Why is it ...

[Heysenn]

Why is it that I can find tons of coins from 1965 through the 1970s in one area but no silver coins?

 

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[treasurehound]

Where are you hunting? If you do your research successfully then you should be finding wheats and silver. I only hunt places older than 1940 and I do a lot of research looking for maps and reading stories. Old house sites are great for finding old coins. You do need to get permission to hunt them though. Most of the parks and schools that I have hunted have always yielded some silver as well as wheats and or indian head pennies. Like I said earlier you just need to be hunting sites that are old enough to have silver there. I much prefer hunting sites that are 1800's to early 1900's. Otherwise it is a waste of my time.

 

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[jayg]

It's in the 1920's so it should produce. just have to fine tune exactly where

 

[lonewolfe]

If it were as easy as a "walk in the park" - EVERYONE would be doing it and stay with the hobby but that's not the case!

Also - don't listen to ANYone telling you to turn the disc up on the machine so that you block out pennies/etc

not unless you want to lose 1/2 the depth of the machine (and miss ALL of the gold targets)

you actually want to run the disc as low as possible to retain max depth, find gold, AND to pick up on deeper coins that may read as something other than what it really is

meaning - MOST machines will start to lose true VDI readout AND true tonal ID at around 5/6 inches -(some even less) - but after that and the deeper the coin/etc - the machine just doesn't properly ID the target (especially small targets like coins) via the high, mid, low tones and/or the visual ID meter/readout

the only ones I know that can & do hold up and ID properly to any real depth are the top 2 or 3 models made by Minelab (and especially on silver) but they're expensive AND weigh a ton

a perfect example of what I'm talking about though is - - a few days ago I found a 1911 Barber dime in a "hunted out" park - it was 6/7 inches deep - I was using a Fisher machine (1 of 4 machines that I own) and when I hit the target - it rang in MID/HIGH tone but mostly in MID and it was jumping between foil/pulltab and coin reading but mostly foil/pulltab

that's not what coins (especially silver) are supposed to do according to silver being a high conductor but that's exactly what happens when they sink below the 5/6 inch mark

that's why I love to hunt behind rookies who call places "hunted out" because when they can't find anymore HIGH tones - they label the place hunted out and move on - that's when an experienced detectorist comes in and cleans up on all the good old deep stuff :-)

 

[jayg]

thx for your info hh

 

[treasurehound]

And the deep targets are not going to be loud obvious signals. The deep silver will be a very short faint signal. And you have to swing very slowly to get the deep stuff. Sometimes when I am in an area that I know has deep stuff I will barely move my coil. Sure it takes longer to hunt but you will find the deep stuff others won't hear.

 

[Heysenn]

Thanks for all the info guys! I appreciate it!

 

[jayg]

treasurehound do you use a motion type detector?

 

[olfacere]

SusanMN hit the nail on the head. There were a lot of old timers who realised that our currency was basically turning from money into not-money. All their lives, they had always used precious metal coins as currency. In 1965, that changed and, for a few years, everyone was intentionally pulling the silver coins out of circulation. In the 60's, the mints actually had to make extra runs because people were squirreling away all the desired coins, leaving many fewer in circulation. So, basically, after the early 60's, nobody was walking around with silver coins in their pockets anymore. People still today have quarters in their pockets from 1970, but not 1960.

 

[lookindown]

If your finding wheats you should be finding silver. My AT pro reads a copper penny and a silver dime at the same number..81. My friends F75 does the same thing. Anywhere we find a lot of wheats, we find silver.

 

[foiled_again]

There's a park a block from my work that I've hit on my lunch hour, off and on, for many years. It's a miserable place to detect--rock-hard ground, pulltabs everywhere, stunted grass, little current use--but it was established in the 1920s and over the years I've found two Buffalo nickels there. There HAS to be silver but I've never found any. Don't remember if I ever got a wheatie there...probably have, but since I still find wheaties in my pocket change, I don't regard them as great indicators. Today in my desperation I was digging non-repeating targets that read in the silver range in at least one direction, in the same lawn where I found one of the Buffalos. I'm thinking (OK, hoping) these may be deep coins near the limit of detection...some of them the F5 wouldn't even try to pinpoint. Came up with what appears to be a fired bullet and a small thing that looks like a rivet from a pair of blue jeans. Tomorrow is another day. Someday I WILL find silver in that blasted park!!!

 

[Rawhide]

Maybe the area you're hunting has been previously searched by someone using a silver program. I've hunted with someone that did that. They didn't want pennies, nickels, or most of the junk metals so they just programed their machine for silver only.

Not Me. I wouldn't do that. You must have been hunting behind me.......Truthfully, you will need some virgin ground if you want to pull up coins like the tv shows. Oh, do not tell anyone when you find some, you will be surprised how many people own metal detectors. I hunt the local parks and they are hunted by many md's. But I still find plenty, and its deep 5-7". But I do have one virgin spot, a old swimming hole and man it rocks. I have not been able to get to the deep targets yet, it that good. Just got to keep swinging. You could grid a area out if you believe there is some old silver there. I try not to watch the digger shows, every now and then you'll get a good piece of info off the reality shows. But I find their finds on the questionable side. Lots of folks get detectors and cant figure out why they don't get old silver. Its simple, most of us don't, not all the time. Just get out there and keep swinging.

 

[bevo]

Iv'e found silver on the same ground that papa and his buddies "hunted out" in the 70's.