Depth Of Older Coin Finds

[PaulP_WestKY]

My last silver was a 1923 Merc found at an old school at a depth of only 4"-5". I'm thinking about the relationship between depth and the age of older coin finds. In your experience, what is the average depth of your older coins?

HH

Paul P.

 

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[Old Town]

Coins before 1950 are usually at or deeper than 6 inches in Key West parks and vacant lots. Our soil is course and fluffy. Stuff falls through it quickly.

OT

 

[U.K. Brian]

There's no real relationship. Thousand year old coin can be on or near the surface and a new coin a foot down.

Put a large rock on a lawn and as it sinks due to its weight v surface area. Smaller items round the sinking rock get forced up towards the surface.
Worm action/moles turns soil over all the time. Have a hard frost where the ground cracks and a coin can be dropped and go straight down several inches. On pasture after rain if a cow treads on a place where a coin is surface surface or a few inches down the weight pushes the coin down even further.

Wind and erosion cut soil away making it easier to get to deep items but the soil is moved on to another spot making things more difficult there.

 

[Swartzie]

I have six coins from the 1800's. The deepest was probably five inches. Most were 1-3 inches. Had an 1808 spanish reale about two inches deep. But, these were dug in the woods. Around here stuff doesn't go very deep in the woods. Several flat buttons have also been found within five inches. In grassy areas stuff for me is deeper. Deepest (in a park) was a mercury dime around eight inches. Of the 18 mercury dimes I have dug (in a park), most were in the 4-5 inch range. Well within reach of the Ace 250 used to find them. I need to take the Tejon to the same park and see if there are deeper coins. My problem is I just can't seem to get my butt out of the woods.

-Swartzie

 

[chkn]

This is a great question (especially since I haven't found any silver coins yet).