I have been detecting for 35 years and have done quite a bit of research myself. Especially for Civil War sites. My experience has shown me that no matter how hard I try and find a new spot to detect, someone has already been there in most instances. There was a park in Marine, Illinois that I went to in the late seventies. It was full of silver, really full, but you cannot detect there, they have it posted, no metal detectors. They have underground phone lines in the park. Do not go there and try because they do have a police department, besides, after 25 years I know the park has been wiped out of silver. I went there one time and did not get caught and filled my pockets with money, it was everywhere. That is a rare instance. I noticed you are using an old Whites for detecting. Some of the older White machines are better than the new machines. I just went out today with a new Minelab I bought on Ebay to a site that I have hammered, I found one mercury dime, one indian head penny, and three wheats, I was really looking for minnies, so I will be going back there again. What I am saying is that no matter how hard a site has been hunted there are still coins and artifacts there. You need patience and a good machine to get at them. I will give you some tips. Follow the old roads they may lead to riches. The Missouri Historical Society on Skinker across from Forest Park has all sorts of old maps and county histories, also, the main headquarters at St. Louis County Library in the genealogy department has many county history books. Take a ride down near new Madrid in the winter, go South toward Portageville and Point Pleasant, in the morning the fields twinkle with broken glass. There were thousands of houses down there on the old now desolate roads, every time I go down there I find old money, it is everywhere. Most people down there eyeball their finds. It is very difficult to detect the area because it is cotton country and the dirt mounds in the fields from the cotton rows are very hard to detect, but the money is there, as with other stuff. People down ther collect marbles from the fields, and some people have thousands of marbles they have eyeballed from the old house sites. Some of my Civil war sites have turned out some great coins, all from before about 1864, and all of it silver. Seems the soldiers had a lot of half dimes and dimes, have never found a indian head penny at a civil war campsite. Good luck
