Like many of you, I've been looking forward to the 12th WTHO and meeting up in Wells. I was really looking forward to getting away after being cooped up at the house for the last couple months and working from home due to the pandemic. The outing came at the right time.

I arrived Saturday to help Monte and Gregg scout out places most everybody would likely want to hunt. These were the areas I hunted during my 7 day visit, some just briefly.

Metropolis - 3 wheaties; 1910-S, 192?-S, 191?. All with the EQ800 - 6" coil
Tobar - skunked
Shafter - Wheat Cent - unreadable date. Deus 9" x35 coil.
Cobre - skunked,
New Toano - skunked
Toano - 1880 IHC (CoRe w/OOR Coil), 1864 2¢. EQ800 - 6" coil


For me, there were lots of bits and bobs found. I'm amazed at the number of little ornate buckles that turn up. And the bullets, the never ending run of bullets and empty cartridge cases.

And it is always interesting to watch other detectorists at work and observe detectors, coil choices, search rods, gear, hats, finds pouches, swing rates and methods and all the rest of it.

Two of my detecting goals this year are to turn up a Seated Quarter and a Half-Dime. Neither surfaced for me at the outing.. An 1876 Seated Quarter did make an appearance for DanO. A big congrats. I was fortunate to turn up an 1880 IHC Wednesday and a very nice 1864 2¢ Thursday. An unexpected but appreciated surprise.

Tokens and coins seemed to be coming from under every piece of sage for a while there on Thursday. We kept hearing reports of something else turning up. Gregg and I were commenting that the door to Toano and Cobre was open there for a short time. Then it seemed to close.

Friday, I was flat out skunked; hard. After I finished in the Toano / Cobre area I even went back out to Metropolis and hunted till dusk trying to find something, even another corroded wheat cent. No go. I guess the universe needed to balance itself after Thursday.

I have a couple old coins to add to my finds. And a very cool WTHO shirt that Andrew printed up at his business. First Class, thank you Andrew. And I met some new people, and got to catch up with old friends and acquaintances with some good meals and time chatting around the table. ( Is it me getting old or is this new generation of waitresses getting younger ??? Or maybe both. ) And whenever you get detectorists together there are always discussions over brands and models and coils and such. It is fun to listen to the detector banter.

I have some very old detectors, a couple discontinued detectors and a couple new detectors, And admittedly, while I have been detecting for a very long time, venturing out into the ghost towns is a branch of detecting that I've only dabbled with until the last few years. I have to admit that I am impressed that OregonGregg hunted the entire time he was there with 1 detector and 1 coil; his Nokta FORS CoRe and the OOR coil. Cudos to Gregg. And I owe him a steak dinner for losing our bet.

His 1845 Seated Dime beat out my 1864 2¢.

This is a good thing. Now I have a good excuse for another road trip. And another opportunity to find that Seated Quarter and elusive Half-Dime.

And finally, a big thanks to Monte, for bringing this together.

Thanks Monte.

Hope to see all of you out there exploring the Western Frontiers.


UtahRich -

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It's YOU that makes the difference.


Minelab EQ800
XP Deus
Whites Surfmaster PI Dual Field



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2020 05:39PM by UtahRich.