Silver! Finally!

[JeremiahEdward]

Well, according to my excel spreadsheet, I had to dig 166 plugs to finally find one piece of silver. Is that a fairly normal occurrence of silver coins?

 

[toasted]

Congrats. Im learning that nothing is normal when it comes to detecting. Ive hit spots where there were tons of wheat pennies and only a few silvers and I am now on a spot where there are more silvers than wheat pennies. Bottom line is you have to do a lot of digging at a lot of different places to find the silver.

 

[dirtdigginfool]

JE...congrats on the silver, and 166 plugs per silver..idk, just depends where you're hunting, like Toasted said, spots can vary in what they produce, my go-to spot is weird...TONS of clad (soccer facility for ten years)...and while it has coughed up a 43 Walker half, a 2? Standing quarter and a ?? Largie...ive only dug one wheat, NO Rosies or Mercs...im not sure if this site was cherry picked long ago, but I know they can't find them all, it's a 15 plus acre plot. But one thing I DO KNOW, JE...is that you cannot over-think this hobby..too many variables on place; past hunters, the addition/removal of dirt, etc..just keep on hunting and dig every solid signal, especially on older sites...nice Rosie! Ddf

 

[Tuberale]

JeremiahEdwards, it sometimes takes a village plugging and filling to find that silver. 1 of 166? That sounds about right to me.

 

[DetectingGodlikeOnOlympus]

The first silver is very special.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is your spirit animal now.

 

[ScubaDetector]

As stated, really depends on your area. You could get permission to hit a house and get silver instantly, or go to a hammered park and stumble upon silver. There is absolutely no normal in this hobby. That is part of the fun.

Yesterday after the first dive I was thinking of giving up for the day. Two lousy wheat cents. I decide one more dive. Four silvers., two gold and a few other nice finds.

You just have to get your coil over something that nobody else did. Simple!

 

[trapperart]

Congrats on the silver, you never know, just have to keep swinging at different places. The good stuff will come if you put the time in.

 

[Davers]

IMO As stated "Depends"
Not stated yet, Your part of the Country has more Silver in the Ground ie, past Population.

Most parks Here 'ATL Area' Are full of trash & Fill & the Fill is full of trash.

I many 1964 - Yards I hunt & hard to reach places in the parks , It's about 300-500 plugs ; 300 range in yards (off the beaten path) 500+ plugs in Parks.
I mostly relic hunt , but in the last 16 days I got 2 1920's Mercs & 1 War Nickel.

I find about 10 20 silver Coins a Year , Dime's Mostly.
Congratz on your first.
Keep hunting and many more will come.
GL Davers

 

[beerguy]

Yeah, sounds about right. I hate to be too superstitious, but I seem to find 'bunches' of things. For instance, I will go on a tear for rings. I will find 4 or 5 of them in a week.
I say you hit more silver in the next few hunts.

 

[Tommy G]

Location, Location, Location! Like Toasted, I've occasionally hit spots that have produced surprising amounts of silver, and others nothing but trash and clad. When calculating plugs per silver, you would have to factor in discretion. In other words, do you did every signal, or do you cherry pick? That could sway your numbers. Anyway, congrats on the first silver!

 

[Carolina Tom]

166 to 1 is not a bad ratio. As others stated, depends on the place. I have dug 40 holes and got 5 silvers at one place, and 5000 holes at another with zero to show for the effort.

If you can maintain 166:1, and dig 100 holes a day (5 day a week)... your yearly average would be 157... that's pretty dang good. My best year was 86 silver coins, so you would be almost twice as good.

You better get out there and start on those 100 holes, silver coins are awaiting!

Best of luck to you sir and congrats on the silver!

PS: Just notice that you are form Pa., best place in the US to hunt IMO.

 

[Fullstock]

When I was in elementary school back in the 1950's, every Spring for years, my school hosted a strawberry festival. In the evening they would set up booths in the school yard and sell strawberry short cake for ten cents. Back in the 80's I remembered this and went to the school thinking maybe someone dropped a silver dime or two. When I got to the area where the booths were set up, my machine went crazy and I figured, oh boy, here comes the aluminum foil and pull taps. When I dug my first plug, silver coins spilled out, I couldn't believe it. All in all I dug around $12.00 (face value) in silver coins in that area. Dimes, quarters, half dollars and even one silver dollar. Moral to the story? Talk to older people and asked them where they had picnics or festivals. You never know!

 

[Loco-Digger]

I only dug 23 silvers my 1st eight months yet the total face value for all coins dug during that time came to a little over $511. So I believe 1 in 166 seems like better odds than I had. I mostly hunted public parks, sports parks and schools. Now that I hunt mainly permissions my silver to clad have increased.

 

[Squirrel322]

The first silver is very special.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is your spirit animal now.

LOL that is some funny stuff. Thank you sir.

I guess that makes FDR is my spirit animal also

To the OP: a "spreadsheet" ?? Man, you have taken an very analytical approach. I am new enough that for all i know everyone does that... However, I suspect the most important data is gathered by swinging a coil and digging targets. I respect your dedication but I cant help but wonder if the time you spend book keeping would be better spent hunting.

Congrats on the silver. Results are hard to argue with.

Just looked at your spreadsheet, that large cent you found is awesome. If it was me, I would reconsider posting the exact location I was finding those items. I wish there were 200 year old coins in my neighborhood.

 

[tomhighland]

It's the real estate salesmans mantra, " location,location,location". You will do research that pays off quite nicely. Then you will do research that turns out to be a total bust. Then you will find something very nice with no obvious reason for it being where you found it. In truth, with this hobby success is subjective. It's what you are happy finding. It is very fun to share our finds and adventures here on t-net but there have been members in the past who get obsessed with having to outdo the next guy. They took the fun out of it for themselves. Over the course of this summer I found maybe 14 "keepers". Plenty of coins, probably pay for my detector in 4 years at that rate. In Pennsylvania you are going to find things that I cannot find here, at least I hope you do. If you do the research you will find many cool things. Just have fun and the goodies will come. Good luck! Nice Rosie by the way.

 

[A2coins]

I don't find silver most times I go out but its the thrill of it that I love if you expect to find something every time you wont enjoy the hobby.Keep pluggin away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MrBlueSkyNM]

Spreadsheets and hobbies. Cool!

 

[Trezurehunter]

Congrats on your first silver. Finding silver depends on where you are hunting. You may go to a beat up park that will net you one or two. Private property has done me well over the years. My detecting partner and myself just finished a huge yard ( 1/2 acre ) where the house was torn down. On the very first day we found 15 silvers. Hunted it 3 more times, till we were confident we found almost everything, and pulled 7 more silvers in different parts of the yard that we had not hunted the first time. 22 silvers from one yard is not a bad haul, in fact its probably the best yard I/we ever hunted.

 

[against the wind]

Thanks for the post and congrats on the silver Rosie. On average, I probably dig 100 targets per hunt. That includes trash. My best year gave me 158 silver coins with most recovered in NYC. (Location )
Also, the machine that was used is the E-trac.
The previous 2 years, I recovered 25 silver coins each year, using a different machine. I would say that the amount of time, the location, and most definitely, the detector's capabilities are all important when hunting silver coins.