Old silver and wet ground

This old piece of silver was recovered on Oak Island several years ago, it is a silver sugar or salt spoon handle from the 1700s. 
Check out the owners monogram on the front and Philadelphia silversmiths name on the back, it must have been a luxury item to own back in the day. 

I remember the morning I recovered this piece of colonial silver, it was raining cats and dogs in Nova Scotia.

Although filming of " The Curse of Oak Island" show was canceled for the day, treasure hunting was not.

I rain suited up and hit an area of the island with one of the hardest working people on Oak Island, you know who you are buddy!
Two hardcore treasure hunters ready to take advantage of the heavy rain and the opportunity the soaking wet Oak Island ground presented.

Deep coins and artifacts like this spoon handle can be detected easier in wet ground, as long as the area is not heavily mineralized or iron infested. 

Iron has a halo effect and may overwhelm a smaller conductive target in the same area. 

This is the reason I use large coils in areas containing less iron and smaller search coils in trashy iron infested areas. 

I credit the rain soaked ground that morning on Oak Island in helping me to detect the silver spoon handle, it made the deeply buried piece of silver stand out from the wet ground.

I used the same theory In England last year, searching a boggy area of a pasture I figured had probably not been searched by other people.

This superb 1604 James 1 st of Scotland silver shilling was my reward for getting muddy with my  CTX 3030.

Although both of these old pieces of silver were very deep targets, I knew the lack of iron in both areas gave me the chance of recovering something good using a large search coil in very wet inland areas.

On less mineralized lower beaches, try using large search coils in non trashy areas.

Use smaller search coils on trashy tourist type lower beaches to avoid iron masking. 
You can often take what you learn from beach hunting and put it to good use inland, especially when you have the right tools for the job.
This is also another reason why I prefer to use waterproof metal detectors and search coils, you never know when you can take advantage of an opportunity from mother nature.