Whidbey Island hunt

Ferry boat ride over to Whidbey Island

Finds of the day!

I had to hop on the Washington State Ferry early this morning, but first needed to fuel the truck up. Of course I was near my favorite car wash and had to check out the above ground finds for coins. To my amazement a few shiny coins were waiting for me; one quarter was in the coin return of a vacuum station, a dime and penny sat near a coin return at the car wash station and the other two coins (dime and penny) were on the pavement.

I caught the 7:30am ferry to Whidbey Island to go to a job site for roof and gutter cleaning. Do you think that I brought my metal detector? Indeed! When I was finished with work it was close to 3:00pm, so I had to get in some quick detecting before it got dark. My first stop was Ebbey Landing, an historic lookout point/trail in Coupeville, WA. This stop brought in $.63 of clad (2 quarters, 1 dime and 3 pennies). My next stop was the City Beach in Oak Harbor. I ended up finding $.47 (1 quarter, 2 dimes and 2 pennies). I did however find a couple of other non-coin items. The first find was a Lions pin and the second was a copper bracelet. I'm still waiting patiently for my first silver coin.

Daily totals: $1.57

Above ground finds: $.47

Below ground finds: $1.10

Total finds to date: $7.18 Day 7

The Lincoln Penny Project grand total finds: $46.66

Above ground finds: $38.39

Below ground finds: $8.27

Happy New Year!

Baker Lake and Mt. Baker

First find at Baker Lake.

Claire and Steve at Pilchuck park in Snohomish (detected $.39).

Total finds with metal detector since December 26, 2009.

It's New Year's Eve and 2009 is almost over. It's been a fun and interesting year with our blog-and we almost hit the $40.00 mark. We started our quest of The Lincoln Penny Project on July 12, 2009 by finding $.38 while we were camping, but didn't even think about it until this one thing happened. It's been a tradition to go up camping with my family on my birthday (July 12th)...it might be going on 15 years now. This is a place in the Pacific Northwest, an incredible lake and mountain area-which is named Baker Lake or Mt. Baker. I always help haul the boat up, and this year since my dad passed away, my mom had her friends haul up their trailer. When we got up to the lake, we parked the boat and trailer where they needed to be and my mom's friends took a look around campground 36 where we were staying. They were scanning the ground for some reason and all of a sudden picked up a quarter. The couple has been at this for years adding to their pot whenever they go somewhere. I didn't ask them how much they have found....I should have!

How much money have you passed by on the ground over the last six months? Once we saw them pick up the quarter-our hunt was on! We are a competitive family and like to play games-and this one involved exercise and a way to add to the pot. The first day started with one quarter, a dime and three pennies. Since then, our eyes have been on the prize. Everywhere one goes-it's loaded with finds. Just think how much money you have dropped over the years, and how much you have left sitting. The next time you go to a car wash take a walk around the vacuum stations. When you go shopping, park far away from the entrance and do a quick parking lot walk. We have been at this almost 6 months and have averaged $.23 per day-which equals $83.95 in one year. It's not a lot of moiney - and we aren't out looking everyday either. It's just an entertaining, family game for us. We also added to the fun and bought a family gift for Christmas-a metal detector. Now we have above ground and below ground opportunities for finding coins. Enjoy our family fun, and we welcome you to search and find treasures on the ground. We promise that they will be waiting for you.

Happy New Year!

Daily total: $.40

Above ground: $.01

Below ground: $.39

Grand total to date: $39.59

171 finding days averages out to $.23 per day

Above ground finds: $37.45

Below ground finds: $2.14

Our third day of detecting

After passing out fliers by one of our job sites, I decided to get in 45 minutes of metal detecting. Before the job site fliers, I went to the store to get a few things. On my way out of the store I spotted a dime and scooped it up. My metal detecting stop took me to the place that Max and I went to on Sunday. It's a dog park in Bothell, but this time it was late afternoon with very few people. I ended up digging up a number of scrap aluminum pieces, rusty nails, a couple of fishing weights and 2 dimes.

So far we are 3-3(coin finds)on metal detecting hunts-which I am happy about.

Daily total: $.30
Grand total to date: $38.51
169 finding days averages out to $.23

Above ground finds: $37.22
Below ground finds: $1.29

2nd day out metal detecting

Max out searching near frozen pond.
Max finds first bottle cap....with many to come. Check out the open field.
Max out detecting.
The big tree in the background is where we found the 1965 quarter.
Max finds our first quarter!
Max and I went out metal detecting for the second day in a row-hitting three different spots. Our first hunt brought in 3 Lincoln pennies from a playground. The second stop gave us a big, fat zero in coins, but a bunch of junk aluminum. The final place we visited was a large dog park in Bothell. The new metal detector takes time to understand and get the feel of. We tried using different settings while we were hunting. Garrett recommends using the "all metal" mode when learning to use the detector at first. Max and I were getting all kinds of nails and rusted spikes in the all metal mode. After an hour of hunting, we switched it to the "coins" mode and Max came up with our first quarter within a few minutes. The next target we hit was a dime. Our final target was a 1965 quarter-one year shy of silver. The cool thing about our finds was that the first quarter was a 1983-the year I graduated...and the final quarter was a 1965-the year I was born.

We didn't do any above ground searching today.

Daily find: $.63
Grand total to date: $38.21
168 finding days averages out to $.23 per day.

Above ground finds: $37.12
Below ground finds: $1.09

New Washington Quarter post!

On October 22, 2009 we posted about our Washington Quarter finds to date, which resulted in 31 quarters. The breakdown of quarters consisted of:

31 total quarters equaled $7.75

Original quarters (13)

New quarter program (16) This breakdown inlcuded 10 state finds.

Canadian quarters (2)

Since that first post of quarters, here is the tally to date: 55 quarters!

55 quarters equals $13.75

Original quarters (23)

New quarters (28) State breakdown has grown from 10 to 19 states

Canadian quarters (4)

State quarter breakdown:

Arizona (3)

Arkansas (1)

Connecticut (1)

Deleware (1)

Georgia (3)

Idaho (1)

Kansas (1)

Missouri (1)

Nebraska (3)

New York (1)

North Carolina (2)

Oregon (1)

Rhode Island (2)

South Carolina (1)

Texas (1)

Utah (1)

Vermont (1)

Washington (2)

West Virginia (1)

Thanks for looking! Good luck and happy hunting!

Check out this Wheat Back Penny!

It was Thanksgiving day and we were on our way to Whidbey Island to spend turkey day with my family. The great thing about going to Whidbey is that you can drive around through Deception Pass or take the Washington State Ferry; both drives provide some awesome scenery. Since we got an early jump, we opted to take the ferry. During holiday weekends-the ferry can be a long wait if one doesn't get moving early. When Claire and I got on the boat, the ferry attendant guided us to our spot. If we would have parked one space away, we would have missed the find. As I opened the car door, I looked down (naturally). To my amazement-Honest Abe was staring up at me from the ferry boat deck. It appeared to be old, but I couldn't make out the date right away. Of course I turned it over to see if it had wheat ears-and indeed it did. It was a 1930 Wheatie! Wow...almost 80 years old, how cool! Earlier finds of the week didn't amount to much, but the wheat back made up for it.

My family will be getting a metal detector for Christmas. I had a couple detectors over 30 years ago, but never kept up with it. Because we have been finding all of these treasures above ground, we started thinking what gems could be under ground. We have decided on getting an Ace 250 Garrett detector.

Recent finds: $.41
Grand total to date: $32.48

Job site brings in an extra $.21 today!

The Lincoln Penny Project pulls in a little extra! We have a couple of jobs going right now; a siding and a roofing job. I also had a call from one of our commercial building accounts for a leak repair that I went out on. It appeared that the HVAC crew left me a little change on a mechanical unit-one dime, a nickel and six pennies. That was it for the day....

Daily total: $.21

Grand total to date: $27.46

109 finding days averages out to $.25 per day.