Is it possible???

[TooManyHobbies]

I detected a new property yesterday, a house built in 1760-ish. Not a huge yard, but I was there for two hours. Not only did I NOT find an old coin, I didn't find ANY coins. There were enough targets that rang up as coins, that weren't, so I don't think it's been detected before. How can a property that old have NO COINS?

 

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[RJH02]

I'd like to know as well, my guess is they are deep.

I rent a house on a farm that dates back to the 1750's, there is about a 1/4 mile of stagecoach road on it and I have yet to find any coin at all on that old road.

 

[DD-777]

Like RJ said, they're probably pretty deep - or it's been "cherry-picked" over the years. Modern Miner and I have been hunting an old site that has never been hunted. Out of three trips so far, we've only unearthed one Indian and a Walking Liberty half. We basically dig everything in the hopes that we will eventually get to the coinage...

 

[neuseman]

My mom and dad live on a farm that dates back to the early 1800s. The only coins I have found there are 6 wheaties and about 60 cents in clad. There is plenty of junk in the ground.

 

[nadcarves]

Hate to tell you this, but people have been hunting for coins since the mid 50's..Just because it is old, don't mean that someone like me wasn't there in the 60's.If you find nothing, move on, there is a whole life time of digging out there.

 

[deepskyal]

I remember being a kid, which was a lot of years ago. We were a poor family and us kids would scavenge for old pop bottles to cash in for 2 cents or a nickle on the bigger bottles.
If we dropped a penny, we would search tirelesslly to find it. That was money for candy we lost.

Where I live now, I can see that same scenario was probably played out back years ago. An old mill town that has lots of company houses from the mid 1800's on up.
I detected 3 yards here, very close together and only found modern clad.

Could be circumstances just made people a lot more cautious about their precious coins.
And think about it...today, people can't be bothered to stoop over and pick up a dropped penny or even toss them like they are trash.
I was in front of a convenience store one time and probably picked up 30 cents worth of pennies around their parking lot. Guess from growin up poor I still find value in a penny.

Al

 

[oldcoon]

Farmhouse yards are among the worst places to search for coins. Years back farmers had no need to carry even a single cent on their person unless they were going to town, which was maybe one day a week. On the farm there was no reason to carry money because there was no place to spend any.

You want to find coins? Go to the city. Lots of people, lots of money, lots of it lost. Find the old houses and ask permission to hunt. I've scored rather well on old row homes and their postage stamp sized back yards. Old row homes constructed during the late 1800s or early 1900s once had busy back yards, including the little house outback or outhouse if you prefer and plenty of wash hanging activity. Couple that in with a score of children playing back there at various times over the years and you got yourself a neat little hunting ground. Keep in mind times do change that the little yard is probably going to be wall to wall junk and litter, some of it needles and vials from a chemical dependency but then nothing is ever perfect.

However probably not even one in twenty readers will have the stones to drive into the inner city and locate what were affluent neighborhoods one hundred years ago but he who does can score well. Others will stick to suburban parks, playgrounds and schools. Its all a case of how bad do you want the old silver and such.

I do advise if you do enter the lion's den in search of riches, do so under the buddy system. I mean there's no use tempting fate. Now me I go in alone but then everyone knows I'm crazy. Of course I do speak the language which is a help.

Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[Daedalus]

I agree with deepskyal for one of the reasons , when we dropped a coin we looked for it till it was found. And yes I am sure that there where some that we did not know about, but our Parents and Grand Parents went through the Depression were they looked for penny's under the porch to be able to mail a letter , and yes it was that bad ! And my Grand Parents where Doctors , although in a very rule area ! As it was said, no one had any money .

And this carried over to the later years were we were taught not to leave money we dropped . We did not waist even thought the real bad times were over . Most here at this site are not old enough to remember these days or the people who lived through them. And please this is not to say that anyone here is doing something wrong ! I get PM's by angry people who said I am insulting them lol .

Also like was said the older coins are most likely deep in the ground , I spent last weekend Detecting an old church that was heavily used from the 1840's . And everything we found was deep , as in 10 or more inches ! The only things we found up above that line was a few clad coins and iron junk that was tossed by builders who did the remodels .

So you not finding coins yet should not be taken as abnormal , and there are a few sites that I have done that we did not start finding anything in till we had gone back a few time. Why this happens I do not know . Because we use the same machines and go over the same places .

 

[TooManyHobbies]

Thanks for the replies. If I have time, I'll give it one more shot tomorrow afternoon. It just seems that in 250 yrs, someone at some time, dropped ...and lost.. a coin. I'll slow down and pay attention to the deeper signals.