  I have stuff squirreled away in all kinds of containers.  Coffee cans make good containers.  I have some with civil war bullets in them and others contain items found in certain locations, like Germany.  Two coffee cans contain nothing but the W.W.I items found at Fort Bliss.  Another container has nothing but "neat stuff" found from all over waiting to be cleaned up or sorted when I have time.  Some stuff has already been cleaned up and is now kept in those small wooden treasure chest that you can pick up at flea markets. Shadow boxes and picture frames are good methods that make some very attractive displays.  Remember, the idea here is to show off some of the items you find.  Let people know what you are finding.  It doesn't do much good to keep un-cleaned items in a box, out of sight and out of mind.  Clean them up and display them.  Besides, they are all a small piece of history and should be enjoyed by you and others.

     On June 20th I got to spend about three and a half hours coin shooting at an old high school in New Jersey.  I won't say that it is hunted out because I found 74 coins, but only two of them were old.  The school has been hit hard and is giving up less of the older coins.  I did manage to pull up two Mercury dimes in of all places, right in the front yard!  The yard was full of trash but I had turned on Tone ID on my White's XLT.  It works extremely well in trashy areas and the coins just seem to "ring" out.  The one Mercury was 4" down and the other was 3.5".  They were only five feet from each other.  The soil was dry as we haven't had a good rain in a number of weeks now.  One signal registered half dollar at 1.5" and I was thinking to myself, "how could someone miss a half dollar"?  I probed down and hit something solid at the indicated depth and sure enough, up popped a Kennedy half dollar, 1972.  The two Mercury dimes clean up good just using an old toothbrush and water.  The rest of the coins went in the rock tumbler with a little gravel.  Two hours later the results are spendable change with only minor discoloration.  I do tumble wheat pennies but I check the dates first for any low mintage coins.

     Be sure and check out Coin Universe on the links page.  I use to subscribe to coin newspapers and magazines to keep abreast of coin values, but with Coin Universe I can now do it for free.

     Do you use headphones?  I always do.  The light weight headphones are fine until you try to detect next to a highway.  The sound of cars and trucks can really drown out the audio.  I prefer to use padded headphones that were made for stereo systems.  The particular brand I use is Pioneer model SE205.  They are an excellent choice for two reasons.  They have an excellent sound to them and they are deeply cupped so that your ears fit into them.  I found out early on in metal detecting that a cheap pair of headphones can flatten your ears right against the side of your head making it very uncomfortable and extremely annoying.  After about ten minutes of this, it seems like you spend all of your time "adjusting" your headphones to get comfortable instead of concentrating on the audio signals.  Save yourself a lot of aggravation and get a good, comfortable set of headphones.  It will pay off in the long run!

     On June 27, I made a really exciting find.  My partner and I were hunting an old ball field.  About 20 feet behind what would have been 2nd base, I got a signal of 60 on the VDI.  If I slowed the coil down I could make it read 70/71.  It was an "iffy" signal.  When I checked the depth, the meter indicated 7 inches.  Well, the old saying goes...when in doubt, check it out.  So I did.  I have never dug a coin at 7 inches.  Never!  Until that day.  I have a lot of old coins that I have dug over the years, but never past 5 inches and 6 inches would be stretching it.  But a dime at 7 inches!  Thanks to my XLT I now have an 1874 Seated Liberty dime to add to my collection.  I was surprised to see a coin pop up from those depths and even more so when I saw what it was.  It sure made my day.  You can see a picture of the dime in the Logbook.

     It is starting to turn into a desert here in northeast Pennsylvania.  The grass in my yard is now more brown than in the winter.  It actually "crunches" when you walk on it.  This brings up a question of integrity when it comes to metal detecting on public or even private property.  We all know how hard it is to prevent the grass from dying out from our extraction methods, and in weather like we are having here, there is hardly a chance for it to come back.  This is where individual integrity comes into play and it is left up to you, the detectorist, to make a responsible decision.
 

See you in the field!

J.R. Hoff

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