mid 1800s homesteads

[shvlnflds]

mid 1800's homesteads

I've searched about five different old homes in the past 2 years and found a 2 cent piece and a couple of coat buttons. Didn't people back then have anything to lose?What I mean is I thought that I would've found a little more than old nails.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

every home/habitation site is different. When it comes to mid 1800s and earlier (so nixing later and modern coins out of the equation for a moment), it's hit and miss. No, you will probably not ever find a home-site to give up dozens upons hundreds of mid 1800's coins. But I can show you scores of homes that will give up 100 or more clad coins, and even dozens of wheaties and some mercs thrown in. But for the earlier coins, most of us are happy if an old cellar hole or whatever turns up 3 or 4 of the nicer earlier coins. And yes, some will produce nothing. Perhaps you are not the first one to hunt the site, and someone(s) else came and picked off all the gimmee-easy signals? Or perhaps it was simply not a prolifically active home, and you'll eventually end up on the "6th homesite" that produces better

Actually, solo-family homestead sites, in my opinion, are not the better coin-producing sites to begin with. You're always better off where money changed hands, and travellers came and went from. Things like stage stops, saloons, camp-sites, forts, or other such places where multiple people/travellers/shoppers came and went, will always have better coin ratios, than a singular home habitation site will. Home sites will have a higher percentage of home-type debri (old lantern parts, household gadget stuff, etc....), and less coin-ratios.

 

[shvlnflds]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

Thanks TOM in CA that was a well defined answer. An old blacksmith shop is the only place that I hunted even close to what you're describing.

 

[mainer]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

A lot of old homes if there still standing, I have found had some fill dirt brought in at some point or another. Atleast thats what I have noticed here. Not all but some. Those sites are hard to get the old stuff as they are covered up. Some old homes are good and some are bad, but for the most part I can usualy coax atleast 1 coin from any old homesite. There's only one old cellar hole that I can think of that I have not dug a coin out of. And that place has given up over 30 buttons and other relics. There there just need patience and the biggest thing I think is you have to put your time in. Good luck.

 

[TORRERO]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

I would also never forget that Metal Detecting is going on it's 40th or more Birthday...
and sites I hunted 20 years ago, someone today may very well believe has never been hunted...
They just won't find much...
My personal opinion, is that in the OLD DAYS... most things that were meant to last a long time
were made of metal,
Nails, coins, buttons, buckles, work related items, horse shoes, chains, tags, rings,
you name it, the list goes on and on...
If you go somewhere you think is new, and you find little or nothing, no mater how remote you may
believe it is....
it may already have been hunted years ago, and you are picking up the sloppy seconds..
The few places I have hunted (very few) that I believe were actually unhunted produced
signals on top of signals, many with one good signal and another even deeper in the same hole.
So much so that it seemed as if I swung the machine got a signal, swing again and there was another.
So If you it were me.... and I found only 1 coin and 2 -3 buttons...
I just chalk it up as someone else was there before me...
That's just me...

 

[shvlnflds]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

All of these places that I have found are in fields and there is nothing left of the house except for what's in the ground. I'm betting on whatever they lost was around the house,because the cellar hole is filled in. I ask if people ever asked to metal detect there and they said no.Almost all of these people lived there before there were metal detectors. These property owners never even knew that there were old homes there until I told them about it. I wish I could find these old homes in the woods instead of the fields,it would be less disturbed and not filled in with dirt.

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

My collection of Spanish Reale's and large deep silver coins I've dug made a very faint "ping" noise with the first initial sweep. Most guys would think it would be a square nail. I was digging with a friend last year who purchased an etrac from me. I was training him how to use it when I swept over a sound just like it. His setting were Identical to mine and he had no clue. First, he was swinging uneven and too fast and second, he wasn't listening.
Dig it all.

Plus. It depends where you are looking too.
If your searching near fields you have to remember. Back in the day, on farms, people went to work.
They didn't stuff their pockets full of gold coins for good luck just to spill them in the corn or cotton fields.

I guarantee
you there are coins at one of those site you have detected.
You just have to hold yer mouth rite when your huntin!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re: mid 1800's homesteads

pawinground, torrero is right. You'd be surprised how many spots were hit in yesteryear (whether or not the current owners knows or remembers). This is especially true if you're in a geographic zone where there were no shortage of md'rs in the '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s. If you put a bunch of good hunters in any area of the USA, and they do their homework (study old maps, history books, talk to old-timers, etc...) they will find and hunt sites.

Let me give you an example:

1) In the mid 1970s, as a young teenager, I took my trusty Whites 66TR to an old home, and knocked on the door. An elderly man told me "sure, go ahead". I got some clad, and a few wheats (the machine didn't reach that deep).

2) A few years later, in the late 1970s, I was the proud owner of a TR discriminator (ground breaking for their time!). I wanted to try some spots, to compare it to my older machine, so I purposefully went to places where I could compare to what I knew I'd already worked. So I went to that same old house. This time an elderly lady answered the door (apparently the wife of the elderly man who'd answered a few years earlier). She said "Go ahead, no one's ever hunted it before" (I didn't bother correcting her). I got a few more clad, and a few more oldies.

3) Flash forward to the very early 1980s, and I was the proud owner of a fast sweep VLF discriminator (ground breaking for their time!). Again, I wanted to see how it stacked up to my old machines, so again, I took it to that same home. This time, a young lady answers the door. She says "go ahead, we're liquidating our mom & dad's estate, since we've put them in a rest home. I'm sure they won't mind. And you might do good, since no one's ever detected here before" Doh! (In her mind, I suppose "mom and dad would have told me if anyone ever tried that here", eh?) This time I found two more oldies.

4) Flash forward to when I got my explorer about 5 yrs. ago. Again I wanted to try it at a place where I figured I'd totally worked it out, to see how it compared. Again I went to that SAME house. This time a man answered the door (the latest owner). He says "sure, go ahead. No one's ever done that here before" Doh! (btw, I didn't get anything else old this time, haha)

See how that works? There's just so many ways that the current owner will insist "no one's ever hunted this before", but they just don't know. Perhaps a renter from decades ago said "go ahead". Or perhaps the ranch foreman a decade or two ago told his kid brother "go ahead". Or quite frankly, perhaps people just did it, and didn't ask.