Here in NY I am in an area settled in the 1600s by the Dutch and later the English. Myself and a couple friends years ago hunted a lot of Dutch colonial houses still standing and occupied since the late 1600s-early 1700s and some standing in ruins (lots of gorgeous sandstone homes here) and we never found one colonial silver coin but dozens of coppers. I also hunt an island in MA, there my friends and I find many more coppers than silvers (reales) but we have a better silver ratio there with one friend finding a pine tree shilling. I dug five small reales in MA over forty years, and two early English coins to a couple dozen mostly toasted coppers. VERY hard to find colonial silver in most places, many who have hunted for fifty years have found one or two or none. Hours spent? In the several thousands. And we dug thousands of iffy signals, there is usually tons of iron junk masking good targets in colonial sites in my experience and they often mask better targets. Discrimination is not your friend when hunting colonial. One place we hit more than a dozen colonial coppers was a house that had been used by G Washington as a headquarters where the grounds had been preserved for over 200 years, and all the coppers and buttons were 6" deep or less. I found three LC (newest 1826) and a CT colonial copper in one hole at 5" all stuck together. found a small diamond ring there, a couple colonial military buttons, two pieces of early-mid 1800s silverware, not one colonial silver coin. Remember, there were no lawns back then, mostly just packed dirt yards with some weeds, silver was easier to spot when dropped. Gotta get lucky for sure!! Hunting colonial is like anything else, he who digs the most holes finds the most good stuff. In short, don't expect to find any colonial silver at all, just be really happy if and when you do. Oh, and many excellent condition American colonial coppers are worth more than a well worn small reale.
Good luck!
