Whats the hardest coin to find?

[Monty]

What's the hardest coin to find?

For me it's nickels. On my machine they sound just like pull tabs and I haven't been able to discern the difference in the tone although some say they can. I have only found one so far and several hundred various other coins mostly clad. I think, AHA it's a nickel and sure enough , another pull tab! Foil and clad pennies sound a lot alike to me but I can tell the difference most of the time. Quarters and dimes seem to be pretty easy. But those darn nickels!

 

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[omnicognic]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

How `bout those darn steel wheaties! unless you're in all metal chances are your MD will ignore them! 8)

 

[OnionRings]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Your discrimination is to high set it so nickles produce a high tone.

Onion

 

[Lowbatts]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Apparently gold coins are the hardest to find. If you're not discing out the nicks you'll find them. Nickel however does give a softer tone than say pulltabs which fall into the nickel range on many machines.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

I have to Agree with Omnicognic, Steel cents. I'v foud 2 but they were only found , bacause they were in holes with Copper Wheats. any steel cent lost alone would most likely be bypassed. plus the 2 I found were just rusty slugs, the size of a penny, otherwise I wouldn't have even been able to ID them

 

[Monty]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

I did a quick cursory search of a vacant lot a couple of days ago. I remember from my childhood that my grandmother use to visit the folks that lived there and know the house was built in the early 1900's. It was demolished about a year ago. I found one wheatie, dated 1945 "D", a brass stove fiting and some rusty bolts. It was the first coin I found that wasn't clad and the tone I got sounded just like a clad quarter. I am still learning my machine and paying more attention to the various tones than to the screen. My machine has no volume control so the small differences in some tones are hard to distinguish. I have ordered some headphones with a volume control to see if that helps. I guess there's no way to distinguish between trash and good stuff 100% of the time on any machine. I am finding out that the operator has a lot to do with this! Still not finding any darn nickels although I know there is a ton of buffalo and indian heads out there!

 

[Detecting Fool]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Honestly, I would have to say the 20 cent piece. It was made from 1875-1878, but the 1877 and 1878 years were proof only, and the highest mintage was 1875 with just over 1 million.

Ok, so I know you did not mean it this way, but it sure would be fun to find one.

Anthony

 

[Detecting Fool]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Meant that to be 1875 S.

Anthony

 

[TORRERO]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

I'm sure that nickels are the hardest of the modern coins to find, and for me it depends a great deal where I am.
If I'm someplace with little trash, I dig most all targets, thereby getting the nickels also. But nickels are never as common
as other clad coins are, generally speaking for every nickel I dig, I might get 3-4 quarters and or dimes or 10 pennies.

Or if you want to speak about old money, Large cents are Rare, now. The 2 cent piece is Rare now, Flying Eagle cents
are Rare now. as are the Seated Liberty coins, and Bust coins.
One of the Rarest of the Rare... 1877 Indian head penny.... which can be dug, although I've never dug one.
I've dug most of the rest though but only years ago, when I was hunting in Charleston SC.

But this talk is really not fair to the New People hunting simply because the odds are almost to much to consider a new
person finding some of these without help from an old timer.

So I stick with nickels.
Richard

 

[Lowbatts]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

As much as any factor consider the number of nickels in change from any purchase mathematically. It just so happens to be the least likely coin to get in change. Followed of course by a quarter, a dime and then 1 cent coins.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

TALKING OLD ; I'd say the most lost were probably the HALF DIME & 3 cent Piece. because they were so small, they were probably dropped alot, without any Knowledge. & the Hardest to Find over all, Because of size. In? all my years I'v found 1 of each. & both bairly gave signals. in the Zinc Range.

 

[Lowbatts]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

A lot of people refuse to dig the deep zinc signals because they think they are always gonna pop a modern mem cent and no way want to go 6 or more inches for it. That's where the IH's read a lot of the time and old buttons as well. Oops, our secret's out!

 

[Jason in TN]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Gold coins are the hardest to find. I have the XLT and A DFX the XLT does not like the nickels much.
The DFX finds them no problem they will give a steady 19 to 20 on the VID on the DFX.

 

[Monty]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

I should have been clearer on my question. I realize gold coins and old coins are hardest to find but I was referring to contermporary coins....Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and probably could even omit the halves. So far I have just been coinshooting mostly for clad so I could learn my detector. I did however find the information about the other coins interesting.

 

[sal1966]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

for me it was the FUGIO. Blew that idea when one week my buddie found one. Next week i found one, different areas.So now i guess it would have to be a gold coin, such low mintages back then. besides, all the foudations i hunt seem to be in the booneys. the people seemed to be not that wealthy.

 

[Lowbatts]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Geez Sal rub it in!! A lot of us might not ever make it to likely fugio country and you make it sound like one more off the "to do" list! Great finds though for sure! But back to topic, sorry we all ran amuck Jimmileo. I go back to what I've said about nickels. They are harder to find becasue they do not end up in change in your pocket with the frequency that cents, dimes or qaurters do. Simple mathematically probability, not that I'm capable of such.... Some sites will be nickel heaven for those who don't disc them out.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

my expierence with nickels I find, As most Detectorists use High Disc.in High Cantab areas. Which means to me,( and I have to comment from my own Expierence) in hunted out places, nickels seem to be more common finds. especially hunted out( Coin Wise) but not Hunted Out Trash Wise. I hope you get what I'm trying to say? for the most part, I wish all clad was made like Canadas, so I wouldn't have to dig it. ...... Of course I take it, But , that's not what I'm after. .. I havn't had a newer coin Signal yet, that I'd say was hard to find.

 

[lonewolfe]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

I'm with Free and a few of these other guys.. The 3 cent nickels, gold $1 pieces, and 1/2 dimes (are the hardest to detect) because of size and composition. 1st of all, you need to be where you have a chance at finding any of these coins, 2nd, they will be deep (on avg.) and will NOT register strong or in the range of good sounding/signaling coins and 3rd, most detectorist run their machines to discriminate these coins out because they don't want to dig all the junk that goes with running in the settings (especially newbie detectorists)!?

As far as new era coinage, nickels because of discrimantion settings!

P.S.

I found a $1 gold piece (1862) approx. 3 yrs ago in a lake using my cz20 (but) some idiot had defaced it into a "Love token" by inscribing the obverse of the coin AND soldering a loop to it

Still a cool piece though!

I'll snap a pic and post it here soon!

 

[coinshooter]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Any of the one's you haven't found yet. 8)

 

[lonewolfe]

Re: What's the hardest coin to find?

Not trying to steal the post but, as I said I would, here's the $1 piece I found running my CZ20 in the #2 setting disc. and 7 on the sens.

P.S.

running in these settings, be prepared to dig a LOT of junk (100s and or even 1000s of pieces of junk) before finding a good piece!

It took me years and years to find a piece like this (1st and only) but, have found many gold rings, and other jewelry pieces..