dissapointing hunting spots

[OldJerseyGirl]

O.K. here goes. I am still pretty new to this, but been hunting for about 7 months and getting better and better , I think. For me, I have just now gotten permission to hunt a couple of old home sites. What a big dud for me with them. There is so much trash at these sites, and most of it iron. I get so excited thinking this is where the old stuff is. Also reading these posts with the great finds. Most of these places are so overgrown you can hardly detect. The grass is so deep and thick you cannot get your coil close to the ground. Am I doing something wrong? Should I get away from the house itself and hunt a little farther out? If it is even possible. I have found more at parks and schools than the old home sites. Have not done any fields yet as most are not harvested yet. But, I want to find some old stuff and have only found one silver Mercury dime, a 1023.
I get so excited about going to these old places can't sleep the night before, and it is always a big let down. Oh and also, I think some have been filled in, as I find cans and such pretty darn deep. I try to look around the trees and see if the dirt is pushed up around them. Anyway, I need some tips to hunt these places.

Thanks and happy hunting.

 

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[luvsdux]

Pick a small area at a time and hunt it with a smaller coil and/or resign your self to cleaning out the trash, then hunting it again looking for goodies that were masked by the trash. Often these types of places end up not being as great as we hope as money was tight in those earlier years and drops weren't as common as around picnic grounds, old parks etc. But, you never know until you give it a good try.
luvsdux

 

[Bum Luck]

Don't know about NJ, but around here guys have been MDing for maybe 40 years.

The house behind me was cleaned out by a non-discrimination machine - nothing left. Years ago, probably.

Others were cherry picked with discrimination a decade or so ago.

My best site was an obviously overlooked old playground (swings etc. still there). The newest was a shiny 1940 penny, and the coins ranged down into the early 1900s. It was near a country store, so money gravitated to it for soda and ice cream.

I suppose my take was 15 coins or so, the deepest 11" for a Merc dime. Well, there's nothing there anymore, unless new clad. I'm not going back.

I'd guess a LOT of places were gone over in the past.

 

[CoinHunterAZ]

My oldest dug coin (1876 seated dime) was found in a spot where I least expected, in the woods only a 1/4 mile from my house. So you just never know. Old house yards can be hit and miss, sometimes you hit the jackpot, other times a bust. The key is to be patient, and to keep looking for new places. Try the wooded areas at the edges of the parks, look for big trees. People like to get in the shade under a tree and drink & hanky-panky(at least it seems like they did at my old park!). I find pocket spills under the old trees.

Another tip is to research the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection for your area. This is what lead me to find my first seated coin and other old coins & relics(old wagon trail). The older maps will show the old trails and sometimes even settlements that are now long gone. I still have quite a few prospects I'm waiting to get to from off of these maps. I just need to find the time! Good luck, be patient, and do a little research. It will eventually pay off. Good Luck!

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

Dont get discouraged...When i first started detecting..I had access to 60 Acres of an Old area here in Texas, that had a homestead that was removed in the 20s....same happen with me...I went and it was so trashy, i was sorta gettign bummed out....But really...the chances are good in places like that...if they are trashy, you might want to find a small area, and sorta clean a little out at a time....I can tell you one thing thou...you have been detecting 7 months and found one silver..it took me damn ner a year before i found my first one....Dont give up hope...You should have certain times dedicated for this place..and hit the parks and less trashy areas other times.

I can tell you now, there are ALOT of people (including myself) that would love to have access to older homes.

Keep at it!!

 

[Rawhide]

People always dropping things, just got to keep swinging. I find more gold and silver in parks than I ever did prospecting. Dont have to work so hard for it either.The trashy areas need scrapped about a foot so you can get to the good stuff. The weeds just need cut, I would cut the weeds for a good spot. The old nails and tin roofs are just a bugger, I dont know any way around them except to dig. If you think things have been back filled, wait till a good rain, you will get your best depth. Good Luck.

 

[Oldbuttplate]

Not a thing in here but pull tabs and trash. That was said to me a very long time ago in a school yard. Yes pull tab hell, but I worked at it 10 feet at a time till I got all the trash out and under all that was sweet spot from 1940's to 70's. No one would get under all the trash to see what was there. It pays to take your time.

 

[wild eyed willey]

my advice, (not an expert) Pick a small spot each tine you go out to the same location and clean out the trash, then move over to some quitter sites. once you have the trashy areas clean around the house, move back through with a possible better detector. each year the machines get better and have more sensitivity.

also check around the roots of large trees and stumps.

 

[OldJerseyGirl]

Oh boy, just read my post. The dime was a 1923. Senior moment!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

old-jersey-girl, when I first started detecting (mid to late 1970s), I would hunt yards almost exclusively. Hop of my bike, pedal off to our old parts of my town, and knock on door-after-door. Got into most of them, since.... who would resist an innocent freckle faced little kid on a bike, haha. What I noticed was, that yards did vary widely in results. Some would be good, while others lame and/or junk ridden.

Here's what I would do if I were you: DON'T do the instinctive knee-jerk thing and go *only* to the oldest eye-magnet ones. Although we ALL want the older coins (who doesn't?), but .... they will by definition also have the most iron, junk, etc.... since they've had more time to accrue such things (not always, but ... just sayin ....). Instead, start with yards that date only to the 1930s/40s. Those would still be old enough to have silver, yet new enough to not be super junky.

Because if you're talking the REALLY old yards (mansions from the mid 1800s, etc...), you've got to figure that back in the earlier times, when there was no curb-side trash pickup, people would burn their trash, and bury it. Or if a rural type yard, people back in the day threw out the kitchen scraps all over the yard, to let the chicken pick at. And tractors and farm equipment parked and worked on in the yard, etc..

So instead of rushing off the utmost oldest sites to start with (seeing as how you've found only a single silver coin so far), I would start with the easier less-old sites. Get a bunch of '40s/50s losses under your belt. THEN progress on to the harder-to-work older sites. And sure, there'll be some w/not-much junk and brimming with IH's, seateds, barbers, etc... But for now, get your practice at easier-pickens-sites.

 

[SusanMN]

Disappointing hunts are just part of the hobby.. Sometimes the good stuff just isn't where you expect it to be. But then there are times that make up for it. Like when I just turned on my detector at the beach and it was right on top of the days only good find - a class ring that had been buried in that spot for nearly forty years. Or when I pulled a seated dime from a school yard that would barely produce any clad in dozens of hunts. On the other hand, in seven years hunting, I have yet to find a silver quarter. Maybe next year.

Just enjoy the hunt and the finds will follow.

 

[TNGUNS]

OldJerseyGirl, I have been in the same boat on two sites in the last couple of weeks. An old RFD Mail lock and a couple of wheats were about all they had to offer. I respect the others advice to remove the trash but the first site where I dug the pennies and lock would be easier to rent a dozer and cut off the first 3 inches. Literally can't stick a shovel in the ground without rotten cans etc. I also think both sites were little more than shacks. The second was so grown up you just couldn't hunt it. The advantage I have is many more years and some really good ones in the past to keep me motivated. Unlike most of the others who say remove it all, I am not dealing with aluminum. These rotten and corroded cans come out in about 100 pieces and it would literally be about as easy to sift it all. Keep at it and you will get a good one before long.

 

[Argentium]

Good advice so far - I'll offer a couple of suggestions - 1.) If as your avatar suggests , you are using the MXT pro - that's a fine machine - so
there's no need to go for an upgrade 2.) Try some less obvious places to detect - if you live in a dense population area like NJ. , it's a good
bet that a lot of the "low hanging fruit " has been picked . I would advise that you drive around a little , try to spot some of those older
neighborhoods with the tree lined "easements" - these are the strips of grass between the sidewalk and the curb - these are city property
not private, some may not have been hunted hard . If the old homesites you referred to are "colonial" period or even pre-Civil War for
that matter , be aware that coinage and the loss thereof was not as prevalent as we might think today - people in rural areas bartered
for goods and services - coin finds will be more common in Victorian and later sites . Most important , be patient ! continue to learn
from the veterans on this site ( I'm a newbie 9 years in ) find a buddy to go on some hunts with - Keep it Fun !!!!!

 

[Brian C.]

You want to find a site that is not in the open, the places that are easy to get to, have most likely been detected. Do some research and you will find what you are looking for.

 

[WheatbackDigger]

There may not be any older coins in the yards. Some people were dirt poor and every nickel was accounted for.. Loose change back in the day actually had spending power. Old houses can be hit or miss.