27 Days Digging Decatur

The original 27 Days Digging Decatur story was published in Treasure Magazine in four parts spanning the April '94 to July '94 issues.  I believe it was the only four part story they ever published.  When I called the publisher to ask him if he had gotten the story I sent him, he said yes.  But did you read our submission guidelines?, he asked.  I had not and I asked him why.  The story is way too long, he said.  We have limited space and can only allow so many words.  My heart sank, thinking he was going to say he couldn't run it.  But he said it is so good I am going to run it anyway.  I will just spread it out over four issues.  The magazine went out of business shortly afterward and I was never paid for the material, so as far as I am concerned I still own the copyright.  I originally published it on the old Geocities site under Athens/Acropolis/4052.  It can still be seen on the Wayback Machine in archives for Aug. 29,  2009, although all of the links do not work.  The story as presented there (and here) contains photos and a statistics table at the end that were not in the original Treasure Magazine article.  

The Dundee Dig Was written in response to the many requests for more material from the readers of the 27 Days Digging Decatur story.  The remainder of the pages in the menu are for short, specific site find stories and photo galleries.

It was September 26, 1992 and cruising toward my humble domicile, I ventured through the quiet little village of Decatur, Michigan. As I approached the town's only stop light, I noticed construction barricades blocking off the main business district. Easing up to the light, I saw what was going on. "Oh, man," I thought. "They're tearing up main street. I'll have to get the detector out and come down here tomorrow."

I was well aware of the coin potential of an old business district being excavated. In the early eighties I serviced White's metal detectors for one of their dealers located in Elkhart, Indiana, and had seen some of the stuff found by local hunters who frequented the shop for repairs and advice from the proprietor, Ray Williams. He and a small group of friends found a good many of the grand old coins in a similar dig when the sidewalks were torn out in neighboring Paw Paw, Michigan during 1980. When the street and sidewalks were renewed in Niles, Michigan they found many old coins there, including a stunning one dollar gold piece and two seated half dollars from a disintegrated coin purse. I found several Indian head pennies and an 1849 seated dime in XF (Extra Fine) condition. Much more could have been recovered had I known the techniques presented in this article.

Decatur was to be a different story. I live just four miles out of town and was 'on call' as a service engineer for the nuclear power industry. Good fortune dictated that I would remain on call for the duration of the Decatur dig.

During the period from 1978 - 1982 I was very active with my Whites 6000-D and had found thousands of coins, almost a hundred of which were Barber silver coins. My best coin was a 1915-D barber quarter in uncirculated MS-60 condition, unearthed in the Paw Paw courtyard in the wake of their sidewalk renovation. My primary hunting sites were old church and school yards. During those years it was still possible to find virgin ground, and one such old country church, no longer in use and remotely located on a dusty gravel road, was surrounded by magnificent sugar maples. The virtually junk free yard, engulfed in cool shade, turned up a barber half dollar and dime in one hole, and five pennies in another . The newest of the pennies was a 1914-D Lincoln in XF condition. (It is the second scarcest of the Lincolns and was worth about $100 at that time.) Another church yielded two barber dimes in MS-60 condition, spaced about six feet apart. A third provided ten Indian head pennies, the most I had ever found in one place until Decatur. Sites like those provided countless hours of enjoyment, and my collection grew until it had substantial value.

The bulk of my collection was sold in 1983 for the admirable purpose of purchasing a reliable vehicle for commuting to college. Successfully earning my degree in electrical engineering was the fulfillment of an old dream, and a career change that got the family finances back on track. This endeavor left no time for coin shooting, however, and my detector sat idle in the closet for several years. So much for the background. Now on to the adventure at hand!

In the 43 day period to follow from September 27 to November 8, I would hunt the Decatur dig on 27 days.

DAY 1

Sunday afternoon, I remembered to get my trusty 6000-D out and go downtown. When I walked around the corner onto the main street, I discovered that they must have been working on this for a couple of days already. The curb had been removed on the west side of the street, and about half of the street itself and the east side curb were gone. The cement between the curb and the sidewalk had been lifted up clean, leaving the four foot wide strip of soil underneath undisturbed. This strip formed a bank on each side of the street that was about a foot higher than the soil under the pavement.

I decided to begin hunting up on the bank by the sidewalk, feeling that there was a better chance for finding undisturbed soil from the old days there. The first thing I looked for was signs of little round holes, evidence that other coin shooters had been there ahead of me. None in sight. Good! The soil looked a little too gravely to be very productive, but I hadn't gone ten feet from the end on the east side before my detector sang a clear note. An 1874-H Canadian quarter in fine condition came up from a depth of about 3 inches. The soil was all sand and gravel, and the coin was clean of any corrosion or tarnish.

"Darn!", I thought. "Why did you have to be Canadian?" I would much rather have had a seated quarter. Only one specimen with the date barely discernible had turned up in all my previous years of hunting. "A good first coin, though. This could be a bonanza!" That thought quickly disappeared as I worked all the way to the end of the block without another good signal. Something was definitely wrong. There should be more coins if there was any original soil in there at all.

Crossing the street to the west side, I saw that the bank between the curb and sidewalk had been cut down to less than one foot wide in some places. The bulldozer had leveled the soil even with the street right up to the remaining sidewalk. A new sidewalk with wire reinforcement had been poured in front of the hardware store a few years ago, and a permanent porch, or awning, built over it. This cement was still in place all the way out to where the curb had been because it would take a lot more work to break it up, and five posts supporting the awning were resting thereon. I expected to find nothing under it except the gravel base for the cement. It was a sleeper, however, and turned out to be the best spot on the street. (See the photo with the backhoe at day 8.)

Searching the narrow strip of soil yielded one 1886 Indian head penny in the side of the bank. With little hope of finding anything else, I began scanning gravel in the street. After an hour of fruitless hunting, the detector sang a weak but good note. Up came an 1847 seated half-dime. Battered and bent, but my first seated half-dime! This find kept me searching until dark, but nothing else surfaced. Three coins from the 1800's for a whole afternoon of hunting. I had done worse many times, but I had expected better from this site. I had covered most of the exposed soil , so I knew there was no bonanza of old coins, but at least there were a few good ones.

DAY 2

The next day I returned at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The first thing I did was ask one of the dump truck drivers where they were taking dirt from the street. "We're not taking out any dirt", he said. "They're just lifting up the cement." Good. No coins will be lost that way, then. I covered newly exposed bank areas first, with no luck. Then I began searching dirt in the street that had been moved. After about an hour, I got a good signal from a sandy area in front of the General Store where a storm drain had been excavated. It was an uncirculated 1864 two cent piece with a greenish tarnish and a couple of match head sized spots of crusty corrosion on it. 

DAY 3

Needless to say, I was back on Tuesday at 4 o'clock to see what had been uncovered. "Uh-Oh! Is that a guy with a metal detector down there?"

"Yep. Two of them", I answered myself. I walked on down to see if they were finding anything. The one I talked to said they had just gotten there and hadn't found anything yet. He was sporting a White's Eagle, which I had never seen before. It was much newer and more sophisticated than my old 6000-D, and I wondered if it would find coins I had missed. They were mostly covering areas I had already done, so if they were honest with me, I would find out. He questioned me about my detector, and when he found out how old it was he promptly informed me that I needed a machine with a bigger loop and ID (coin identification) capability. It seemed detector technology had progressed significantly in the last few years.

Moving to the north end of town where the newly uncovered areas were, I hunted for a couple of hours with no good results. Up to this point I had had very few good signals that weren't coins. There were so many square nails they could be seen lying about in the gravel by the sharp eye. I suspected they were probably masking an occasional coin and proved it to myself later on. When I first began hunting two days earlier, I had set my discriminator to reject foil. This was the normal way I ran my detector when I wanted to be able to pick up nickels, but worrying about how deep my competition could go and the lack of nonferrous junk prompted me to set it lower. Working back over areas I had already covered the previous day, I finally turned up an 1838 half-dime. 

Just a few feet from it I got a signal that sounded like a deep coin. It was hitting in one direction, but not on the sweep at right angles to the first. Calling over the guy with the Eagle (I found out later his name was John Hacht), I asked him to see what kind of reading he got on my signal.

"There's something there," he said. "It's about 5 1/2 inches deep. It won't lock in though, so I probably wouldn't dig it."

Not understanding what he meant by "it won't lock in", I asked him to show me. The indicator on his detector was bouncing around from quarter to nickel to nails. He swept the signal from different directions, as I had done, but the indicator wouldn't stay on any single value. Digging out the signal revealed an 1869 shield nickel (my first one and another bucket lister), about 5 1/2 inches deep. The depth indicator had been right on, and I was impressed by that, but I had never had any doubt about it being a good signal. John learned something about his machine from that. Certain I had covered this spot before and missed the nickel, and still not hitting much junk, I turned my discriminator all the way down. This was the first place I had ever hunted where I could do that.

I had only two coins for the day, but they were old ones. John found only one Indian head penny and his hunting buddy, Steve Ozanich (everyone calls him Oz), found an Indian head and a big penny in the area where I had gotten mine the day before. Wondering how I could have missed anything that big, I asked for details. It had been lying in the center of a track made by the backhoe tires. The weight of the machine had pressed the gravel about six inches deeper. This was something worth remembering.

DAY 4

The next day John and Oz were back again. Arriving at the same time I did, they began hunting the newly uncovered portions of the north block. Joining them, I hunted for about two hours before I finally found a 1906 barber dime. The main business district spilled over into the north block by only three buildings older than the turn of the century, so I concluded that the south side of town would continue to be more productive. I kept hunting on the north side until almost dark, however, because I didn't want to give my competition the impression that the south side was the place to be. When I saw them leaving at dusk, I asked John what they had found. He had a seated dime, the first one he had ever found, and Oz had found a couple more big pennies. After they left, I worked the south side some more, concentrating on areas where heavy equipment had made tracks in the gravel. It paid off. I got two more shield nickels, an 1853 big penny, an 1865 two cent piece, and three Indian heads. One of the Indians was an 1867, my first of that date. I had found all of the Indian heads from 1880 forward (except the S-mints) in previous years, but was still missing a few from the '60's and '70's. Light from store fronts and street corners made night hunting possible, and It was about three hours after dark when I finally gave up.

DAY 5

Thursday John and Oz were back again. They were persistent, but they were keeping their mouths shut. No one else had shown up all week. We hunted all afternoon, getting one Indian head apiece. As we were leaving, I stopped by John's van and talked to him for about 30 minutes. He lived in the nearest neighboring town, Lawton. I commented on his persistence in light of the fact that we were not finding that many coins.

"Yeah," he said. "There may not be very many, but at least they're old. Older in general than the ones we got in Otsego."

"Otsego?", I queried.

"They're doing the same thing up there," he replied. "Guys from the club have found all kinds of stuff. We can't get up there in time to do any hunting anymore. There were so many guys up there, they were practically fighting to be the first one to get at a new spot when the backhoe lifted up a piece of the sidewalk. The construction crews were afraid someone would get hurt, so they complained to the town council. The council passed an ordinance that no one could start hunting until after 5 o'clock, when the construction crews quit."

We had covered everything that was exposed pretty thoroughly, and the construction crews were working on storm drains and water lines. It looked like they wouldn't be pulling the rest of the sidewalk for a while. There was just one strip of cement walk left on each side of the street up against the stores, deliberately left so that customers would have a place to walk while the work was going on.

"There's not much use in coming back until they tear up the sidewalks," said John. I agreed.

DAY 6

Friday saw me back to check for any new areas, though. There were none. Watching the bulldozer work with the dirt from the water line trenches gave me an idea. I waited until quitting time, then showed him the 1854 dime I found Monday. "I might be able to find more if you would make just one pass along that bank and cut out about a foot of dirt," I said. He was impressed with what I had found, but not enough to honor my request.

"I'm too tired," he complained. "I worked all day. Besides, all of that has to come out anyway. You'll get your chance."

"Yeah, but You guys have been covering stuff up again as fast as you uncover it. If you do it now, I'll have the whole weekend to hunt it," I pleaded. He shrugged his shoulders and sauntered into the bar with his buddies. Obviously they were going to have a couple of cold ones before heading home.

That night there was a torrential rain and huge crevices were washed out of the bank on the east side of the street. I thought that if there were any real quantities of coins in that ridge, I would find a couple now. In some places the bank was almost level with the street where large deltas of sand had washed out. I scanned it again, very thoroughly. Nothing. Things didn't look good.

DAY 7

Finding the old coins had me fired up like the boiler on a locomotive. Saturday I hunted a couple of old house yards, got disgusted with digging up memorial pennies, and headed uptown. The construction crews weren't working weekends, so nothing had changed. I spied a weathered, well worn shovel that had been left behind and decided to uncover my own spot. The most likely place, I thought, would be in front of the old bank building. That area had yielded the most and oldest coins so far. The object of my search was not unbeknownst to me. Any sign of ebony loam in the gravel would mean I was down to original soil. Starting immediately before the portal to the ancient depository, I furiously shoveled the ridge out into the street, checking every few scoops with the magical machine. I also checked the newly uncovered surface.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, but wrestling with the shovel in the searing sunlight was demanding toil. A bead of sweat, clear as pristine crystal, skated from my forehead to the tip of my nose and plunged effortlessly through the void to an ancient brick, shattering into myriad droplets before vaporizing in the torrid heat. After excavating a yawning 4 X 8 foot abyss and retrieving a single 1875 Indian head penny, I relented. There was no sign of natural soil. Everything was sand and gravel. I could only assume that the thoroughfare had been previously churned up to the point that there was no original dirt left near the surface. My only consolation was that the Indian, encrusted with corrosion almost beyond recognition, was the first of its date ever to grace my palm.

Over the next ten days I scoured numerous stately centennial or better residential lawns, with several Indian heads, a couple of Barbers and a couple of big pennies turning up. All the while I was keeping an eye on metropolitan Decatur for exposure of new territory.

DAY 8

Finally, on Wednesday, October 14, I saw that after meticulously providing support for the awning posts, they had removed the front four feet of sidewalk at the hardware store. I quickly parked the van and sprang out, detector in hand.

Starting at the north end, I vehemently scoured the newly exposed gravel with no result. I had covered the entire four by forty foot strip and was right at the south end when the machine rent my ears with a note that would have levelled the Roman coliseum Out came my second seated quarter! (My first was found years earlier.) It was worn smooth, but the date was clear: 1854. Right beside it two guys were working on a water line. A four foot square of sidewalk had been lifted and a five foot deep trench dug from the main water line in the street to the side of the building. They had the new line run and were filling in the hole with the backhoe. The quarter had been in the edge of the pile they were shoving back in the hole.

I decided to show them the quarter. (So far, I had been pretty tight lipped about what I had been finding. I didn't want word getting around and have a lot of other detectorists showing up.) They were amazed that I found something like that lying in the street.

When the backhoe was done, I scanned the dirt on the surface of the hole and the street where the pile had been that came out of the hole. I found an Indian head and my first silver three cent piece, an 1851, in the residue of the heap. Common sense told me that the remains of the pile in the street would be what was left of the first scoops taken out when they dug the hole. Dirt from the top of the pile would have come from deepest down, and been the first pushed back in. Residual soil from the bottom of the pile was very dark and fine. This looked like the kind of dirt I had been looking for! It pained me to think what they might have shoved back into the hole.

Foul weather descended that night and the next day it rained.

DAY 9

Braving the cold damp air, I returned with a burning desire to repeat yesterday's score. The construction guys got the day off, and the only place to look was in the hole they had dug for the next water line near the center of the awning. I thrust my loop into the void and was rewarded with a solid signal. Jumping in, I found the source. The night's torrent of fluid had sheared huge slabs of packed soil from the side of the cavity. One clump had an embedded Indian head exposed on the surface. The lump was all black topsoil except the surface where the coin was, which showed traces of sand. Carefully scrutinizing the side of the hole, I could see different bands of strata. A six inch layer of ancient topsoil ran about eight to ten inches below the sidewalk's gravel bed. Between these two was a thin band of almost white pure sand. Obviously the coin had barely missed being scooped up when the original soil had been leveled. The base for the original sidewalk must have been sand. Most of it was removed when the gravel base for the newer walk was installed.

This was exactly what I had been looking for! But I couldn't get to the black dirt until they graded off the fill gravel. The unwelcome realization dawned on me that when the sidewalks were lifted, very little was likely to be found by scanning the gravel surface. I had to find out if any grading of this gravel was imminent.

DAY 10

When I got there Friday, a couple more holes had been dug and filled in further south. By not being there while the work was going on, I had missed my chance to look in them. Curiously enough, there were piles of dirt in the street to the side of the filled holes with pieces of sidewalk riding atop them. They had been filled with fresh sand for some reason, and the heaps might be what was taken out. I began searching , finding an Indian head right off the bat on the surface of the street directly in front of the hole. Encouraged, I scanned the sides of the pile. No result. "Well, lets kick this pile down a little bit." A couple of shoves with my foot exposed several feet of fresh dirt and another Indian. "I'll be darned!" I thought. Repeating this action yielded an 1883 dime in fine condition. "That does it! Where's the shovel?" I began spreading the pile out, searching every few shovels full as I had done a couple of weeks earlier. This time however, I wound up with seven Indian heads, one dime, another 1851 three cent piece, and an 1881 nickel three cent piece: my first one and another bucket lister. The task was difficult because I couldn't flip the 4 x 4 foot slab of sidewalk shielding the mound. I had to painstakingly shovel the soil from beneath it.

DAY 11

The next day I spent a goodly while fruitlessly searching the pile in front of the current bank building. It was all gravel like the dry hole I had dug on the other side of the street two weeks earlier. I found out why on day 23.

DAY 12

I was there bright and early Monday morning, anticipating searching the holes as they dug them. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any objections. The hole under the center of the hardware awning had been re-excavated because the rain had caved it in, and the only place to look was in the pile from that. Scanning the side of the mound elicited a mellow ring from my detector, and out leapt a nice 1864 two cent piece. The pile had a lot of black soil in it like the one that was so fruitful Friday, but I didn't want to spread it out in the street with the workers there. I anxiously clambered atop the heap and razed the peak with my foot. Gratified by an 1884 nickel in extra-fine condition, my determination was spurred forward again. I knew there had to be more lurking deep within the mound. Crossing the street to where the backhoe was working, I showed the two cent piece to the workers. They were very interested.

"Are you the guy who found that gold coin?" one of them asked.

"No," I said. "Did somebody find one?"

"There was a guy here Friday who found a ten dollar gold coin with one of those machines.

"Do you know where he found It?

"Right in front of the Boutique."

"Did you see it?"

"No, that's what he told someone else."

"I seriously doubt that story," I told him. "That area has been thoroughly searched by several different people and it was one of the least productive spots on the street. I won't say it's impossible, though. Did anyone at all see it?"

"Not that I know of," he replied.

"I'd like to see it, if it exists. I can tell by examining it under a low power microscope whether it was found in this sand and gravel."

"What is that worth?", he asked, indicating the two cent piece.

"Not much," I replied. "These little green spots take most of the value out of it."

"Well, how much is not much?", he insisted.

"A couple of bucks."

"I'll give you a couple of bucks for it."

"Welllll, even though it's not worth much, I hate to sell it. I don't find coins like this very often. I did find another one just like this the other day, though. I guess I could let you have it, but I need ten dollars."

"That's a little steep," he said. "Let me think about it."

The coin was in VF condition, barring the three pinhead sized spots of corrosion on it. After about ten minutes, the guy came back.

"All right," he beamed. "Here's the ten."

His buddy asked me what else I had. I showed them the nickel and a couple of Indians I had found earlier.

"The nickel isn't for sale," I said. "But I can let you have one of these Indian head pennies."

He gave me a dollar for an 1883 Indian. It was in pretty good shape, and when I looked it up later in the price book, I found out I should have gotten about three dollars for it. Oh, well. At least I had accomplished what I set out to do, and that was to establish good relations with the construction crew. Now was the time to pop my question.

"Do you think you could run over that pile with the backhoe next time you go that way? It would help me a lot".

"You're getting all the stuff," they complained. "How about sharing the wealth a little bit?"

"Well, I did," I retorted. "You just got a couple of nice ones, didn't you? But if you guys help me out a little, I think we can find a lot more. If you do that, and I find what I think there is potential for here, I'll definitely give you guys a few."

The next time the backhoe went past the pile, the operator used the bucket to push the top off. I gave him the high sign and he drove off. Searching the pile again, I found an 1869 shield nickel. They hit the it again and I found an Indian and an 1870 shield nickel. They totally decimated the heap and I reaped two more Indian heads. None of the Indians were exceptional, so I presented the driver with his choice.

The pile yielded a total of seven coins, a two cent piece, three nickels, and three Indian heads. Not quite as productive as the pile I worked Friday, but things were looking good!

The cool night air had given way to the dampness of a misty drizzle which soon became a steady rain. I thanked the gods that be and whatever past owner was responsible for the convenience of the massive awning. Concentrating on the task at hand, I was startled by the undetected, wraithlike appearance of the beat officer, water dripping from the brim of his cap. They patrolled main street and meticulously performed door checks about once an hour. It was getting on toward midnight, and I could tell he was rather dubious about my being there.

"How you doin'?" he asked.

"Pretty good," I replied.

"Just what are you doing?"

I explained, saying "If you keep it under your hat, I'll show you what I found." I displayed the handful of dirty coins.

"I didn't think this town was that old!" he exclaimed, looking at the capped half dime.

"It was settled about that time in the 1830's," I informed him.

"They don't care that you do this?"

"I've been hunting during the day while the workers are here for three weeks. My luck was so good tonight I just couldn't quit. After all, what harm can I do digging where they're just going to dig some more anyway?" He left, giving me no problems. He and the other beat cops would become familiar faces over the next three weeks.

The hole was two feet deep and about three feet square now. I had been working toward the north, row by row. A different approach seemed prudent, now that I had room to get my faithful loop into the cavity. I skimmed the gravel off the next three foot square and shoveled it into the first hole. That gave me a level surface to scan with the detector. About eight coins had come out of the first square, so I expected to get several out of the next one. A careful search produced only two coins, an Indian and a shield nickel. I could tell by the sporadic, choppy squawking of the detector that there was a lot of iron in the black dirt. I had a hunch this was probably masking coins, and I wanted to be sure I didn't miss any deep ones, so I skimmed two inches of the old topsoil off the surface. Checking the dirt that was shoveled back, I got another Indian head! Nails could be seen lying in the pile, and it was obvious that the coin had been covered by one of them. They had separated as I tossed out each scoop.

Scanning the newly exposed surface yielded another shield nickel and a couple more Indians. It was clear that I would have to shovel the entire layer of old topsoil out and check it twice, coming and going, to keep from missing anything.

I was still working northward, digging out a three foot wide strip between the curb and the sidewalk. I wanted fiercely to tunnel under the sidewalk as I was moving up, but I couldn't risk caving it in. Cutting out six to eight inches under the edge wouldn't hurt, though, as long as I filled it back in. Performing this operation along the six foot stretch I had exposed turned up a couple more Indians and an 1882 dime. There would be more good stuff when they lifted the walk, provided I had enough time to dig it out and didn't get any objections. Laboriously unearthing one more three foot section yielded several more coins and brought the time to 2 AM. I was bushed!

The most coins found on any one day up 'till now was ten, when I dug the pile out from under that hunk of sidewalk. My total for the construction dig so far was 47. I had found 21 coins in this 3x9 foot area, almost half the total for the last three weeks! The next day I started keeping a log of my finds. I could remember every coin found on each day so far, but I had a feeling that was going to change now.

DAY 15

Thursday I was back about noon. Starting where I left off the night before, I continued to work north toward the next water line. Breaking the surface of the hard-packed gravel was like making love to an elephant. Difficult, at best. And I forgot to borrow my neighbor's nuclear powered, chrome plated prospecting pick! At 41 years old, I'm in relatively good physical shape, but I was a little sore from all the digging.

The night patrolman stopped by again about 9 o'clock. It was a different officer this time, a young recruit. He was about to give me heck for being off the sidewalk and out in the street when I explained to him that both the construction crews and his fellow officers already knew what I was doing. Apparently, they had been having trouble with vandals getting into the fresh cement at night, and he had been told to keep everyone out of the street.

"I'm not going anywhere except right here," I told him. "Besides, I used to work construction myself. I know enough to stay out of fresh cement." After showing him my finds, he left me in peace.

Working the next 3x9 foot stretch added nine Indian heads, two shield nickels, and an 1865 nickel three cent piece to my total. One of the nickels, an 1868, was in uncirculated condition, although tarnished.

DAY 16

The next day was Friday, and I was there at 8 o'clock in the morning. I was still keeping an eye on the holes the crews were digging, and hunting the piles as they dug them out. They had another one going in front of the Boutique, and I got a couple of wheatback Lincoln cents from the teens there. I had about half a dozen of those all together now, and they had all come from that area. There must have been an open area of ground there during that period, because that was the only place I found coins from that decade. I was destined to find none from the 1920's or '30's at all.

Hammering a hole through the gravel with the tip of my shovel, I began digging directly in front of the door to the hardware store. I had barely gotten through to the black dirt and gotten out a couple of Indians when Mr. Whelan and another big shot came by. I hadn't been filling in behind myself very well, thinking the construction crews would have to do some filling and leveling anyway, and there was about a two foot drop-off from the edge of the sidewalk to the bottom of the trench I had dug. It would be a lot of work to move all that dirt again, and I was more than willing to let the heavy machinery do it. Mr. Whelan had different ideas, though.

"Did you dig that hole?" he queried.

"Yes," I replied.

"If you dig it, you're going to have to fill it back in and compact it. We aren't taking any of that out, and you're making extra work for us."

"I can do that." That's just great. I would have to work harder now, but I was determined to get every coin humanly possible before they cemented the town shut again. He moved on down the street, and I approached the guy driving the backhoe that day. He knew about the coins I had given to the bulldozer driver a few days ago.

"How would you like to get a couple of the old coins I've been finding?" I asked.

"You bet," he grinned.

"Well, I'm having trouble breaking through that hard packed gravel over there. If you could just swing the bucket on the backhoe in there and break it up for me, it would really help me out."

"Show me where you mean."

I indicated the remainder of the area under the hardware store awning. "Here and a stretch down in front of the bank. Don't dig any dirt out. I'll do that with the shovel. You might bury them up worse. I take it off a layer at a time to make sure I don't miss anything. Just stick the teeth on the bucket through the gravel and drag them across the surface to break it up."

" I can't right now," he whispered. "The boss is here. If I get a chance after he leaves, I'll see what I can do."

I went back to digging and about twenty minutes later, here he came. Vroooom! I stepped back and he whipped the bucket in and broke the dirt up exactly as I indicated.

"Quick, show me where that other spot was! I'll get it before the boss gets back."

It took him about ten minutes to do what it would have taken me hours to do. He zoomed off to finish whatever he had been working on, and I went back to searching. About 30 minutes later he was back.

"Doin' any good?" he asked.

"Sure." I pulled out a handful of coins and showed him.

"It's hard to tell what they are."

"I know. They're all the same color as the dirt. Even the silver coins turn black. That's why you guys never see them. You have to be looking for the shape of a coin, not its color, to spot them visually when you're digging."

"I've been doing this for years and never found a coin. I've got quite a few bottles, though."

"About half a dozen coins have rolled out of the shovel while I was digging, and I didn't even need the detector to find them. I watch every shovel, though, and I know what I'm looking for. Want to watch me dig up a dime?"

I had learned to tell the difference in the ring of a silver coin, and was fairly certain the signal I was working on was one. He leaned over to watch as I took a scoop with the shovel and moved it over to check. Not in there. I checked the hole. Not there either. Now where did that signal go? He became impatient or guilty at not doing what he was supposed to be and left. I took a couple more scoops out of the hole with the shovel. It had been too good a signal to have been a false one. This time I found it, and it was a jet black 1855 dime with heavy wear. The next coin up was an 1876-CC dime and the one after that was an 1887 dime. Hallelujah! Three seated dimes in a three foot square in thirty minutes. All right in front of the door and all jet black. I had visions of customers appropriately clad in garb of the era gliding in and out that door. Mentally I was there, in the1800's. A gnarled hitching post must have been right about here and picturing a horseman galloping up was an effortless endeavor. Imagination produced scenes of busy customers pulling coins from their pockets as they entered the store to make a purchase, one slipping unnoticed into the street. After the sale, the buyer may have exited with change clutched in his hand along with his goods. While examining the purchase, his grip may have loosened just enough to let a coin slip away undetected. There must have been mud or snow on the ground because a dime dropped on dry, hard packed dirt would have been recovered by someone.

There was also a phenomenal number of bones showing up. I had been piling them up along with nails and other debris. One bystander, watching me toss three or four on the pile, asked, "How do you suppose all of those got in there?"

"Well, perhaps they buried some poor, unfortunate soul up to his neck and used his head as the target in a tobacco spitting contest, but I doubt it. The smoothly sawed ends indicate that they are probably the remains of mouth watering meals from the tables of those who fearlessly pioneered this settlement. Upon completion of their savory fare, they tossed the bones to the rending fangs of salivating sentries trussed to the hitching post."

Finding lead balls, .45 caliber rim fire cartridge cases, and pieces of clay pipe stems conjured up more images. Images of swashbuckling frontiersmen bristling with muzzle loaders and pistols sauntering down the street sucking on a clay pipe. There weren't just a few of these items. There were lots of them. The street was littered with clay pipe stems like cigarette butts, and there were almost as many cartridge cases as coins. The most common single item was the square nail, of course. There were actually more larger size building nails than horse-shoe nails. They obviously came from the original clapboard structures that predated the brick buildings from the 1880's that still stand. Judging from the ash found in many areas, I would say lots of them burned down. Why else would I have found copper eating utensils and pieces of china there?

The owner of the Decatur News Stand, Helyn Hillyer, had been taking a lot of pictures of the construction work (we have her to thank for most of the photos in this article) and was very interested in the things I was finding. She picked up samples of many of the items mentioned above when I pointed out where I had tossed them.

"Here's a cartridge case and a lead railroad token," I said, pulling a handful of stuff from my pocket.

"Seeing all those cartridge cases and lead bullets makes me think of cowboys shooting it up in the street like in the wild west movies, but it couldn't have been that way here in Decatur," she said.

"Don't be so sure," I grinned. "In those days, this was the wild west."

"Yes, I suppose you're right," she agreed.

My best expectations had been filled. I was getting good coins and lots of them. Somewhere along the line I found an 1872 Indian head with no visible wear. Sadly, it was green and had a small gob of corrosion on the front side, but still a beautiful coin. This is the second most valuable date of the Indian heads and would have been worth several hundred dollars if it hadn't corroded.

My thoughts now turned to the possibility of finding the elusive gold coin. If it was ever going to happen, this was the right place! I also wanted to find a better seated quarter. The one I had was hardly worth showing.

The day went well, with many Indian heads and five shield nickels turning up. I also had a two cent piece and a big penny. Darkness fell and the bustle of construction and shoppers gave way to the commotion of the Friday night bar hoppers coming and going. I kept working. I wanted to beat my daily record of 21 coins.

At about 11 o'clock, a group of four or five came out of the bar and headed my way. When they got to where I was digging, they stopped.

"Are you still working!?" one of them asked incredulously. "I hope they're paying you some good overtime."

"Oh, I'm not with the road crew. I'm doing this for fun."

"He's digging for gold. There's his Geiger counter," said one of his buddies, pointing to my detector lying by the sidewalk.

"Lookin' for gold!? In here!?"

"Yep," I confirmed.

"Yur a shtupid son of a ...," he slurred.

I laughed. "That's what my wife keeps telling me."

"I mean it," he wavered. "Yur a dumb sonuva ...."

"Come on. Let's go," his buddies urged.

I just smiled. "If only you knew," I thought. They moved on and I kept digging.

One of the last coins of the day (or should I say night?), and the scarcest coin by mintage found at the site, was an 1875 three cent piece I almost missed. Shoveling the dirt back to check had created a good sized hump. A couple of small clumps had rolled out of one of the last shovels dumped on the hump and lodged in a crevasse near the sidewalk. Remembering this when I checked the pile with the detector paid off. The pile was empty, but when I swung the loop down to where the clumps had rolled, it sounded off and I got the coin. The moral of the story: Thump the clump you dump on the hump! This was the only coin I got in front of the current bank. The soil there was all gravel like it was across the street.

After midnight I retrieved a coin that emerged glinting in the dim light. That was unexpected, since most of the silver was black, but I knew in the back of my mind that gold didn't tarnish. Holding it up close, I realized it had a pattern I didn't recognize right off. It wasn't a seated or Barber dime. It had a wreath on the back and a bust on the front that looked similar to the coronet head, but I couldn't see it well enough! My heart pounded and a flash of warmth swept through me as I thought, "This is it. It's a two and a half dollar gold piece!" I rushed to the nearest store-front with a lit sign in it. Nuts! It's a Canadian dime. This was hard to believe. Normally, I'm a calm, well collected individual, but I had gold fever!

Coins for the day totaled 23, a new record for the site, and brought the grand total to 103. After three days of serious digging I had broken the hundred coin mark, a feat that just days ago had seemed unattainable. There was no question I had finally found the secret to hunting this dig right. It was 2 A.M. when I headed home, tired and hungry.

DAY 17

Saturday, October 24 saw the first serious competition appear at the construction site in downtown Decatur, Michigan since John Hacht and his buddies had shown up. It was Gene Carruthers from Otsego. John had told me about a retired guy who lived right in town there. That meant he could hunt during the day (before it was banned) while everyone else was working. He had found a lot of good stuff there, more than any other single person, and had shown it to members of the local treasure hunting club. Now here he was on my turf! I had started digging in front of Page Electric when he came up and asked me how I was doing.

"Good," I responded. "Did you bring your shovel?"

"No. Why?" he asked.

"Because you're going to need one if you expect to find very much," I confidently replied. After telling me who he was and where he was from, he told me they had found a couple of Indian heads and a few old wheaties, then moved on to do some more hunting. About an hour later he came back and showed me a seated quarter in fine condition, a seated half-dime, two two cent pieces, and a couple more Indians.

"Where did you get those?" I queried.

"Over on that corner," he pointed, indicating the northeast corner of the main intersection.

"You did good. That quarter is much better than the one I found," I informed him, mentally kicking myself for not beating him to that spot. Earlier hunting in that area had turned up only two or three coins from the first decade of this century. Concentrating on the more productive area I was working now, I had failed to notice the big hole they dug over there for a storm drain. Not having very good luck where I was, I went over and found a couple of Indians he had missed. Returning to my digging, I had found a few more Indians when he approached again. I had set aside a clump of dirt the size of a fist that had a good signal in it.

"Get anything else?" he inquired.

"A few Indians," I showed him, "and there's a coin in that clump. No!" I shouted as he reached for it. "Don't break it open!" My warning came just in time. He already had it in his hand when he stopped.

"Why not? It's the only way to find out," he said.

"I know, but I want someone to watch as I break it open. I'm already about 99% sure it's a penny. Why don't you read it with your machine and see what you think."

He turned on his Garrett GTA 1000 and said, "Yep. It's an Indian head. I'd bet on it. I've found enough of them lately, and that's what it reads like."

"I know it's an Indian head, both by the way it reads and by the fact that the newest coin I've found at these depths was in the 1890's. Come on. Let's take it over to the news stand. The lady who owns it has been very interested in the things I've been finding. She's taking lots of pictures of the construction and I think she'd like to see this."

Not wanting to take the dirt into her store, I left it outside with Gene while I went in to get Helyn. "Hi, Helyn," I greeted. "I have something outside I think you'd like to see. Can you bring your camera?"

"Sure," she responded. "What is it?"

As we walked out, I explained. Gene and Helyn both witnessed extraction of a very nice 1880 Indian head in XF condition from the clump. Helyn took several shots with her camera, showing each stage of the extraction. She was quite thrilled that I had let her witness the event. Gene left shortly afterward and I continued to dig.

My daytime hunting was drawing a good bit of attention. People walking through town were continuously asking me if I was finding anything, some of them stopping to chat at length. I didn't like stopping to talk. There was an ever increasing urgency to get the good areas done as soon as possible because construction was moving right along and the remaining time was limited. One young man was subjected to a bit of sarcasm.

"Finding anything?" he asked.

"Sure," I grunted, leaning on my shovel. "Do you think I would be doing this if I wasn't? I get a gold coin every ten minutes or so."

"Hey, that's pretty good!" he exclaimed dubiously, not knowing whether to believe me or not.

Right at dusk the construction foreman came by with his wife. Stopping to talk for a minute, he made sure I would continue to fill in my holes and informed me that the boss was concerned about my digging. Mr. Whelan was a little upset about having to re-compact the soil I dug out.

"You really don't need to worry about that," I told him. "I layer this stuff back a couple of inches at a time and search it. When I search, I walk all over it, breaking up the clumps and leveling it out. By the time I get done, it's just about as tight as it was before." Then they asked what I had found. The foreman knew some of the other guys had gotten coins from me.

"Are you going to give me one?" he asked as I showed them my finds. "She's quite interested in this stuff," indicating his wife.

"Sure. Let me see if I've got a decent one." Most of the Indian heads I had were pretty ratty, but I found a nice one and gave it to her. By the time I left, sometime after midnight, I had found an 1876 dime, an 1867 nickel, an XF 1884 nickel, an 1869 three cent piece that had been laid on the railroad track and squashed, an 1864 two cent piece, and 16 Indian heads, a total for the day of 21 coins. With my grand total at 124 coins, I had doubled the previous three weeks finds in the last four days!

Sunday I took the day off, practically unable to walk because of sore muscles and an aching back. Knowing there was more to be found made it difficult, but I had no choice. I needed the rest.

"Have you ever read a magazine called Treasure Quest?" he asked.

"No, but I've seen it at the news stand. If I read any of that kind of magazine, It's usually Treasure Found."

"I write free lance articles for Treasure Quest. I've been a detectorist for years, and found some old coins when they did this in Niles. This is the first time I've ever been in Decatur. We came up to visit a relative, and it looks like I walked right into the middle of things!"

"I found a few in Niles myself." He was surprised to find out I had been hunting coins longer than he had. I showed him the gold ring, and he watched and talked while I worked until I finally turned up an 1860 Indian head about half an hour later.

"Did you find any gold coins?" he asked.

"No. I wish I had."

"They found a couple in Dowagiac when that was dug up. A 2 1/2 dollar and a 5 dollar piece. This is the kind of place to turn up another one."

"I know. That's exactly why I'm putting so much effort into this."

"I'd like to see what you've found some day. I'll bet you've got stuff that would leave me drooling," he said. "I think I'll get my detector out and come back up here tomorrow."

"I can't stop you," I admitted, "but you'd better bring a shovel and be prepared to work your behind off if you expect to find anything. You just saw how long it took me to get this Indian head, and I've already got the best areas worked out."

"It pays to go back over a good area with a different machine. I use a Tesoro and I've had good luck with it. Has anyone else been over this?"

"Yeah, with a couple of different machines, but I'll guarantee you won't find anything where I've screened the soil with a shovel like this. I might have missed something over in the gravel, though."

"You're a lot more thorough than most people," he conceded when he saw how I layered the dirt back and kicked it around. "Are you going to be here tomorrow? If so, I'll bring you a couple of magazines with my articles in them."

"I'm up here every day. Sometimes there are no new places to look, but I'll definitely be here tomorrow. They're supposed to start lifting sidewalks on this side of town." After about an hour, he left. If he ever came back, I never saw him.

The stretch yielded an 1882 nickel, 1864 and 1865 two cent pieces, and three Indian heads. This area in front of the walks at the hardware and Page Electric had been thoroughly worked now. I wouldn't get anything more here until they pulled the sidewalks up.

DAY 20

Wednesday came and went with no sidewalk being pulled. The only dirt that was moved came from a hole that was dug for a new light pole. Scanning the pile turned up an 1865 Indian head penny. I couldn't level the pile out and search it thoroughly because there was no room. It couldn't be shoveled back into the hole until the state inspector had passed the underground electrical work. Talking to the guy who dug the hole, I found out he was a bottle collector, but he wasn't into coins. He would dig old outhouse sites in his spare time. "Do you do this kind of work all the time?" I asked.

"Quite a bit. I sometimes dig up bottles in old areas like this. When I dug the trench to run the conduit across, I ran into a civil war era dump right in the middle of the street. It was full of broken glass, and I got a couple of bottles and three whole clay pipes out of it, but I didn't have time to dig it out and go through it like I wanted to."

"You should have a metal detector," I told him. "You're passing up coins and little metal things you can't see by not covering your digs with one."

"I know. I've been thinking seriously about getting one."

The dump would be just north of the main intersection, and it's still there, waiting for the next generation when the street gets dug up again.

No further coins turned up that day or the next. I was still waiting for them to pull up the sidewalks, thinking I had exhausted the good areas that were exposed. Little did I realize I missed a good spot in front of the General Store. An eight foot stretch just to the south of it had turned up nothing, and to the north was a storm drain that had been filled with sand. I had hit on both sides and assumed that it was a poor area. This was not a fatal mistake, since I was able to work the spot later.

DAY 21

Finally, Friday, October 30, they started pulling up sidewalks on the south side of town. The weekend was ahead and I thought I would have plenty of time to work these new spots. Unfortunately, they started on the east side where I had been able to find no black dirt. Scanning the surface of the gravel turned up a lot more than I had expected, though. The first time through produced 1875-CC and 1876-S dimes, 1873 and 1883 'with cents' nickels, an 1865 three cent, and five Indian heads. Also, three coins from the 1940's were right on top, lost just before the cement had been poured. Covering the stretch again very carefully, I dug a tricky signal that turned out to be an 1868 nickel.

As five o'clock and quitting time approached, I could see they weren't going to get to any of the walk on the west side of the street. Since that was where the most productive areas had been, I was naturally very anxious for them to get it out. Time was running short, and I needed the weekend.

Approaching the backhoe operator who had lifted the cement, (the same one who had broken up the gravel for me) I asked him If there was any chance he could pull up even just a couple of pieces over there before he quit. He said he would do his best even if he had to wait until everyone else left. A little later he said, "They won't let me do it." It seemed he was more upset than I was. "It wouldn't hurt a damned thing to do that. They're just jealous because they aren't getting anything!"

John Hacht and Oz arrived about 4 o'clock. I finally told them about all of the stuff I had found by digging. "On the north side of town there was only a one or two day delay between when the old sidewalks were pulled up and the new ones poured. If the same thing happens on the south side, I'll never have enough time to dig all the good areas by myself. I'd rather see you guys get it than see it get covered up by cement," I informed them.

"Should we go back and get our shovels?" John asked.

"It wouldn't do any good tonight. There's no place left to look that I haven't already dug." They scouted around for a while with no luck and left shortly afterward.

Shooting several holes in various places with the shovel confirmed what I had suspected. There was no black dirt to be found on the east side of the street. I did get one more coin, a worn out 1843 dime, from the gravel of one of the holes. Expanding the hole to four feet wide and three feet deep produced only gravel.

DAY 22

Saturday I was back to make sure I hadn't missed any potential areas. Mentally covering both sides of the street yard by yard, I convinced myself that I had been everywhere. Most areas of the west side had been thoroughly shoveled and screened with the detector. The rest had been sampled with holes punched here and there in search of 'pay dirt'. John showed up again with a shovel this time.

"Where would you suggest I look?" he asked.

"I'm trying to figure that out myself," I admitted. "There are a couple of very small spots next to the water line holes that I missed. Maybe a square yard or so all together. I think I'll check those. If I were you, I'd shovel that pile to one side, checking every shovel of dirt." I indicated the pile from the lamp post hole where I had found the 1865 Indian head Wednesday. It was still there and unsearched. We both went to work and I finished my areas first, turning up two Indians and two shield nickels. John's Eagle had quit on him about two thirds of the way through the pile, but he had found two Indian heads. He borrowed my new GTA-1000 to finish up. When I went over, he was having trouble getting used to it. I helped him finish up the pile and got one more Indian head. He was disappointed at only getting Indian heads.

"I've never found a shield nickel," he complained when he saw mine.

"This is the place to get one," I told him. "These two make an even twenty I've found here. You need to spend more time out here, that's all. You see that we spent all afternoon finding seven coins. That's about a coin an hour. That's the average in most places, but sometimes I get lucky and get two or three an hour." As we were leaving, I told him to come on out Monday after work and I would show him how to find one.

I stayed a good while after dark, digging several large holes in the most likely spots on the east side. As I suspected, they yielded nothing. In an area like this, however, you leave naught to chance. I had to be sure. My total for the site was 163 coins, about the number Gene Carruthers had found in Otsego. "I've got a good shot at getting over 200," I thought. "It would be great if I could outdo him."

Waiting until Monday to return, I discovered they had taken the day off because of the nasty mix of rain and snow. I called John and told him not to bother coming out, but to try the next day.

DAY 23

Tuesday the weather was better and I was downtown early. The crews were there, just starting to pull walks on the southeast corner. It would be a while before I could get in there, so I got out my GTA-1000, remembering what the guy from Niles said about going over good areas with a different machine. I had little expectation, but it was worth a try. My luck with this machine so far hadn't been that good. Starting in front of the old bank building, I was hoping this detector would go deeper in the gravel than my old one.

To my surprise, I found a shield nickel almost immediately. It was deep, and the signal wouldn't lock on. All I could tell was it was bouncing around above the iron level part of the time, so I dug it. I had been over this area thoroughly with my 6000-D no less than three times, and had missed that coin completely! Within thirty minutes I had an Indian head and a two cent piece within six feet of the first coin. Both were deep and gave ratty signals, just like the nickel. The two cent piece was at least ten inches down in the gravel. There was no doubt that the GTA-1000 out performed the 6000-D in that type of mineralization. Carefully covering the rest of the gravely east side yielded no more coins, however, and I continued to use the old machine when I crossed to the newly uncovered areas on the west side. It produced far less false signals and I could read it almost infallibly. I was able to cover larger areas more quickly and accurately with it. I did double check with the GTA, though, except where I was screening a dig layer by layer. Almost any machine that could reject nails would have done well for that.

Following the backhoe on the west side, I found only two coins in the fill gravel. One of them was a worn out 1917-S dime on the surface (dropped during the last construction era, right?), the other was an 1853 three cent piece, churned up in front of the current bank. There was a rectangular foundation under the sidewalk in front of the bank, and I discovered there had been a stairway going into the basement there years ago. No wonder I hadn't found anything there! It had been dug deeply, just like the other side of the street.

Finding only those two coins with the surface scan was a good sign, though. It meant most of the original soil hadn't been mixed into the gravel by heavy digging the way it had on the other side. The backhoe had lifted the walk up to the hardware store, skipped their sidewalk because of the reinforcement in it, and started again on the north side where I hadn't had any luck. Remembering the areas where the band of black dirt had disappeared under the sidewalk and where I had the best luck, I started digging in front of Page Electric. I was finding quite a few Indian heads and had a good size hole started when John and Oz arrived about 4 o'clock. They didn't think it was a good idea for them to get their shovels out until the construction workers left. When I told them what happened with the GTA-1000, they went to the other side and covered it with their machines, but didn't find anything else.

I still wasn't sure if I could get away with digging under the walks myself. There had been some grumbling about having to re compact the soil on the part of Mr. Whelan. He was partially correct, but I had seen the workers compact all of the areas that I had not dug anyway, so I figured I couldn't be causing much of a problem.

The guy running the cement saw and jackhammer was done in front of the hardware store, but it looked like they weren't going to get around to moving any of the cement until tomorrow. Talking to the foreman paid off this time. "Couldn't you load up that first section tonight?" I pleaded. "I'll even help you load it. You know I'll share with you if you help me out." They had already poured half of the new walk on the east side, and I knew I had only a day or two before they would be covering it back up over here. I needed the extra evening to work the best spot on the street. A few minutes later, he was there with the backhoe and had about four guys loading the cement. There wasn't even room for me to get in there and help.

After the construction guys left, John and Oz came over to see what the plan was. I showed them a very fine 1886 Canadian silver five cent piece I had just dug. "This is a good spot, John. If you don't find a shield nickel here, it'll be plain old bad luck."

"You think so?" he said. "What about Oz? Where's a good spot for him?"

"Down on the corner in front of the law office," I explained. "That's where I found the oldest coin. I'm going to move over in front of the hardware store to the spot they just uncovered." I showed them how to follow the band of black dirt. "It's just like mining for gold," I told them. "You just have to follow the vein of ore."

It started raining a few minutes later, and John and I thanked our lucky stars for the awnings. Oz wasn't so lucky. There was no awning where he was. He stuck it out for about an hour, digging furiously and searching a lot of soil, but didn't find a single coin. I couldn't understand why. I had gotten a few good ones down there. John did much better and he stayed until about 10 o'clock. Rewarded for his efforts by two big pennies and six or eight Indian heads, he had his best night yet, but still no shield nickel. Sorry, John.

I, however, was in bonanza-land. Success scorched the cold, damp night air as I methodically and relentlessly extracted coin after coin from the long hidden, ancient soil. Several shield nickels, a seated dime, a silver three cent, a big penny, a flying eagle cent, and a bunch of Indian heads came to light while John was still there. By the time I left at 4 o'clock in the morning, I had totaled 36 coins for the day. That was to remain the site record for a single day. My take was three seated dimes, five shield nickels, one Canadian silver five cent, two 1853 three cents, two nickel three cents, two two cent pieces, one big penny, one flying eagle, and 19 Indian heads. The next morning I realized my grand total was 199 coins. I was going to make the 200 mark!

DAY 24

The next day I was back around noon. Immediately accosted by the construction foreman, I was asked if I was going to fill in those holes. "Of course," I told him. "I always have, haven't I? I was just too bushed last night when I left." He was amazed to find out when that was. "By the way, being a man of my word, here are a couple of two cent pieces I found. Take your pick." One of them had little corrosion and a lot of wear. The other had sharp detail, but major corrosion on one side. He chose the latter.

Continuing to dig where I left off, I turned up two more seated dimes, three shield nickels, a two cent piece, and several Indian heads. The man who owns the General store just couldn't take it anymore and came down to talk. After seeing what I had found, he asked, "will you sell me one of those?"

"Well, the only thing I could let go is one of the Indian heads," I responded.

"That's fine. I just want something that you found out here in our street."

"Here's a nice one," I said, producing an 1892 in fine condition with a couple of very minor corrosion spots.

"How much do you want for it?"

"I could take five."

He parted with the five without hesitation. "That's perfect," he said. "It's exactly a hundred years old."

They still hadn't pulled up the rest of the sidewalk in front of the hardware, so I moved back to Page Electric to finish up the spot John had been working on. Several more Indian heads came out of there, but that was it. Moving down to the law office, I did a huge amount of digging and only got one Indian and one seated dime. Now I could see why Oz didn't have any luck. The area under the sidewalk was all sand. All I can figure is that there was a high spot there in the old days, and when they leveled it for the sidewalk, they took out the coins along with the black dirt. The total for the day was 28 coins, with 20 of them being Indian heads.

DAY 25

Thursday morning my worst fears were realized. It was a cold, miserable day, raining and snowing at the same time. When I got there, all of the construction workers were under the awning in front of the hardware. One crew was removing the last of the sidewalk on the north side of the store while a second leveled and formed the south side. They were going to immediately pour new cement there because it was sheltered under the awning. I was frantic! This was where I had found three dimes in a three foot area, right in front of the hardware store door. Now it looked like I wouldn't get a chance to search the rest of that area as they removed the walk. The only chance I had was to talk to the boss, Mr. Whelan. I was very apprehensive about doing that because of the resistance to my digging he had exhibited before.

"Do you have to cement this spot back up right now?" I asked him.

"We don't have anywhere else to work because of the rain," he replied. "The cement truck is supposed to be here about noon, and we have to be ready for it."

"All I need is thirty minutes to do a quick check in front of that door. I can shovel out a three foot square two feet deep and put it back in that time," I pleaded.

"I know you can. We've been watching you work. If my crew worked half as hard as you do, we'd have this job done now."

He took me by surprise. I had not expected any hint of admiration, but if the truck was indeed on its way, there would be no stopping them. Watching and thinking, I talked to one of the other workers. He said the truck wasn't really on its way yet. They were going to call for it when they got ready. I finally formulated a plan that might work. Heading for home, I was thinking that if I could just get the boss on my side like I had the other workers, he might delay just long enough to let me do a quick check. There were plenty of coins I was willing to part with for the chance to get better ones, and if I showed him everything I had found and offered him a couple, he just might relent.

I was back in less than an hour with the coins. The better ones were mounted in holders in 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages. Mr. Whelan was at the restaurant having lunch. Walking in, I saw that he was sitting at a table for four with his foremen, and there was an empty chair. I sat down and displayed the coins. There was incredulation from every direction. Even the waitresses and customers from adjoining tables were coming over to look. They were amazed by the sheer quantity and age of the pieces. "If I don't get to check those last few spots, I'm done now," I told them. "So I've decided to let everyone on the crew pick out one of these Indian heads as a souvenir." I had a bunch of them with readable dates but spotted with corrosion, and There were only about a dozen workers there that day.

Mr. Whelan spent about half an hour looking at everything and talking with me. He was really quite friendly and easier to talk to than I had expected. Finally, he picked a nice Indian head from a group of better coins I displayed for him, offering to pay for it. I refused, saying it wouldn't be right when I was giving them to everyone else. He left the restaurant ahead of me because I was delayed by interest from everyone else. When I got outside, he was back in front of the hardware store. Approaching him again, I said, "You know, these guys could go ahead and level and form the stretch to the north without being delayed. The awning goes all the way to the corner, and it wouldn't take me long to check."

"All right," he said to the crew, "let him look for his coins. Go ahead and move up to that next section."

Great! My plan had worked. I wasted no time punching a hole directly in front of the door. Something was wrong. There was no black dirt. Punching several more holes revealed the same thing. Apparently the soil closer to the building had been excavated before. After thirty minutes of searching, I concluded that there was no good soil left in front of the hardware. "Well, that's it then," I thought. "I'm all done now." The crew was watching very closely, of course, and were as disappointed as I that I didn't find anything. After Mr. Whelan was informed that I was done, they proceeded to complete what they had started.

Not wanting to give up, I decided to cover the gravel in front of the General Store on the off chance that a stray coin had been scraped up there. I had gotten a shield nickel in front of the walk there earlier in the week. An 1851 three cent piece came to light right in front of the door from about one inch deep in the gravel. There were quite a few people watching, including the owner of the store. He had already bought the 1892 Indian head from me earlier, and now he wanted the three cent piece. I couldn't bear to part with that one. A few minutes later I got an 1852 large cent about two feet away. It was about seven inches deep, through the gravel and into the black dirt.

My helper was still hanging in there with the shovel when an 1865 Indian head rolled out of a scoop of dirt. He saw it and picked it up, rubbing the dirt off.

"I'll be damned!" he exclaimed.

"There you go," I said. "That's what I was telling everyone earlier. If you keep your eyes open, there's a pretty good chance of spotting one like that. I've had about five or six roll out like that for me, and I didn't even need the detector to find them." He tried to hand the coin to me but I refused. "I had nothing to do with finding that one. You did it all by yourself and it's yours." He was delighted. The coin was in excellent condition with no corrosion. It was one of the twenty three 1865's found, making it the most common single coin on the street. Near the south edge of the store I finally found a two cent piece and an 1854 half-dime. I had almost given up on this spot a couple of times because of the low yield rate, but these two restored my enthusiasm. My helper finally gave up about dusk. I continued to dig, finding a couple more Indians.

At about 10 o'clock I scooped up a few shovels right in front of the door and tossed them back. This was about the third layer deep in that spot and I had just checked the surface, finding no signal. When I checked the scoops, however, the detector bellowed a sweet, clear note. The signal was so strong and clear I wondered how I could have missed it before it was moved. Reaching down, I picked up a larger coin. Holding it close to my face, I could see a sharp, old style eagle with the word 'DOL.' underneath it. My thumb was covering the first word and I couldn't tell the color of the coin in the dark. I immediately thought, "ten dollar gold piece!" It was about the right size. When I moved my thumb, the word 'QUAR.' was revealed. I suffered only a little disappointment, though, because the eagle told me I was holding the sharpest seated quarter I had ever seen. The feathers in the neck were all crisp and clear. There was only a little of the black crud on it, and I turned it over to discover a date of 1854. How ironic. It was the same date as the other quarter I had found, but on the other end of the spectrum in condition. It grades XF-AU (extra fine to almost uncirculated) and is worth at least $100. This coin made my day, and I was no longer jealous of the one Gene Carruthers had found.

Before I left at 4 AM I had found twenty coins in all, including two 1865 three cent pieces, an 1857 half dime, and an 1854 large cent. The average date was 1860 with the newest coin an 1867. The General Store is the oldest standing building on the street, and the red brick fragments and reddish tint in the soil lead me to believe there was a brick sidewalk put in there around 1868-70 which kept newer coins from getting into the soil. It chilled me to think I had almost overlooked this spot.

DAY 26

The next day I finished up in front of the General Store, getting only a couple of Indians. Looking for a new place to hunt, I realized everything had been thoroughly worked or covered with cement except the stretch in front of the restaurant. Less than half a dozen coins had turned up there in front of the sidewalk and the soil had been full of brick debris, making digging tough. I had assumed because of the low productivity and debris that this area had been seriously disturbed like the other side of the street. Since it was the only place left, I began digging there. I worked until 2:00 AM, getting three more shield nickels, '65 and '73 three cent pieces, '64 and '67 two cent pieces, 11 Indian heads and another 1858 flying eagle cent. Two of the three flying eagles found had been large letter examples and the other a small letter. I had found all of the nickel composition cents in Decatur except the extremely rare 1856 and the 1857, which I already had. There are no holes left in the first page of my Indian head folder! I have now found (as of republishing this story in 2023), at one time or another, all of the Indian heads except 1877, 1878, 1908-S and 1909-S.

Saturday I rested, knowing I had covered everything thoroughly. Physically exhausted from all the digging, I was so sore I could hardly walk. A number of days had seen me on the street for twelve hours and a couple for sixteen.

DAY 27

By Sunday I was feeling good again, and unable to get the thought out of my mind that there had to be just one more coin I could get. Driving uptown, I carefully covered the remaining exposed areas mentally. The only possible spot left was the north side of the hardware store out from under the awning. There was about a six foot long stretch where the band of black dirt was very thin. It must have been a high spot where part of the black dirt was removed for leveling. Mr. Whelan told me the dirt removed in the '50s had been dumped in a marsh at Lake o' the Woods to make the park at the beach. This would explain an event I recollected from my days as a detector repairman. A man from Decatur brought an almost mint condition twenty cent piece that he had found into the shop one day. I'm almost certain he said it had been found in the park.

It took only a couple of hours to work out this last small spot, but it yielded a '67 shield nickel, a '67 two cent piece, and three Indian heads. Those were the last coins found in the Decatur dig, but the story isn't over yet.

Most of the coins weren't in very good shape numismatically and wouldn't bring very good prices from collectors. The interest everyone had shown in my finds gave me an idea. Maybe the coins would be worth more as historical artifacts and souvenirs. I sorted out duplicate dates and kept the best ones for myself. Taking the rest to town, I approached all of the merchants along the business district to see if they were interested. The response was excellent and about half of the proprietors purchased coins. These were pieces of their town and their history, and as such were worth more to them than anyone else.

The response and interest in my finds prompted me to begin assembly of a representative display to be presented to the town. It includes not only examples of each type of coin found, but square nails, buttons, clay pipe stems, cartridge cases, lead shot, suspender buckles, and a tiny glass vial, all from the previous century and dropped in the street of Decatur. Also included was written information about the finds. Some of the coins in the display experienced various degrees of cleaning to make them more easily seen.

Before the end of November I was contacted by a reporter for the weekly newspaper, the Decatur Republican. She had heard about my finds and wanted to do an article about it. An interview was conducted and the story printed on the front page a few days later. A couple of weeks afterward I was interviewed by a reporter from The Herrald Palladium, the regional daily newspaper. He did the story from a little different perspective after seeing the display I had assembled, and his paper also printed it on the front page. Talking with the mayor of Decatur confirmed interest in my display. He offered to pay for materials and costs incurred in assembly of the display case, and I donated time and labor. I made the frame from solid oak and stained it walnut. I brought it to a town council meeting where I told the members what it represented, and then presented it to the mayor. It's on display at the old Decatur Town Hall building where they have a kind of small museum.

I was proud to be able to do something so historically interesting for the community. Normally a detectorist doesn't find enough old coins of the types in the display to be willing to part with them. Sharing my experience with everyone was made possible by good fortune in finding the many coins and other items, hard work, and the tolerance of my efforts by the construction people.

This was the single, most incredible coin hunting experience of my career. It was amazing that I was the only coin hunter on the street had the whole town to myself most of the time. The finds were of such a caliber that they will keep me fired up for coin hunting for a long time to come.

Those of you who have been fortunate enough to hunt an old downtown construction site and got a few coins thought you had covered it pretty well, didn't you? Well, I've got news for you. You just scratched the surface. I did thoroughly cover about 5% of the original soil (all that I could find) between the storefronts and got 273 coins. I figure there are about 19 times that many still in there, buried too deep or hauled away by past construction and are unrecoverable.

It was the hunt of a lifetime. Among the 273 coins I found were 2 seated quarters, 17 seated dimes, 1 barber dime, 1 capped half dime, 4 seated half dimes, 35 shield nickels, 5 liberty nickels, 5 silver three cent pieces, 11 nickel three cent pieces, 15 two cent pieces, 7 large cents, 3 flying eagle cents, and 151 Indian head cents. Finding coins of this type in these quantities was something I had previously only dreamed about, and it brings with it an elation that takes months to wear off.

If you ever get a chance to work a downtown dig, remember the details of this article. Don't be satisfied with bopping around in the soil moved by the heavy equipment. Scout around with a shovel for the hot spots. If you are too old, get a youngster to help you out. You should find enough for both of you!

The tables below were included for those of you who are interested in what the distribution of dates and types of coins might be at a site like this. Study of the tables shows that distribution follows the expected probability according to scarcity (mintage), denomination, and period of activity.