Was. #11. February 2022. A Free Newsletter About Coin Collecting And Metal Detecting By Bill Gallagher

Was. Issue #10. Bill Gallaghers Free Newsletter About Metal Detecting And Coin Collecting

The Bronco

     In all my treasure hunting I have done many things to turn trash into treasure and one was The Bronco.  I had a very early Volvo station wagon when I first got my mining camp in Hachita NM, c.2003, and I traded the Volvo for The Ford Bronco.  The Volvo was something crazy like a 1973, and Volvos first try at fuel injection.  Later, after the kinks got worked out of The Bronco, I used it as a mining truck to go to-and-from a claim I had in the Hatchet Mountains of NM.  It seemed sturdy enough.  I gave it all the TLC I could afford.  I took it to Tucson on runs four times and that was like 1600 miles so I thought it was OK.  Finally I go to leave NM the first time, because the religious and cartel activities by freaks and law enforcement were just getting to be too much.  I almost got to the top of the big loooooonnnnngg hill outside El Paso before Van Horn.  Then disaster.  Boom.  
     I was towing a small trailer, headed for Florida.  I had two cats with me.  You talk about adventure, I thought I had enough gas money to get where I was going, and sincerely hoped so, or I was going to have to find a flea market in TX LA AL FL somewhere on the way.  This is the way it is with me.  I hardly ever get what what I want, but I always get what I need. So have some sympathy, eh?
     I met a Spanish man with a tow truck and his son in Van Horn who helped me beyond belief and to whom I will always be indebted.  I had to walk to the top of that long hill and borrow a truckers phone to get help initially, there were pull offs there because many vehicles overheat coming up that damned thing, especially trux.

       I got The Bronco back to Hachita becoming more indebted to friends, took the Oldsmobile Delta88 off the blocks I had just put it up on, got it ready to go, took the tires off The Bronco and stashed them, and left again.  My hair was sticking straight out like a fro.  My eyes were wide, and if anybody had the misfortune to look closely they would have seen steam coming out of my ears, little wisps, hardly noticeable but definitely there.
     I got to my destination in Florida in the Oldsmobile by being able to put twenty dollars of gas in the tank outside Tallahassee before a check had hit the bank, then got the twenty back in after I got to Perry before the check hit, lucky boy.  I then took The Oldsmobile another couple thousand miles visiting mom and her side in upstate NY and helping her through some surgery, then back to Florida for work as long as it lasted, and four years beyond that of nothing but hard core in your face I GOTTA HIT treasure hunting activites.   A really real treasure hunt.  I lived at the back of a wood shop on a canal where I was learning about making billiards cues from real exotic woods.  It was OK, a high point.  I have remarked more than once that considering my activities in Tampa it is fortunate pirates are tolerated there.  You just can't be too greedy.  I do love Tampa a lot.
     I had to give up the car in Seffner where I ultimately landed, because car insurance was 6 times as much as it was in NM.  I sold it for 400 and drove it onto the guys dolly.  I am sure it is still running somewhere.  There in Seffner, near Plant City, I mixed right in with all the other aliens, got scruffy, got a bike, and learned to use the bus systems, which was very cool.  Except for the time I am almost to my destination near Tampa Stadium and this big black dude somewhere behind me yells out real loud while pulling the bell  "Hey man stop the bus let me off here!"  The driver is another black dude but Haitian.  He hollers "No Mon I Cannot Stop The Bus Just For You!"  Guy behind me starts in again "Ohhhhhh you stopped the bus the other day for the pretty spanish ladies, but you ain't gonna stop the bus for the old nigga..."
     True, much too true.  If firearms had been brandished I was right in the path.  I got where I was going and was glad things were winding down for me there in TAMPAFL.
     I carried my detector on my bike and though some thought I was a nut, that was OK, I was not real talkative during these times, and just let them think whatever they wanted.  Judge me all you want but keep the verdict to yourself, thats only polite manners, right?  And of course the repectable types wanted to avoid me and my kind at all costs, so it was pretty cool anonymity and I rode a lot at night.  I saw so many ghosts it would freak you out, like kaleidoscopic schisms in the fabric of things, odd reflections, moving energies still.  And I know I will be among them one day soon, so I try to get what I can while I am here again.
     I wanted to be avoided, and though I never experienced violence I saw it around, and stayed ready.  Usually carried a mini shovel with a sharpened blade too, and other stuff.  It is a zoo out there, and don't be having to wait on the zookeepers if you need help right now, no, you better be ready always.  If you live to call the cops you are already too late, you've been beat up!  I find these things very fundamental but when I bring them up it creates anger in some places.  Like the police really being a long term anti-gun plan by royalty.  I try to report what I observe, or at least what I think I observe.
      I rode a bike for the last four years in Tampa, but not entirely, I chipped with 2 partners who I had treasure hunted with before and we kicked butt and took names as far as high value salvage was concerned.  I wrote for Lost Treasure Magazine after 2013, and didnt leave FL until Jan 2015.  While there I did well enough to get a truck, and get out of Florida again with a small load of rare agate, and back to what was now a huge mess in NM.  It is tooo toooooo toooooo amazing what the elements here do to stuff outside.  And the critters. I used to worry about walmart bags blowing around, not anymore, they keep the coyotes away at night, kind of (Noise), and disintegrate so fast its a non-issue.  Rolands world.  Its not pretty at all.
     One part of the mess in Hachita was clearing the bus of a 5 year old packrat nest, unpleasantness squared baby, and first I had to KILL the thing.  Looked like a miniature wooly mammoth. God.  Good thing predation comes natural to my kind.  Finally got it with a glueboard and it woke me up, the racket it made, and then WHAM and then I was really getting somewhere.  A bobcat came around the bus after that a couple times, pretty sure it was hunting those things, it was totally cool, the bobcat I mean.  Awesome in fact.
     Another part of the mess was The Bronco. Like Linus and his blankie, I again began trying to make the Bronco work, which entailed towing it around where ever I went.   With my earnings from Florida and other places I was able to secure 2 acres near Deming, actually considered part of Deming.  Over two or three years I moved here, put up a large metal building I salvaged, and a small shed with a shingle roof which is pretty good but looks like hell because I covered it in sheets of scrap metal.  Have a small RV with a permanent tag. It has not been the best of times by any means, the world government has actively attacked commerce of anything they do not control using fraud and the televised media.  I am a sitting duck for army experiments being done on some people because they write bad things or whatever. That means the losers are bailing probably, or getting ready to unleash some world government techno-military on us, which is a done deal, really.
     4 years after getting back from Florida I finally found a motor for The Bronco.  The Bronco and my two F150s 1984 1994 have slowly been moved here and the tools and the other stuff needed to work.  At the Deming flea market I traded an AZ Indian pot for The Ranger and 100 bux.  The Ranger has even the same shop manuals as The Bronco, and it was a fleet vehicle retired from Silver City with an auction title somebody bunged up.  Lots of miles, and maybe even some salt, but a tool box bed which should sell pretty quickly, and good maintenance over its life.  It also has all the stuff The Bronco does not, like manual roll up windows which are interchangeable with The Broncos defunct electric windows, because the doors are interchangeable, and it has a carb and real fuel pump, not the souped up electrical vacuum stuff of The Bronco which has now begun to deteriorate badly.  Also The Ranger runs, The Bronco didn't.  A big deal.
    The Ranger is 1983 and The Bronco 1984.  Lots of interchaneable parts, and double everything.  I put up a pole hoist, got the motor out of the Bronco, and messed it all up because I tried to take the tranny out with motor, duh bill.  It hung there for awhile, stuck, a pendulum tick tick ticking the moments away, swinging listlessly in the wind.  I am re-reading Samuel R. Delaney.  Boy are you guys in for it now.  
     I finally admitted I had done it wrong and I had to loosen the tranny before the motor would come out.  The day came where the motor swung loose and I was able to take the hoist down for the next step over by the Ranger.  I removed all the parts off the motor from The Bronco, to save and to sell, and had the oil pan bolts all removed but had to take off the timing cover to take off the oil pan.  This was a good piece of aluminum I hadnt seen, so it worked out.  I did all that while the motor was on blocks outside the engine well.  At least I didnt hit my head or skin my knuckles.
     When The Bronco gave out on me in May 2010, there near Van Horn TX it had clunked real loudly then just stopped.  I got off the road and tried to start it.  It turned but didnt sound good.  The cats had a big place in back of The Bronco I had made for them so at least that was not a worry, it was shut off from my doors and I could come and go.  They let me know they were not happy, of course.  I looked underneath, No leaks, nothing overheated that I could see or feel, but lots of water in the oil, latte.  And that was that for The Bronco.  I tried to change the head gasket in Van Horn and was stranded there for ten days and it was just ugly ugly ugly.  Many Thanks to Ron and his Dad and their garage.  I read since then that those particular Bronco motors had parts from places with problems, and many of them experienced failures, cracked heads and blocks, metal fatigue problems.
      In order for me to get the oil pan off The Broncos motor which was up on blocks I had to tump the motor over and it actually worked perfectly and the oil pan flew off without even hitting the ground, no damage.  Thats when, 10 years later, I got to see what really happened to The Bronco.  My efforts to fix it in van horn had been entirely in vain, it was not a head gasket but a destroyed something that fell out of the motor into the oil pan cruncha cruncha, worst possible.  This was not visible from the top, everything above appeared ok, as both Ron, a certified schooled mechanic, and myself looked it over well before doing the work.
     The Ranger is fundamentally different in many ways concerning quality of parts, and I am hoping the motor from it is not one of the problem types.  I dont think it is.  Once the motors are switched, then The Bronco will live again with a better heart and circulation.  I plan to use it locally, as an economical exploration vehicle, which I could run on alcohol if I had too.  Really, I will be glad when its all done.  Then I will be able to call it a successful treasure hunt too.
      

     

2nd Annual Metal Detecting Competition Deming NM 2020

My Western & Eastern Treasures Cover June 1981

 

Me standing with Gary Bonar digging, taken by my brother Joe.

Excerpt From My Treasure Hunting Book

Today was such a dog as far as treasure news is concerned (I mean not even one to put on the list for tomorrow!) that I decided to excerpt my BOOK: TREASURE HUNTING WITH METAL DETECTORS AND OTHER TOOLS OF HIGH VALUE SALVAGE BY BILL GALLAGHER, for your reading enjoyment. This book is an invaluable resource for the metal detectorist, numismatist, and all around high value salvage expert. It costs me about 10 dollars to print a copy, so the $24.95 cover price is actually you fostering the self publishing/small publishing buisiness, and thats a good thing.  Thanks in advance. The reward is great all the way around, too, because no one else has anything like this information available. I am a voracious reader, and I have a lot of experience treasure hunting and writing, and it all comes out here, you lucky reader you.

Below find a few paragraphs to give you an idea what the book is like, the first two large chapters are a whole bunch of entries like this covering a plethora of subject matters having to do with metal detecting and treasure hunting.  The next major chapter is Mechanical Treasure Salvage, how to find things and recover treasure in ways other than metal detecting; then there is Sustainment Metallica, my metals conservation book which is a resource unto itself, and finally the super booster, which is a very nice thing to build and use, and very easy with my instructions...it will give you a super advantage, and is worth the cost of the book by itself....b


TARGET RETRIEVAL WHEN METAL DETECTING IN WATER

When wading in hip and chest deep water with a metal detector, especially in
lakes and around some other beaches, you can dispense with the scoop and
floating sifter, if the bottom is relatively clear. Wear a dive mask, and
your wetsuit, or not (depending on how cold it is), and drop to the bottom
and hand fan the targets. It takes some getting used to, but is worth the
effort on many occasions. If you wear a wet suit you will need your weight
belt too, of course.
This method of target retrieval works very well in areas where the water is
calm, and somewhat clear, and where the trash is not piled up too badly. If
there is some sort of current, including tidal currents, that is even
better. In very cold conditions, this method is not recommended.


METAL DETECTORS IN PRIVATE INDUSTRY

I once gave a lumberman a metal detector, and it served him very well. It is
probably still serving him well. This person was a tree surgeon by trade,
and he also owned a Lucas Mill. The Lucas Mill is a portable lumber mill
made in Australia, that processes rough wood, like tree trunks and large
branches, into high quality lumber: 2x4's, 1x2's, anything you want, this
mill would make it. Easily, and fast.

The biggest problem this lumberman had was this: his saw blades were very
expensive, because they were very large, and because they had special teeth.
These teeth were easily damaged by nails in the tree trunks that he made
into lumber, so everytime the blade would hit a nail, and there were many
such nails, there went another tooth or two on the blade; when enough of the
blades teeth were shot, and it was time for a new blade, that rather
defeated a lot of the profit of making lumber.

I got him an old Bounty Hunter ALL METAL DETECTOR which I had picked up at a
flea market almost for nothing because it did not work. I replaced a bad
transistor in it, and that was that. This bounty hunter was not too good for
treasure hunting, but it sure did the job of finding nails in the tree
trunks! The nail signals in the tree trunks were circled with white or
yellow grease pencil, and it was then easy to avoid them. That was just one
good way I have seen metal detectors used in Private Industry.

Another is in Plumbing. When I was a boy, with my first metal detector, the
world famous JETCO MUSTANG, I used to hunt the schoolyard at Amelia Earhart
Elementary in Hialeah, where I went to grade school. Mr. Tyree, the janitor
there, saw me doing it one day and asked to borrow the machine. I asked my
parents if he could borrow it, because it had been a birthday gift to me
from them, and they said sure, as long as it was alright with me, and of
course it was. Mr. Tyree had such success finding lost pipes and hitherto
unlocatable water mains and such, that he had the school system spring for a
metal detector for himself to use at the school, doing his janitorial work.
He said later that was one of the most valuable tools he had ever had for
plumbing, and I know many plumbers who use the metal detector to locate
plumbing of all types.

SOME METAL DETECTING TRICKS

When attempting to get the deepest targets at a good site, go very very
slowly, and be very methodical in your movement of the coil forward. Make
sure there is only an inch or so of forward movement with each swing. This
is the best and most productive metal detecting trick I know of. I mean it.

If you are getting a good signal from your Motion-discriminator in an area
chock full o' nails or bottlecaps, which are notorious for leading the metal
detectorist astray, and even into insanity, with false signals, then check
the target signal at 180 degrees off the original swing. This means make a
square X over the target. Most times the signal will break up if it is a
nail, when you go over it at 180 degrees off the original swing. For bottle
caps the only trick I know is to burn the coil across the target FAST. If it
is a bottle cap it will usually break up the signal when you burn the coil
across it fast, whereas it is nearly impossible to make a bona-fide Good
signal break up.

Burning the coil FAST across a target in motion-discriminate-mode will many
times give you greater depth as well, and also may allow you to discern a
good target that is near a piece of iron trying to mask it. At some clean
sites like fort sites in Florida, where all the targets are worthy, the very
deepest signals will many times just cause a very indistinct wavering of the
detectors tone, like an electronic butterfly flapping its wings in your
earphones. My, thats almost poetic, hmmmmm? Sometimes I surprise even
myself...

But whatever...for these miniscule signals, a fast burn of the coil across
the target may get you a signal clear enough to warrant digging. Don't
damage the detector doing this though, and also be careful to keep the coil
as close to the ground as possible, and at a uniform distance from the
ground.

I use my transmitter receiver (TR) discriminator mode a lot, even in highly
mineralized areas, because it is unparalleled in its ability to key on round
sounds (see earlier post explaining the Round Sound). I was given permission
to hunt a trashy lot in Largo Florida once,  where three real old houses had been bulldozed.
The city official giving me permission said -- sure go ahead -- and they had
me sign an insurance waiver which I was more than happy to do (Sign
Everthing ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THOUGH!). This city official also advised me
pickings would be very slim, as it had been hit hard by another detectorist
for some weeks before me.

I went slowly and methodically with my TR circuit almost exclusively, and
found over 750 coins before 1960! Many deep silver dimes, one silver watch,
and a lot of the regular stuff you always get like costume jewelry
(Victorian!), keys, toys, and I even found a commemorative Sterling Silver
Medal of the Sherwin Williams company dated 1923, as big as a silver dollar!
I found a plethora of wheat cents, all the way back to 1909, and Indian Head
cents and barber dimes too! The detectorist before me not only missed all
that but I do not think he dug one nickel, because I found so many Indian
Head/Buffalo Nickels I got sick of them.

Not.

But I sure did found many of the things, from Almost Uncirculated, to nearly
worn flat, and everything in between. Most of the signals were tiny little
blips, but I had set the discrim so that ANY signal was diggable, and I
wasted very little time trying to figure should I dig or not. Yes, a good
memory to keep forever, and I sure did find a bunch of cool stuff too.

These few tricks will help you find a lot more fast, if you use them. Be
careful, have fun, and as always, Good Luck.

Old Bottles: They're Waiting to Be Found, Article June 1982

The Mechanics Of Surface Hunting

Oops I got wrapped up in a review I was doing last night, forgot the blog, here is another blast from the past (About the past) from my book of articles.

Ancient Lapidary Arts Florida Style

Here is another article by me from the 1980's.  Click on the pictures to get a readable version.

The Importance of Silicone Grease When Using Underwater Detectors

Underwater metal detectors are very popular today, because any virgin territory thats left for metal detecting is probably in swimming spots.  Plus there is a lot of jewelry lost by people while swimming, or around swimming areas.  This makes metal detecting in these areas very productive sometimes, and of course the metal detector manufacturers have capitalized on this occurrence.

The problem the metal detector makers ran into right away was the problem all designers and engineers run into when water and its properties are added to any functionality equation.  Water may not be all pervasive, but it is close.  This makes for some very interesting, dare we say annoying, circumstances?  Yes we certainly do dare say annoying, and perhaps we may even go so far as to use the word dastardly, if not despicable, when referring to water and its effects on electronic circuitry.  Oh yeah, we could go on and on and ON in our negative descriptions; anyone who has had experience with all this has invented a few malicious remarks of their own I am sure...this type of thing could elicit creativity-in-cursing from a dead man; suffice to say waterproofing anything is a Major PITA, and that does not mean a type of bread.

My first underwater detector leaked three times before it finally went to heaven.  All three leaks were my fault, because I did not put the unit back together as well as I should have after changing the batteries.  Another common cause of leaks is going beyond the detector housings endurance depth, meaning too deep, so that water pressure forces moisture in through the o-ring seal.  The first mistake, not putting the detector back together correctly after changing the batteries, is by far the most common of the two.  I have heard of housings getting cracked and causing leaks, but thats rare, when compared to the first two reasons.

This article is addressing the two most common leakage problems, as mentioned above.  There really is no help for a cracked detector housing/case except to replace the whole unit.  I should mention here that sometimes, if a leak is discovered quickly enough, and is caused by a bad seal, versus a cracked housing, then the interior can be rinsed and dried quickly enough to keep the circuitry from peeling or oxidizing.  You have to be quick, and remember this above all else: most things you do to any detector will void any warranty in place.  This is important.  If the warranty is already defunct, meaning it had none, or is past date, then you are ok.  With all that taken into consideration, my usual rule is this: learn your tools, it will pay off big in the long run.  Its the professional thing to do.

The best way to keep an o-ring seal from leaking is to use silicone grease on the seat and on the o-ring itself.  Lather it on generously. Use a Lot.

Heres how:  FIRST:  clean both the o-ring and the surfaces to be sealed as well as you can.  Make sure there is no dirt or grime or grit or Anything there.  Do this without fail, every time the o-ring is breached.  Then coat the O-ring with silicone grease, sold at most dive shops, and also both surfaces the o-ring will seal with.  Use even pressure when reassembling the case, then coat the outer area around the o-ring with silicone grease too.  Fill in the cracks, as it were.

This is a mess, and the stuff stinx 4 sure, but it is nothing like the headache you will encounter if the detector leaks. Take my word for it.

Fortunately my detectors are all Whites, and they took good care of me after I had that third leak, which bubbled the printed circuitry right off the board.

My bad.

I have not had a leak since employing the method above.

I sincerely hope this information prevents many metal detector leaks. Check with your detector manufacturer if you are worried about warranties and the like.  Also check out my article below on building a detecting scoop that is very easy to make, inexpensive, and works well in the water and on sand beaches.