Ghost Town Hunting. Trust me on this, I have searched a wide variety of ghost towns (with some standing structures still there) and ghost town sites (where you can see very little, if anything, other than some old rubble, stone foundations, etc.) since May of 1969 in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. They can be a little different, between an old railroad town or a mining era town site, or perhaps some that were more ranching or farming based towns. But they will usually have one thing in common .... IRON.

It will be there, and in some cases the amount of ferrous debris can really be a challenge unless you are patient and use some of the better detectors and coils to deal with it. There might just be scattered nails of various sizes, but sometimes it can be a very closely-spaced dense array of nails, or other iron-based trash. Oh, and let's not forget all those tin cans that have been discarded, too. Rusty tin, sheet iron, will plague some sites a lot.

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Sodbuster
Thanks Rich,

I am going to try to make at least one of the Nevada outings this year, if I my schedule will work out.

It's sure nice being retired and not having a work schedule get in the way of my 'fun planning.' I do hope you can figure out a way to make at least one WTHO this coming year. Not only are they entertaining experiences when it comes to metal detecting and learning new search techniques to handle the challenges of each different hunt site environment, but they are wonderful events where you'll meet up with a lot of really great participants.

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Sodbuster
It will be my first time at ghost town hunting, with lots to see and learn. Hope to see you there!

Speaking for me and everyone else, we hope to see you there as well. A lot of us are Avid Detectorists who have enjoyed a Relic Hunting atmosphere for a long time, while there is also a growing number among the group who only have a half-dozen years in this great sport but have been fast learners and now they very seldom do any Hobbyist-level in-town Coin Hunting.

Spend some time away from a city and enjoy the beauty of some 'western wasteland' while hunting up all kinds of interesting targets and be braced for the moment you get a big surprise with a new-to-you find! Just on this last WTHO here in Oregon, working a ghost town I've named 'Lone Tree' we had a couple of surprises in the US Coin category of finds. Roger P. gets out quite a bit, but if I remember, he had not found a silver coin, or maybe he just hadn't found one from the 1800's period. Well, he got his Outing surprise when he recovered an 1863 Seated Liberty Dime.

Now, 'Lone Tree' a rather vast and open area so you just search around until you get you coil over a target, but he had a little help that day. Up hill a bit, Darby H. had just made a coin recovery and he hollered for Roger to come and take a look, then encouraged him to hunt around that general area since an old coin was found. Finding silver coins was not new to Darby, but I can guarantee you the amazement he had to enjoy when he made a '1st-of-a-kind' find that day ... a beautiful condition 1836 Capped Bust Dime!

There's never a guarantee you'll make some choice finds, but there's always the opportunity and potential for anyone to. The three ghost town sites in Oregon's WTHO event were all gold mining era towns with sporadic activity in two of them and a longer life of most bustling commercial activity at the third. The two Outings in Nevada offer different opportunities and challenges.

The 8th WTHO, based out of Wells, affords us short drives out to several townsites that were lively railroad towns, or some that were more 'settlement' type places not directly associated with the railroad, although a terminus reached them later. The 9th WTHO, also in Nevada, will be at Tonopah where the primary search area is the old Tonopah dumps. They have been worked for a long, long time, but they continue to produce for folks who dig, or dig and screen, or metal detecting their diggings, or just wander around the vast area, detector in-hand, hoping to chance across some small-size 'keepers' such as an old coin or trade-token.

All three outings have potential, but I will day my personal favorite sites are here in Oregon's gold-finding era or those from Northern Nevada's railroading days. Please, try your best to make an Outing along with a lot of great people. Just bring along some patience, a good detector for working iron littered sites, a smaller size coil to handle the challenges, and recovery tools because they will be out to good use.

You'll find results posted by participants from each of the WTHO's here on our Relic / Old Site Forum, but here's one post made by Ryan K. who did a nice video, the link is here [www.ahrps.org] which will let you see some of the beauty of the countryside we searched at two of the three town sites on our last Outing this past June.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells
Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product Reviews
'How-To' help for Coin & Jewelry Hunting, Relic Hunting and Useful Techniques.
'Regular-Use Detector Team' are models from: Fisher, Nokta / Makro, Teknetics, Tesoro and White's
'Specialty-Use Detectors' are models from: Compass, Garrett and Teknetics
Pinpointers: Using Nokta / Makro and Uniprobe Pointers.
Headphones: Using Killer B's 'Hornet' and White's Pro Star and Detector Pro's Uniprobe ... All w/'tank style' ear cups.
Recovery Gear: Using White's DigMaster digging tool and Signature Series pouch.Note: Detectors are listed alphabetically by Brand. Models are chosen as desired based on search site conditions.
Some models are assigned for 'Regular-Use' and others are on-hand for 'Specialty Use.'
Additional search coils, mounted on spare lower-rods, are on-hand in my Accessory Coil Tote.

*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***
monte@stinkwaterwells.com .. or .. monte@ahrps.org
(503) 481-8147



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2017 08:24AM by Monte.