Depth

[mu50stang]

I'm new to metal detecting and have an ace 250 and a garret pinpointer. I have done about 20 hours and all I have found is clad and 2 wheats. I was wondering if its common to find silver in that amount of time. Is it possible that my detector isn't doing deep enough. I have the sensitivity set between 3-4. Everything I find is about 4 inches and above. I'm trying not to get discouraged but its hard when you don't find anything cool. One more question, I was in the back yard of a house that was built in 1914 and about 9 inches deep I found something metal that is around 12 inches by 12 inches, Is it worth digging up or should i leave it. Thanks.

 

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[m bryan]

20 hours and two wheaties is a good start! Might want to dig that 12 by 12.....you never know.

 

[Woodland Detectors]

I agree, that is really good. Keep playing

 

[Daedalus]

Just keep swinging that coil and you will find great targets !
You have to remember that you might not have even been near the targets you are looking for.
The more practice you get the better your finds will be , and it just takes time.
Even if you had a bigger more costly machine it would not mean you would have found anymore than you have.

 

[UTcoinshootR]

I started with the Ace250 too. I still wish I hadn't sold it to my buddy. I regularly got down to 6" targets with mine. One thing I have learned is that old stuff is deep. If you want silver don't dig 2" targets because its probably clad. 4"+ will be a good standard if you just want silver. You'll miss some rings with this method though.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've found seateds, reales, and even gold coins that weren't deep. Heck, I could hear them on my pinpointer before I even started digging It just depends on where you hunt. Only undisturbed turf seems to be stratified by age (the older, the generally deeper it is). But other locations don't have this: furroughed fields, old-town urban demolition sites, beaches after storm erosion, cow-pasture type terra firma, etc....

The trick to finding "anything cool", as a beginner, is to hook up with person(s) in your area, who routinely bring in the old stuff. Ie.: not just sand-box hunters, or big-talkers, but someone who actually comes in with the older stuff. Do you have a club in your area? If someone can even take you to a "gimmee" location, even if it's only '50s wheats/silver, then you'd "get the recipe" of what your machine is saying, by trading off flagged signals. See the type places they go, see how they swing, hear the type signals they are isolating, vs the ones they elect to pass, etc.....

If you have no one good in your area to shadow/watch, another option is to find areas with ample easies, to learn from simply digging 100's of targets (making mental note of sounds correlated to what you actually ended up digging, etc...). A good location for this type practice is yards of homes from the 1940s/50s. Yards this old are old enough to have silver, yet new enough to not have been hunted by others (as hardcore guys won't usually bother knocking on doors of houses this new), and new enough to be more unlikely that it is re-sodded, filled, junked out, etc.... Once you learn the sounds of easy common silver (roosies, mercs, etc...) from easy spots like this, THEN you can have a fighting chance in the hard worked parks, schools, etc....

And ultimately, you might want to upgrade from the Ace 250, if you did plan to work hard-worked parks and such. It's not a particularly deep seeker.

 

[Smudge]

90% of your finds are going to be found at a depth of 6" or less, no matter what detector you're using.

As to that 12x12 object in the ground, curiosity would have gotten the better of me by now. I'd dig it.

Who knows, it could be a iron pot lid covering a nice cache.

 

[jjg70]

Sounds like your doing pretty good. Alot has to do with area you are searching, might not be any old silver there, I thought I had my front yard cleaned out, all clad, then started to go over it again and found a liberty dime. Dig the big deep target, you might regret it if you don't, I hit a big target other day and ended up with a 30" deep hole and it was an old bucket, but I can sit back and laugh about and not wonder what it could have been

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Pay your dues. I probably find 200 clad coins for every silver. Depth is less important than looking where the silver is. ;-) I found an indian head cent exposed on a flat rock. Unfortunately the face was totally worn smooth.

Searching a 1914 house is a good start. I will note that my house is only 25 years old and I only ever found two coins there - a dime and a cent which were both from the 1980's. There are more there now - buried on my test garden. You might want to do something similar. Bury known coins at known depths and practice on them in different conditions and detector settings. You have to look where people were digging around in their pockets. Search out old fair grounds, church lots (ice cream socials & picnics), parks, circus grounds, etc.

 

[Frankn]

There's an old saying in sales that also applies to metal detecting, it goes like this." There are only 3 things that count in sales, they are, location, location, location."
Here's something else you should know. The dept reading on a metal detector is calibrated to coin size objects. That 12x12 object is much deeper than you think.
Here's something else. the national electric code calls for buried electrical cables to be 2' deep. Telephone lines are sometimes much shallower. Watch where you are digging !
Don't get discourged ! The finds improve with experience. I think my first 50 finds were round like a ring, but they all had tabs on them !!!
Frank

 

[Michigan Badger]

Depth is a subject that comes and goes from all treasure forums and sometimes doesn't go very well.

Back in the early 80's I hunted a park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that had Indian cents and Barber dimes at 3 inches and wheats at 6-8 inches depths. The thing was the oldest coins were located in the oldest part of the park where the ground was hard packed and dry. The wheats were mostly in the lower part of the park where they had filled in over more swampy ground to add to the park.

And yes, there were detectors that could go deep even way back in the early 80's.

The depth of finds is determined by the ground conditions and other factors such as floods, etc. Generally speaking, damp wet ground where your foot sinks down a little in mid July will have deep finds. The grass grows best in these areas and the sod gets thick (root systems & soft soils drive coins deep).

But in the very early days of this nation they usually gathered mostly on higher/drier ground. They didn't like having their buggy wheels sink down into soft soil nor did they enjoy wet picnic blankets and tent floors. Getting out a bit and camping was really big in the late 1800's to early 1900's. These early camp sites were later abandoned or turned into parks, trailer/tent parks, etc. Many today have buildings and paved parking lots on them but others are still virgin hunting grounds grown up with brush.

It's a myth that the longer buried the deeper. Here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ancient "Copper Culture" relics 3000 to 6000 years old are dug average about 5 inches deep. The length of time buried and weight of the object means almost nothing. It's all about weather and ground conditions. I have dug 100+ year old lead sinkers at 2 inches.

The really important thing is research and getting out there and hunting. The brand of detector used is not the big issue here.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

As all have said: you just never know. The deepest dime I've hit was at 10" and I thought I had a seated for sure. It was a 1986 Roosevelt clad that was in river silt. Rats. I've hit clad quarters at similar depths at ballfields on the local flood plains. Quite often deeper than Barber quarters.

Part of the fun of detecting. Dig it all and be frequently surprised.

 

[leatherneck]

Turn the sensitivity up as high as it will go and then back off only enough to smooth out your search tone. More sensitivity will go deeper if the soil allows. Use headphones. Good luck.