Cache Hunting - Discovering A Hoard of Silver Hammered Coins (Story 14)
Retrieving the Coin Hoard from Deep Underground
Even though I knew now where to dig a prospecting pit, first I wanted to try to locate the cache's core with my Minelab Explorer. I set up Sensitivity and Gain up to the maximum, to 30 and 10 respectfully, with Sensitivity switched to MANUAL, and Descrimination - down to zero. Because of the lack of both mineralization and iron junk in the ground, these settings allowed my Explorer to gain the maximum detecting depth without being unstable.
To my surprise, the Explorer picked up a weak signal which could be produced by either the hoard itself or just a coin positioned at the edge of Explorer's detecting depth in the ground. I carefully started to dig and discovered a hammered coin at the depth equaled to the length of my shovel's blade (10").
I scanned the spot again and heard another "weak" signal. From this point, Misha and I began working as a team: I was digging a prospecting pit and placing the dirt on the tarpaulin for Misha to spread the dirt on it evenly in a thin layer and scan it with his metal detector. You can read more details about this procedure here.
Misha Detected A Silver Coin in Dirt on Tarpaulin
I rechecked the spot for more signals, and there still was a signal in the ground! I excavated another load of dirt and placed on the tarpaulin. Misha spotted three coins at once!
Next dirt load brought up five coins!
By this moment I had dug a pretty deep prospecting pit, and now the strong signal was coming from the bottom. I localized the signal's source and used a knife to cut the dirt around it.
A Prospecting Pit with My Knife Lying on the Bottom
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