Musing about MD-ing.

[Immy]

I first thought about this when I learned about detecting as a young coin collector -

Take any obsolete coin series, such as Indian cents, and you can say there are X number in the ground waiting to be found. Well, everytime one is dug up, there's one less. That sounds simplistic, but think about it - every time an obsolete coin is found there are fewer left and no one loses Indian cents anymore. You'd think the supply of older, lost coins would be exhausted but more and more are always dug up. And it's been this way for decades with no sign of abating! Can you imagine the billions of coins that must be underground worldwide??

As a 30+ year collector I often wonder where the millions upon millions of unaccounted-for older coins are. Judging by the finds on these boards the answer is probably "in the ground."

This might sound like novice thinking but I'd really like some thoughts on this.

 

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[hollowpointred]

i dont think they will ever be all accouted for! we just have to adjust our thinking on the places we go to hunt.there really must be billions of old coins out there waiting to be found. i often wonder how many of them are just too deep to be detected with the current technology?

 

[Immy]

Right, red!

And how many are under permanently paved city areas? Untold millions more that will probably never be found. If I was a city worker digging up streets I'd have my MD in my truck with me!

 

[gregl01]

Hi, I read an article somewhere that stated there is probably as many coins in the ground waiting to be found as there are coins in circulation at any given time. I'm not sure ow this was calculated. I will have to try to find thatr article!
hh
Greg

 

[Sandman]

When I started detecting many years ago I tried this movie drive-in not far from me. It's closed now waiting for a buyer for the land. However the lot where dad parked his car is paved with asphalt. It was just gravel years ago when we went there. I found many coins were under the asphalt and some read as dime or higher on my ID. All I got were some wheaties from in front of the projector booth.

Just finding them anywhere is fun.