Could old detectors cherry pick silver?

[Eleven Cents]

When people talk about public parks being hunted out, they sometimes say it happened in the '70s or '80s. Could detectors of that era discriminate between copper and silver?

I've found lots of wheaties and some pre-1965 Mexican coins in "hunted out" parks, but no silver. If people dropped pennies and dimes in the same ratio 60+ years ago, I should have found a few Mercs or silver Rosies by now. Just bad luck, or did someone probably get 'em? (Of course, a dime was worth a lot more 60 years ago... so maybe people were more likely to crawl around in the grass and look for their dropped change.)

On a related note, did people start hoarding silver coins immediately in 1965?

 

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[Ogre1190]

I could never get the hang of it, but I'll to you this...my Mentor used an old Whites 5000D til the day he passed, and he could call the difference between clad and silver about 90% of the time. I saw him do it 100's of times. I just never had the ear-to-brain finesse that he had, I guess. Oh...and he'd always be within a half inch of his depth estimate, too. R.I.P. Tom.

 

[SD51]

Here's my two cents... started detecting in the 70's with a Garrett Groundhog. I didn't discriminate between copper and silver and couldn't tell the difference between them. I would set the discrimination dial to accept pulltabs, rings and coins and after digging a pouch full of pulltabs, I'd increase the discrimination to reject the pulltabs. Yes, there were silver coins everywhere, especially when I would detect in a untouched park. Back then, the digging tool was a screwdriver because the detectors didn't have the depth capability of today.

In my opinion, no park is hunted out. Last year, I worked a very small section of a park where people would have parked their cars in the 50s. I used my 8x6 coil and detected at a snails pace and listened to every single signal. I pulled a silver Washington quarter that was next to a pulltab. It was only down 3 inches. You will still pull silver out of trashy areas by using a smaller coil and by going slow. DO NOT TRY to cover an area the size of a football field. Work a very small area as thoroughly as possible.

I was in junior high school in 1965, and Yes, the silver coins disappeared as soon as the clad dimes and quarters were in circulation.

 

[Timecop67]

Had an early Teknetics 8500.....made in the late 80s. It wasn't mass produced by the current First Texas and it was a detector ahead of it's time. I could tell with great probability that object was going to be silver and could usually cherry pick yards with it being a 4 filter machine. As far as depth....found silver dimes at 6 inches and half dollars at 10++ on edge....due to the Halo effect over long periods of time. Wish I still had that machine but new coils would be non existent at this stage. Later they produced the Mark I and they sped up recovery speed.....but harder to pick out different tones from faster beeps. I hunted by tones alone.....try that on an Equinox!....your going to be digging a lot more signals and relying on the poor VDI compressed range for target I.D......but of course you have multi frequency and does do good around iron from what I hear.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

When people talk about public parks being hunted out, they sometimes say it happened in the '70s or '80s. Could detectors of that era discriminate between copper and silver?

I've found lots of wheaties and some pre-1965 Mexican coins in "hunted out" parks, but no silver. If people dropped pennies and dimes in the same ratio 60+ years ago, I should have found a few Mercs or silver Rosies by now. Just bad luck, or did someone probably get 'em? (Of course, a dime was worth a lot more 60 years ago... so maybe people were more likely to crawl around in the grass and look for their dropped change.)

On a related note, did people start hoarding silver coins immediately in 1965?

No. We could not tell the difference between copper penny vs silver dime.

When TID got introduced (Teknetics, then whites, etc...) was about 1983. And popular usage by the mid 1980s. And ... yes ... a silver dime reads *slightly* higher than a copper penny. But in practical application: No. No one was going out and leaving copper pennies while *only* digging the silver. The difference was just too close to call. You might toy with the signals guessing copper vs silver (just like we do today), but ... no ... it didn't dictate the dig decision.

 

[Terry Soloman]

When people talk about public parks being hunted out, they sometimes say it happened in the '70s or '80s. Could detectors of that era discriminate between copper and silver?

I've found lots of wheaties and some pre-1965 Mexican coins in "hunted out" parks, but no silver. If people dropped pennies and dimes in the same ratio 60+ years ago, I should have found a few Mercs or silver Rosies by now. Just bad luck, or did someone probably get 'em? (Of course, a dime was worth a lot more 60 years ago... so maybe people were more likely to crawl around in the grass and look for their dropped change.)

On a related note, did people start hoarding silver coins immediately in 1965?

The reason some folks say silver was hunted out in the '70s and '80s, is because we found so much of it during that 10-year period. No one had detected these areas before, and from 1975 - 1985, machines advanced along with the popularity of the hobby. Machines today are like a magic wand by comparison, so we are STILL finding silver and a lot more deep coppers!

Did people start hoarding silver in 1965? Yes.

 

[halfstep]

There use to be a metal detector store in the city I was born and raised. It was called "The Treasure Hut" located in Poplar Bluff, MO. My dad was a self employed carpenter/painter and he done some work for the owner of the shop. This was in the last 70's. As part of the payment, my dad got a metal detector. I believe it was a Garrett. The owner of the shop showed my dad all the things he has found. It was a rather large collection. I go metal detecting in some of the parks at Poplar bluff. I live about 30 miles west of there but find time to go. Last week, my wife and I went to one of the older parks several times. I found a nice 24" silver necklace/chain, a silver ring, a gold plated ring and a fair amount of clad including 2 Wheaties. My wife found some clad as well. But as far as silver coins, I haven't found any yet. I scouted around the park in search for some hidden silver but no luck as of yet. I believe that shop owner has probably cleaned up most of the silver out of that park back in the 70's and 80's. I am hoping my ctx can find some silver that he couldn't detect. It appears that the park isn't being detected much theses days for I have found lots of clad that has been there for a while. I did see a few recent holes from a detectorist but apparently he isn't very good at it. I found a shallow quarter a foot from one of his holes and he doesn't cover his holes very well. I'll go back to the park some more for at least it is producing some easy clad and hope I can run across some silver along the way.

 

[worldtalker]

The reason some folks say silver was hunted out in the '70s and '80s, is because we found so much of it during that 10-year period. No one had detected these areas before, and from 1975 - 1985, machines advanced along with the popularity of the hobby. Machines today are like a magic wand by comparison, so we are STILL finding silver and a lot more deep coppers!

Did people start hoarding silver in 1965? Yes.

Those sure were the days virgin spots produced silver quite frequently..hit MANY of them..wish I had that silver today too.

 

[One_more_hole]

Hello Eleven. All of the public parks and schools today seem to have been 90% cleaned of silver coins decades ago. It’s very difficult to find good stuff in these pounded places but some do remain in the ground. The ones that survived the cherry picking 70’s and early 80’s are either masked by junk, under tree roots, in hard-to-get-to places like under bushes and in nearby woods. Backfilling and landscaping over the years covered a lot up as well. I had a Jetco Mustang 30 when I was a kid in the 70’s. It had a single knob for ground balance... no discrimination and wasn’t very deep. I used to find silver with it!

 

[ToddsPoint]

I bought a White's 5000D in '82. Still have it but it's retired. I hunted parks and boulevards in town. I found more pennies than anything. I dug both copper and silver. Silver was not all that easy to find back then in my town. Gary

 

[gunsil]

We didn't need a discriminator to clean out the silver. It was simple, we cleaned out everything. Never missed a target due to iron masking, we dug EVERY signal. My 1970 Garrett BFO was no slouch on depth either, that is a myth perpetrated by folks who never used these early machines. I found plenty of dimes down to 8" and in most undisturbed soil most coins are still found in the top 6". After many hours we could get a good idea of the target by the way the BFO would "scream", but by digging all signals no coins were missed. I now have modern machines and find less because less is left in many areas to find. I still dig more holes than many no matter what the TID says or what sounds I hear. Metal detecting is simple: he who digs the most holes finds the most cool stuff. Period. Many people these days are so into discrimination and hurrying around they leave good stuff in the ground. I have gone back to those school yards and church grounds which were virgin back then as new technology came around and I found very little that was missed by those old BFOs. I have met guys from adjacent counties who marvel at the fact they found so little at this or that ancient park and when I tell them we hit said park in 1971 with those early machines and they have a hard time believing how well we cleaned them out. Patience was the byword then, still is to me. Thing that really bugs me is all the trash that has been laid down in the last forty years. There were no pull tabs and no aluminum screw-on bottle caps which now litter many of the old school grounds. Rusty bottle caps were a pain, but patience prevailed and good stuff was found. I think if one finds wheaties and no silver the site was likely hit in the last 20 years with good discriminators, not by guys with the early beep and dig machines. Folks complain about modern machines having a hard time with gold chains, they were no problem for a BFO, they sounded out loud and were dug. Might just get my old BFO fixed and try it again just for yuks!