I found an 1856 seated liberty dime in my yard with my eyes when they ran a sewer connection pipe in around 1960. I have found several 1940s silver coins with my MDs, and an 1800s crotal bell on the surface in the woods right behind the house last year. There are the remains of a model T Ford rotting away down the hill behind the back yard. Newgold, I think you are dreaming if you think there might be 900 coins in your yard. As time goes further back coins were worth more and people looked harder for them. I mean if you were working for a dollar a day and dropped a quarter, you'd be much more likely to look harder for it than if you dropped one in 1960 and making 30 dollars a day. Also, I believe children are and were a major cause of lost coins, and as you go back further in time they didn't often have any coins in their pockets. Another point is that although there may be a nice lawn there now it is likely that there was just packed dirt 90 years ago since having nice lawns is a fairly modern concept. Easier to find your lost coin on dirt than in grass. I have hunted many yards in the last forty years, many well over 100 years old, and never really found more than 10-20 coins in a yard. I do think everyone should hunt their own yards, especially beginners, since there are many nice coins and relics found in yards, and they are the best places to practice and perfect digging and covering holes so there is no sign one did so. Funny thing I have found is that when hunting old mansion yards I usually find less than hunting a more modest home site. I guess those rich folks didn't get that way by losing things. Another point about older yards is that they were often landscaped, graded, or re-sodded several times over the years, scraping away coin bearing soil, or burying coins deeper than they can easily be found. My father had the back yard here terraced and there is a couple of feet of dirt added over the original back yard where the outhouse used to be.
