Modern Influence Hypothesis

Oct 31, 2015
10
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Charleston, WV
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I have a small blog that isn't really running full steam ahead yet. I am really looking for some more topics and thoughts. I would love to interview anyone who would like to be mentioned! Like I said, it's really small now. But once it starts to grow more and more people will know about you. PM me if you are wanting to be interviewed.

As metal detecting enthusiasts we always assume that the coins we find are from the year in which a building or a piece of land was founded. Truth is, coins may have been dropped before or after that initial beginning date. What I mean by the Modern Influence Hypothesis, is that you may find a locating that has a house build around the 1890’s, but you find a coin from 1920. Sure that’s not really a “uncommon thing”, but you have to consider was that coin really dropped in that exact year it was minted? Was it really dropped in 1920? What if a person, from 1970 dropped that coin by accident. What if that coin was given to him in change and without that person realizing what he had, lost it to the ground.

It has been a question, how can we tell if that coin had been dropped exactly at the time or the “approximate time” of the land? There can be a number of things such as how many people still roam around on the property. Whether it has been mowed or plowed has a pretty good impact on how quickly coins and relics can sink into the ground. This question came up when I found a buffalo nickel at my high school that was built in 1964. How did a buffalo nickel get onto the football field? One of two things could be true.

It had once been farm land and someone from around that time had dropped it. Or someone hunted there if it was woodland.
Someone from not that long ago accidentally dropped it and did not realize what they had.

So, I used an old map overlay to show where all the old houses were at my school. It seems that no old houses or farm land was there. Option 1 could still stand though, considering someone from around that time hunted there. I think it’s safe to say modern influence helped that buffalo nickel find a nice home in the ground.

Another thought is, what if land that in considered really old, gets re-occupied my modern people once again. Those people living on the now re-occupied land drop and leave modern coins and do-dads. This I have seen happen to an old colonial house I metal detected at. Luckily I had gotten there and found most of everything before the new occupants trashed up the yard. It was sad to see the place in such shambles, but maybe one day it will be cleaned up and I can hunt it again!
Modern Influence Hypothesis | Our Travels
 

Loco-Digger

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Do me a favor and take the change out of your pocket and look at the dates. It would not be unreasonable for you to have a coin from the 1970's. Let's say a 1975 nickle for example. That coin was minted 40 years ago and is still in circulation. So to think every coin was lost in the year it was minted is more uncommon occurrence and more likely lost a decade or so later. Back in the day kids went everywhere, especially in small communities and may have dropped coins when out on an adventure or just having some good ole horseplay. I have dug silvers on properties that predate the house but I refer back to my 1st point. Coins are in circulation for up to 40 years or more unless big changes occur like when the rosie was changed from silver to clad. The house was built in 1954, so finding a 42 Merc was a reasonable find.

One house I hunted (built in the 1890's) I found plenty of coins that were minted 20 years prior to the construction. While there was one property (built in the 1850s) where I did not find a coin that was earlier than an 1863.

Knowing when a house was built helps in finding old coins. You can still find an old coin in newer developments, but that has yet to happen in my limited experience with the hobby.
 

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Dave Rishar

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I certainly hope that most detectorists aren't assuming that the date of a coin is telling them when a structure was built. That's ridiculous. The date on a coin gives us a firm date before which it couldn't have been dropped, but nothing more; a 1910 penny could not have been dropped in 1909, but it could have been dropped yesterday. People tend to go into "collector mode" when the currency changes, even a century or two back, but hoarding does not completely remove a coin from circulation, not even after decades. A friend of mine in retail saves silvers for me. They still occasionally turn up, even today. If they're still being spent, they're still being dropped. One anomalous date on a site is probably just that, an anomaly. I've joked before on this very forum about purchasing a handful of late imperial Roman grots and seeding a local park with them for chuckles. I'm sure that I'm not the first person in the world that's thought of something like this.

That coin can tell us some other things though. How deep was it? How has it weathered? What other stuff (and I think that this is particularly important) was found in the same general area with approximately the same degree of weathering? Perhaps even more importantly than that, what wasn't found that should have been found? Site analysis is one of those things that we should probably be doing more of, but as it's not fun and hobbies are generally meant to be fun, I can understand why most folks don't bother.
 

OP
OP
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Oct 31, 2015
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Another thing that happened to me was I found a wheat penny on the beach in South Carolina. It was in really good shape and only maybe 3 inches deep. I kind of thought to myself at the time that maybe this beach was old. Well, of coarse it is old! It's been around practically forever. Then another thought came to mind that maybe someone from a much sooner time dropped it. The coin was in really good shape after all. Same with a buffalo nickel that I found in the middle of a football field that was constructed in 1964. You have to think, OK, I'm in 1935, I take a hand full of change out of my pocket, what am I going to see. Will I see Liberty Head nickels? Standing Liberty Quarters? Maybe a few Indian head pennies? You have to wonder how rare and uncommon it was to find such coins around that time. My ex-girlfriend found 3 buffalo nickels, a Liberty Head nickel and a standing liberty quarter in her change at Captain D's. She said she also found a Barber quarter. Could it have been possible to get even older coins if you were in 1935, maybe some coins from the later 1800's?
 

Crappies-n-Coins

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Put this into your equation......someone has a few old coins they got say from older family members. They put them in a jar on their dresser, and their kids spot them, and take a handful to the quickie-mart for a moon pie.
 

Muddyhandz

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Why only coins? Ever look into your mother's button jar? Or what about your grandmother's button jar?
I collect buttons and have purchased many jars and almost every one of them have at least a hundred year old button(s).
Yet everyone here will claim their sites are colonial because they found a bunch of flat buttons scattered about.
How many old timers in the late 1800's were still firing musket guns? More than you would think!
Does anyone figure out that piles of refuse got spread around from cultivation or do they think their finds are all random losses?
Ever walk down the back lane and notice antiques thrown out with the trash?
How many times I've detected a site where flat buttons, musket balls, and other "colonial" artifacts come to light and the only coins were from the late 1800's.
Actually, coins are easier to date a site (or least when it was lost) based on their wear.
I've seen posts that were titled "1920's picnic site" and there's a bunch of really worn coins from the 1920's.
No sorry, that's a picnic site from the 1950's based on the wear of the coins.
I understand how the average treasure hunter has romantic notions in their head when they unearth something exciting.
The more experience one has, the more they will question their finds and won't always see things through rose-coloured glasses.
I've been guilty of that in the past!
:occasion14:
 

bigfoot1

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I have found that a reasonable method to date an old homesite is to date things like mason jar lids,milk bottles and lids.some items are just not held for long and rarely imported later.non descript bottles,make up items,creme or lotion jars etc.give me the most confidence.they style and type of canned food containers also help some especially when product id can still be read.packaging of many types was particularly time specific in many cases.

cheers
 

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diggummup

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Put this into your equation......someone has a few old coins they got say from older family members. They put them in a jar on their dresser, and their kids spot them, and take a handful to the quickie-mart for a moon pie.
Exactly. I found a steel cent once in a modern playground tot lot and it wasn't even rusted. I can guarantee you that it was a fairly fresh drop.
 

OP
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Oct 31, 2015
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Charleston, WV
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I heard a story once, I think it might have been on here actually. That someone's child went into their coin safe and took out a dozen or so silver coins. They went down to the gas station to buy some food and spent the silver coins. Luckily the clerk there knew what the coins were worth and decided to save them, only to have them bought back from the father of the child.

Those are some good points, I came up with coins because I sort of thought that would be a more simple thing to hypothesize about since the date is written on the metal, unlike some relics. Bottles and such are a good point, I would say finding a bottle dump around an old house would be a pretty good indicator on how old the house actually is. You have to consider that through out the time people lived in the house, did they throw out trash for the full extent until the owners moved on? So the house may have been built in 1888 and abandoned in 1946 leaving quite a bit of mixed trash, plus what ever trash they may have decided to throw out when they moved.
This whole post was to just get people thinking about it.
 

Crappies-n-Coins

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Exactly. I found a steel cent once in a modern playground tot lot and it wasn't even rusted. I can guarantee you that it was a fairly fresh drop.

I went to a local (newer) school Friday just for a little swing-time, knew it'd be clad...with a possibility of a piece of jewelry. Anyway I got a good signal, low and behold, laying in the grass was a '44 Wheatie.
 

pepperj

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Found an English Cartwheel at a 1895 school, the coin predated the place by a hundred years. So when was it lost? Coins can date a site when it ended it's activity and I've been to many that I'll find coinage pre a certain date and right up to the closing or demolition of the building, but no coinage dating after that date. Bottles are a hit miss in dating a homestead because the container might have been used for many years before it was tossed and it was brought to the site used, as in a sealer, or a crock, ink bottle. Buttons could and would be reused as any other useful items so it's a crap shoot to when something happened, so if it's not written down we just speculate on what sounds the best to suit our beliefs.
 

Dave Rishar

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Exactly. I found a steel cent once in a modern playground tot lot and it wasn't even rusted. I can guarantee you that it was a fairly fresh drop.

Exactly. If that steely wasn't a lump of rust, it was probably a recent drop - never mind the depth or the date. It has no connection to the age of the site.

I went to a local (newer) school Friday just for a little swing-time, knew it'd be clad...with a possibility of a piece of jewelry. Anyway I got a good signal, low and behold, laying in the grass was a '44 Wheatie.

And what condition was the wheatie in? Forget the date for a moment and focus on the circumstances of its recovery. The date means little until the condition is evaluated.

Allow me to explain. When I buy a box of pennies, there are almost always a few wheaties in there...usually from the fifties, but occasionally earlier ones, sometimes much earlier. These are coins in circulation, mind you - I got them from the bank, and the bank didn't dig them out of the ground. Wheaties are rare and inexpensive enough these days that some people will remove them from circulation when they see them, but not everyone is paying attention to their change. (My friend in retail that I mentioned earlier sorts silvers by sound, as they "clink" differently. Wheaties "clink" the same as copper cents.)

When I dig up a wheatie, I don't get too excited. The site's already old enough to produce wheaties or I probably wouldn't have gone there in the first place. What gets my attention is when there are too many wheaties. I have a rough idea of how many circulate around here based on what the bank gives me - 3 to 5 per box or so. If I dig 50 pennies and one's a wheatie, that can be and probably is an anomaly. If I dig 50 pennies and 5 are wheaties, that's probably not an anomaly. Hence the value of evaluating a site in an analytical manner.
 

Crappies-n-Coins

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It looked to me like it had been in the dirt prior to my finding it.

Image161_zpstmvvnqbg.jpg

It's my guess another MD'er had found it hunting a spot prior to hunting the school I was at, and accidentally dropped it. "Excitement" (for me) generally fades a bit the more a certain item is found, wheaties being a perfect example. I'll gladly dig them all day long, and while there's no big thrill, it certainly adds to the chance of finding something that would bring-out the "happy dance" :laughing7:

Honestly, I don't put that much time/thought into trying to figure-out when activity began on a section of ground. It either "looks" old, such as in the building(s) still standing on it, or there was some information I'd found indicating something was there before.

Sure, most of us follow the lines of "older is better", but I would hunt a 1940's or '50's site just a quick as I would an early 1800's.
 

pepperj

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It looked to me like it had been in the dirt prior to my finding it.

View attachment 1241528

It's my guess another MD'er had found it hunting a spot prior to hunting the school I was at, and accidentally dropped it. "Excitement" (for me) generally fades a bit the more a certain item is found, wheaties being a perfect example. I'll gladly dig them all day long, and while there's no big thrill, it certainly adds to the chance of finding something that would bring-out the "happy dance" :laughing7:

Honestly, I don't put that much time/thought into trying to figure-out when activity began on a section of ground. It either "looks" old, such as in the building(s) still standing on it, or there was some information I'd found indicating something was there before.

Sure, most of us follow the lines of "older is better", but I would hunt a 1940's or '50's site just a quick as I would an early 1800's.

Probably right about another finding it and dropped again, or somebody seeing it in their change and they didn't want the dirty thing thing in their pocket. :)
Don't know how long you've been swinging a machine but after decades of swinging one I have changed the type of detecting over that time and cutting down on the obvious sites and focusing on the ones that are no longer visible. The fun now is getting a site that wasn't recorded on the historical mapping system as it was gone by the time the recording happened in the 1860/70's. Gets to the point now that the vegetation is going away and in the spring it's a case of being guilty of gawking while driving looking at every rise in a field and wondering if there was activity there, or along the bush lined roads looking for stone piled or in a foundation formation. Once in a while a old section of a park can scratch an itch if needing to scratched but it's getting to be further apart.
 

Crappies-n-Coins

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Probably right about another finding it and dropped again, or somebody seeing it in their change and they didn't want the dirty thing thing in their pocket. :)
Don't know how long you've been swinging a machine but after decades of swinging one I have changed the type of detecting over that time and cutting down on the obvious sites and focusing on the ones that are no longer visible. The fun now is getting a site that wasn't recorded on the historical mapping system as it was gone by the time the recording happened in the 1860/70's. Gets to the point now that the vegetation is going away and in the spring it's a case of being guilty of gawking while driving looking at every rise in a field and wondering if there was activity there, or along the bush lined roads looking for stone piled or in a foundation formation. Once in a while a old section of a park can scratch an itch if needing to scratched but it's getting to be further apart.

About 10 years, though not much the past couple. I normally do just as you, researching and finding the less obvious spots, however a recent move has me starting-over in the way of research. I was simply at the school last week for a "fix", lol.
 

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