100 acres...how long

MD'ing Zombie · Jun 3, 2011

come this fall when the over-growth dies off, but i have 100 acres of land that is still owned by the 97 year old man. not sure before that, might have been his father. he ran a Mill for 60+ years. and there were farms on the land. he closed the mill in like 1960 or so. I know of 4 building that were built back between 1880 and 1920 . Mostly farm house or barns. and there an old hunting cabin that was build in 1930. plus all the wooded land that is leased to a hunter club. all in all around 120 acres but 90-100 of land that can be reached.
By then I'm hoping to have a better metal detector. looking at the whites spectrum v3. but might still have my cheep coin master pro. How long would it take to give this kinda land a good going over? :dontknow:

just trying to get an idea as i will be doing this my self. can't find any other people metal detecting in the Altoona PA area

thx!

savant365 · Jun 3, 2011

It will take as long as it takes. It sounds like you will have a place to hunt for a very, very long time. I have an area about 2 acres that I keep going back to occasionally and it still gives up keepers after 4 years. Have fun and good luck :thumbsup:

HH Charlie

Tuberale · Jun 3, 2011

How long? Years/acre. And you might still be finding stuff afterwards.

Had you qualified your question with, say, a 2 cubic foot coin cache, answer would have been much different. A 2-box detector could cover 100 acres in about a month, provided you were gridding it properly.

Tom_in_CA · Jun 3, 2011

the "100 acres" wouldn't matter (as a measurement) because you won't need to hunt all those acres, border to border, anyhow. Unless you have reason to suspect persons milled around at a given location, for some reason. Because normally you/we only hunt the areas around the habitations, where people lived, ate, slept, played, worked, etc.....

You don't just necessarily hunt all acreage of a farm, simply because the farm house itself happens to be old. Perhaps in England (where 3000 yrs. of history lends itself to possible coins being just about anywhere), but not here in the USA. You hone your hunting down to just the areas of activity. No need to wander to random cow pastures, row crops, etc.... unless you had some reason to suspect there were habitations (homes, camps, picnics, or something to draw actual human activity on repeated scales) on those locations of the farm.

jerseyben · Jun 3, 2011

Tom_in_CA said:
the "100 acres" wouldn't matter (as a measurement) because you won't need to hunt all those acres, border to border, anyhow. Unless you have reason to suspect persons milled around at a given location, for some reason. Because normally you/we only hunt the areas around the habitations, where people lived, ate, slept, played, worked, etc.....

You don't just necessarily hunt all acreage of a farm, simply because the farm house itself happens to be old. Perhaps in England (where 3000 yrs. of history lends itself to possible coins being just about anywhere), but not here in the USA. You hone your hunting down to just the areas of activity. No need to wander to random cow pastures, row crops, etc.... unless you had some reason to suspect there were habitations (homes, camps, picnics, or something to draw actual human activity on repeated scales) on those locations of the farm.

I think this really depends on what part of the country he is in. Here in NJ it is not unheard of to find stuff in the most unlikely of places (where there is no direct evidence of habitation).

spartacus53 · Jun 3, 2011

Well it looks like you'll be covering that location for a long time.. Maybe you should also check the PA section and see if any members are near you. They may want to join you, and perhaps lens some expertise as well :thumbsup:

I'm with jerseyben, you never know what you're going to find, or where you'll find it

rginn · Jun 3, 2011

Yep, you can work that a long long time. Make a job of it and get technical, maybe cover the whole thing thoroughly in a month. Even so, you can still come back and find somethin you missed. Good huntin!

Terry Soloman · Jun 3, 2011

MD'ing Zombie said:
..How long would it take to give this kinda land a good going over? just trying to get an idea as i will be doing this my self. can't find any other people metal detecting in the Altoona PA area..

Just a couple of observations, and a great topic by the way! :hello2:

Speaking just mathmatically, calculating a parcel of land's acreage is done by determining the length and width, then either figuring the acres long time acres wide, or figuring the gross square footage, and dividing by the area of an acre, 43,560 sq. feet. This is pretty cool because as an old gold prospector - and now avid beach detector, I have been "gridding" acerage for 30-years. Time, loses relevance because no two parcels are alike. One particular acre may take three-weeks, the next may take three-months. My answer, is months to years.

Now, :help:

as far as not being able to "find" any metal detectorists in Altoona? :laughing7:

You'll have more "friends" than you can count willing to help you detect that land. Hell, I'll come if you let me keep the meteorites I find - :hello:

OhioDeb · Jun 3, 2011

You better get in there before the old man dies. The next owner might not be happy about you tresspassing. OhioDeb

baspinall · Jun 4, 2011

Let me know when your done. Bet there is still something there

Brian

Demon_Wolf · Jun 4, 2011

If you metal detected the premises throughly I'm guessing it would take you about 4 months depending how long you metal detect each day. A acre is 1 foot wide by 1 mile long incase you didn't know. Good Luck And Happy Hunting!!! And let us know if you find anything good.

deepskyal · Jun 4, 2011

Lets see....100 acres is 4,356,000 square feet...527,264,000 square inches..... :read2:

If your swing speed is 3 seconds each direction and it takes 4 passes over a square foot, and you can cover 3 foot with each sweep....that's 12 seconds to move 1 foot forward covering 3 square feet as you go ...if you don't get a signal...so um....you can cover 15 square feet in a minute...if you don't get a signal.....and that would um leave you....4,355,985 square feet to go. :thumbsup:

15 square feet a minute.....all told...ummm...let me see...290,400 minutes...if you don't get a signal...4840 hours...or somewhere like a total of 403 days...if you don't sleep and don't get a signal.

But I'm just guessing here. :dontknow:

Gonna take a long time if your thorough. Don't get discouraged however. With 527,264,000 square inches, the odds are pretty good there should be some stuff in the ground. :icon_pirat:

Al

Don't mind me...layed up with a terrible summer cold and bored to death on such an awesome day...

28138digger · Jun 4, 2011

deepskyal said:
Lets see....100 acres is 4,356,000 square feet...527,264,000 square inches.....

If your swing speed is 3 seconds each direction and it takes 4 passes over a square foot, and you can cover 3 foot with each sweep....that's 12 seconds to move 1 foot forward covering 3 square feet as you go ...if you don't get a signal...so um....you can cover 15 square feet in a minute...if you don't get a signal.....and that would um leave you....4,355,985 square feet to go.
15 square feet a minute.....all told...ummm...let me see...290,400 minutes...if you don't get a signal...4840 hours...or somewhere like a total of 403 days...if you don't sleep and don't get a signal.

But I'm just guessing here.

Gonna take a long time if your thorough. Don't get discouraged however. With 527,264,000 square inches, the odds are pretty good there should be some stuff in the ground.

Al

Don't mind me...layed up with a terrible summer cold and bored to death on such an awesome day...

Awesome!!!

truckinbutch · Jun 4, 2011

deepskyal said:
Lets see....100 acres is 4,356,000 square feet...527,264,000 square inches.....

If your swing speed is 3 seconds each direction and it takes 4 passes over a square foot, and you can cover 3 foot with each sweep....that's 12 seconds to move 1 foot forward covering 3 square feet as you go ...if you don't get a signal...so um....you can cover 15 square feet in a minute...if you don't get a signal.....and that would um leave you....4,355,985 square feet to go.
15 square feet a minute.....all told...ummm...let me see...290,400 minutes...if you don't get a signal...4840 hours...or somewhere like a total of 403 days...if you don't sleep and don't get a signal.

But I'm just guessing here.

Gonna take a long time if your thorough. Don't get discouraged however. With 527,264,000 square inches, the odds are pretty good there should be some stuff in the ground.

Al

Don't mind me...layed up with a terrible summer cold and bored to death on such an awesome day...

Bout the same calculation I came up with , if ya get no signal and feel the need to dig .
I got 235 acres with Native American , pre Rev War , Civil War , to contemporary habitation . Been hittin a
bit here and there for 25 years and have barely scratched the surface on a fraction of it .

LM · Jun 8, 2011

I think the more important question is, why would you want to scientifically grid out a random 100 acres and cover it all with a MD?
Unless it's a CW battlefield or there's some sort of evidence or compelling story as far as a cache being hidden, 100 rural acres isn't likely to yield much but farm implement bolts, shell casings and random garbage .

You'd definitely want to hit the area around the houses, the mill... but there will come a point when you're swinging a coil for weeks at a time in random, open spaces and finding *absolutely nothing*, because there's nothing there... and unfortunately, no real actionable prospect of ever finding anything of substance.

Some guys, this is good enough. MD'ing is exercise, a chance to get outside, less about the 'finding' and more about the 'doing. For them, great! 100 acres will keep you busy forever, but randomness is not your friend in MD'ing and this seems awfully random.

I'm in the class of MD'er who *hates* to cover the same ground twice. There are other guys who are perfectly content to wander around the same neighborhood park, swinging the same coil over the same ground for the rest of their lives. Your call, just keep your expectations reasonable.

Terry Soloman · Jun 8, 2011

LSMorgan said:
I think the more important question is, why would you want to scientifically grid out a random 100 acres and cover it all with a MD?...

Meteorites. :icon_sunny:

truckinbutch · Jun 8, 2011

Terry Soloman said:
LSMorgan said:

I think the more important question is, why would you want to scientifically grid out a random 100 acres and cover it all with a MD?...

Click to expand...

Meteorites.

In my own situation there are 7 wagon roads that cross the land , a major CW raid that swept across it , and native American habitation . The 2 feet you don't cover could be where the best find lies .

goochas · Jun 9, 2011

Pick a date, advertise it with some local MD clubs, and see who shows up. If you are willing to share your land and possible finds, I'm sure you could get a few people together to make an event out of it...

warsawdaddy · Jun 9, 2011

A mill means there is a creek/river there and that equates to habitation a long,long way back.

MD'ing Zombie · Jun 9, 2011

and not only the creek but there's a very large underground spring there too. one place where it all comes to the top. i would guess that others would have knew it was there, years before. could be wrong on that.