So where is all the old stuff, and how does new stuff get so deep?

[Groovedymond]

Hello All,

So, i'm still new at this, but have had pretty decent success for this past week. Over $4.00 in clad. My only problem is that a few spots that I visited SHOULD have produced something old... yet it was all modern. I'm beginning to wonder... when you find something old, how deep is it? Perhaps my no-name detector isn't strong enough to find the deep stuff?

ALSO... how in the H*LL does a 2003 quarter end up at 2 inches down in the park? I mean.... if a coin drops 1/2" per year into the ground, that tells me that a merc should be at what... 9 feet!??!? lol

 

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[bakergeol]

I think most people will tell you that coin depths here in the US vary from site to site in undisturbed soil. Just look at all the incredible finds made back in the 60's with the depth limited BFOs. It is just a question of stable versus unstable soil. Finding recent clad coinage 10" in unstable Florida sandy soil is par for the course. Whereas some stable soil areas you may find 100 year old coins at a inch of two.
Personally I found areas in which coin depths varied at each site according to where it was dropped. Originally I recovered old coins right on the surface in gravel or cinder areas which were stable soil areas. But the prime grassy areas I drew a blank. Later when deeper detectors came out I revisited the site and recovered coins from these grassy areas that had sunk deep and were too deep for my old detector.

George

 

[Weasel_Loader]

I asked this same question on another forum and it's basically what George said.

I'm constantly amazed at how deep and two year old clad coin can get. My problem is that I need to learn the deep signals better on my Minelab SE. The silver in my favorite hunting ground is at least six inches and more. Very difficult to pick out for me right now without digging up all the zincolns.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

You might want to find/explore different hunt sites. Different soil types, moistures, etc... can affect how deep coins are. But limiiting the question to just the spot you are presently hunting: Don't assume that the sinkage (or whatever you want to call it) rate is "constant". As the coin goes deeper, the sink rate slows. Once it is beyond the roots level (a few inches?), it slows. Otherwise, YES, logic would dictate that stuff from the '40s would be several feet deep!

What you will find though, once you start hitting the oldies, is that '40s losses might be at 6-ish inches, and '20s losses at 7-ish inches. You can see how the sink rate slowed for that 20 yr period (this is just a rough example of a typical turfed park, as I see many of them here).

But again, I've dug a lot of 1800s, and even 1700s coins, that were only a few inches deep. If you are in a deserty hard-pan soil country type landscape, old coins needn't necessarily be very deep. Or ........to the extent they may be a few inches, clad may be only .05" in that locale!

 

[Rob66]

It all depends...

 

[Weasel_Loader]

I think your right Tom. My present hunt area was built in the early 50s, which does not give me as large of silver window as some others that I could be hitting. I'm taking a trip next weekend into LA to visit my folks and I just might hit the local park that I practically spent my summers in growing up. It was a golf course built in the very early 20th century and a small section of the course was preserved for a park in the mid-late 40s.

 

[Ant]

I agree with Tom too.

I can add this:
Form my experience I have found that after a location has been hunted out it becomes viable again after the surfaced soil matrix is disturbed. By disturbed I mean the surface matrix being moved about or mixed. This normally occurs when construction equipment or dozer actively is in the area, not necessarily by scrape, but scraping gives the best results.

I think this is do to the surface minerals being classified into layer by hydraulic (water) action, not to mention the masking effect.

 

[watercolor]

As everyone has suggested, the climate & composition (vegetation, rock, clay, etc.) within each of the soil
layers in the matrix will have an affect your target depth.

However, one variable that an "old-timer" once clued me in on was there are many sites (both old and new)
that may have had dirt fill "trucked in" for new landscaping, elevation changes, etc. and who knows what
"goodies" may have been along for the ride. Just keep at it, you'll be finding things when least expected

Take care & HH!
watercolor

 

[goldencoin]

ditto, i can MD a 100 year old church with nothing, then 1 BLOCK DOWN i'm able to find barbers and seateds at 5 inches. Even on other sides of the yard- one side only a wheat and the other 5 silver coins. It all depends on what the soil is doing and the only way to do it is to cover it all and stick it out

HH
-GC