Does moisture content affect a coins depth?

[partenr]

I live in the Seattle area and I wonder if ground that is very wet most of the year results in coins sinking deeper into the ground. I'm just not finding old coins even on ground I have reason to believe should hold old coins. I find 2000 and newer coins 3 and 4 inches in the ground. If it's gone that deep in a couple years, how deep is a hundred-year old coin?

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[swingman]

I misunderstood your question...but as long as I'm here...
There are many thoeries about how coins 'burrow' into the ground. Wet soil would help that process. Some say that a coin will eventually reach its own 'density' and stop sinking.
I do know for sure, that moist soil allows your detector to detect deeper-some more than others. I figure for my Minelab, I get a ~20% increase from dry to damp soil.

 

[Eu_citzen]

Yes the detecotr will get deeper. As moister will increase the 'Halo effect' which will make it easier to detect. (if it's not in a really bad shape, then it could be discriminated NOT detected)

The depth will varrie bettwen diffrent ground conditions, sand will make it sink deep.

 

[U.K. Brian]

Dry ground is the worse for depth. A bit of damp seems to carry the signal better.
2000 year old coins can be on or near surface. Frost cracks or a cow or horse treading on a modern coin on the surface could mean it ends up a foot deep. Meanwhile a heavy rock sinking in a field displaces lighter rocks/coins etc round it and they rise in the soil.
Wet ground in theory should allow a coin to slip deeper easier but I've found that sandy soil seems to provide the least resistance especially if the coins got a bit of weight ie gold or silver rather than some of the European alloy coins that weight nothing.
Re halo....forget it for anything worth digging. Its not going to do you any favour's.

 

[wildrider]

It's my believe that coins do not sink (except in sand and water), I think they are unintentionally buried.

Take for instance a coin lost in the yard. It will generally fall among the blades of grass down to the soil level where is stays until conditions cause them to be buried. In the spring-through the fall, as you cut your lawn, the grass does the same thing the coin did...fall to the soil. In the fall and winter, the leaves fall and unless they get picked up, they are pulverized by weather conditions until they to make it to the soil level.

The grass and leaves decay and become humus or dirt and end up covering up the coin that you dropped and could not find. As years pass, the layers of decay, get thicker and thicker and your coin gets deeper and deeper.

If you bag your grass and pick your leaves up that coin will stay closer to the surface than if you don't.

I've found 150-170 year old coin and buttons here in Kentucky that were only 2-3 inches deep.

I think the reason is in these places, the people kept their yards picked up.

Burt

 

[Dimeman]

I have been to some parks where the grass areas have been kept up for alot of years, and new coins and older coins are within a 3 inch depth. I have also been to an older park that has not been kept up, with underbrush so thick ,you can hardly move around and coins are right under the fallen leaves on top of the soil.

 

[THEDUKE]

Wow guess I just learned something new, thanks

 

[Ant]

To find old coins, go to old areas where you see a scrape or old sidewalk removal. Places like old sports field being resoded or artaficial truf being installed, lawns at family home sites and the likes. Better yet, apartments and duplex produce more. I find that 5" to 7" scrapes are best.

You can also hunt in the tracks that heavy equipment leave behind, look for spots that the top soil has been ripped away. That's where you will find old coins.

HH

P.S. I got proof.