hunting old coins/valuables with no metal detector

[chrissm14]

Is there any good places to look for old coins without a metal detector? Im buying a house at the end of the month and its an old Victorian row home built in 1909. Is there any areas I should focus on to find old coins or anything? Also where are some other good spots to look outside? I have a small yard and I don't mind digging it up a little if there's a certain spot I should dig at. Anyone know of some other good places to look besides my house?

 

[Jimmi]

I wouldn't go digging looking for anything , unless you had plans for putting in flower beds or something . Sometimes it's hard enough to locate a coin, when a detector lets you know the vicinity it's in , let alone guessing. If it's got a mud basement , maybe do a thorough cleaning down there .. Otherwise wait till you get a detector to dig

 

[hunter_46356]

Is there any good places to look for old coins without a metal detector? Im buying a house at the end of the month and its an old Victorian row home built in 1909. Is there any areas I should focus on to find old coins or anything? Also where are some other good spots to look outside? I have a small yard and I don't mind digging it up a little if there's a certain spot I should dig at. Anyone know of some other good places to look besides my house?

Would be kinda hard to find coins without a metal detector but I guess you could just start digging. The silver ones would pop when you found them if the ground was dry but anything else would be difficult to see if the ground was muddy and the coins were tarnished. Find a member here or a club that may be close and has a loaner detector. I bet they would love to get you started in the right direction.

 

[chrissm14]

Yeah I plan on getting a metal detector at some point but funds are kinda limited at the moment because were buying a house. I've read about looking in old cars at the junkyard for old coins and I did it once a few weeks ago at the pull a part. Didn't find any silver or anything but I found about 5 dollars in change in only a few cars, and it only cost 2 dollars to get in so I kinda made a profit haha

 

[BryanM362]

I wouldn't go digging looking for anything , unless you had plans for putting in flower beds or something . Sometimes it's hard enough to locate a coin, when a detector lets you know the vicinity it's in , let alone guessing. If it's got a mud basement , maybe do a thorough cleaning down there .. Otherwise wait till you get a detector to dig

Agree with Holly here, things are hard to find with a metal detector and a pinpointer.

One exception maybe, if you locate an old dump on the property, then you could set up a screen and start digging and screening. There is a video of a guy (Nuggetnoggin) on youtube that took out the floorboards in a really old school and started screening, and found a ton. So, if you ahve any old buildings like that, that may be an option.

 

[Muddyhandz]

I've found several old coins and relics from eye-balling river banks in the city. It was a common practice to dump garbage in the river back in the old days.
Also, they tore out sidewalks and dumped them there as well. Train your eyes to look for green metal and other shapes and I promise you will find something old and cool.
These places are so thick with iron and tin cans that a metal detector would be useless there anyway.
Plus you can find bottles, clay pipes, doll heads, marbles, beads, etc.
This all depends on whether you have any rivers in your area.
Cheers,
Dave.

 

[chrissm14]

I probably wont rip up the floors, they are mostly hardwood and recently refinished. Although there is 1 room on the 3rd floor that is unfinished, maybe I can come up with an excuse for the wife as to why I'm tearing upparts of the floor

 

[SusanMN]

Since its an old house I sure would give all of its nooks and crannies a good check. Places like the floor grates and registers, anything that items might fall behind, the corners of the attic and basement etc, behind or under built ins etc. lots of people created hiding places and sometimes things gets left behind. When I was renovating my house I pulled out a built in shoe rack and found a half roll of silver dollars, a half roll of halves, and a full roll of quarters. I posted the pics here on Tnet in 2007.

 

[CoilyGirl]

You might also do an overhead view of your house on Google maps and look for depressions in the ground where a privy or trash pit could have been.Good luck and let us know what you find.

 

[chrissm14]

All great ideas, I'm itching to start looking but we don't close on the house until the 29th. I do think there was an outhouse in the backyard at some point, there's a pipe sticking out of the ground in all the backyards in the row. The house I'm renting right now was built in 1950, but it was completely renovated so its doubtful that I can find anything here.

 

[BryanM362]

I probably wont rip up the floors, they are mostly hardwood and recently refinished. Although there is 1 room on the 3rd floor that is unfinished, maybe I can come up with an excuse for the wife as to why I'm tearing upparts of the floor

I meant any old out buildings. Not the main house.

 

[cz70pro]

Check near the fuse box, I was told people would use Indian head pennies as a fuse/breaker.Try to get a copy of the book called "search",it has all of the places people would hide/loose things around homes. Good luck.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

If your house hasn't been remodeled you may get lucky. I almost always find things behind mantles, if there is a gap on one in your place look behind it there may be something there. Another good place to look is in the cellar, if it's a dirt floor look for depressions in the dirt. Check for loose bricks etc..... If you have old windows with the iron weights in the frame you might want to open up the covers in the window frame and look in there, I've heard of things being stashed in there too.

 

[Petrie502]

Locate the original back door and from the foundation to 10ft out or so you can turn dirt over and find marbles and possibly coins!!

 

[mical66]

another option since you mentioned you will be buying a MD in the future , is go to Harbor Freight and buy one of there MD, they are cheap but will give you a idea what to do and there is a thread on here from a member that did this recently . he did not like the cheap 20 ish dollar one so ended up buying the more expensive 40 dollar one i think.
any way it would help you locate anything shallow up to around 4 inches .