I have just begun searching cellar holes. I am coming across some cool old tools....and countless square nails. Does anyone have any techniques that may be helpful in searching these areas??
Take your time and be persistent. It takes a lot of time to hunt a place like this. Looks like your digging iron which will keep you plenty busy. And it's good you're find some cool iron stuff. But, if you decide to discriminate iron out and you get into a patch of it then slow down and use very short swings of your coil to try and work in between the iron. When I start working a place I'll usually cherry pick and look for the good stuff first. Then after a few weeks of doing that I'll go back and start digging the iffy signals. Then maybe venture further out on the property. My oldest coin was found a couple hundred feet or so from the cellar hole itself. You can easily spend a year hunting one place. That where the persistence comes in.
#1. Dig every item, that way you get all the good stuff.
#2. Buy a 5 or 10 gallon bucket, and shovel in dirt into the bucket, hold or clip on chicken wire on top and sift it or dump it through the chicken wire, all your relics and coins will stay in the bucket.