What Are Your Coin Ratio Numbers ?

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Like many of you, I've always kept records of the coins I've found.
I've found (200) Indians Cents and (1638) Wheat Cents.
So over time, this tells me that for every Indian I find - I've dug an average of eight Wheat's.
What numbers on different types of coins do you guy's come up with ?

 

[FreeBirdTim]

Interesting topic. I'll start with my silver quarter finds, which aren't many!

I've found 2 Barbers, 1 Standing Liberty and 8 Washingtons. So that's an 8 to 1 ratio for Washinton to SLQ, a 4 to 1 ratio for Washington to Barber and a 2 to 1 ratio for Barbers to SLQ. No doubt about it, those SLQ's are tough to find!

I'll post more coin ratios when I have some spare time later today.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

I think some people have said they dig (20) to (25) Wheat's for every Silver coin they find.

 

[malenkai]

I have 54 IH and 3500 wheaties, so we are at way different ratios. I don't like digging either, but IHs are easier to avoid, and you have to dig a few wheaties to get a read on a new site.

I watch 2 ratios which I call "efficiency ratios". The first is wheaties/silvers, which I want as low as possible (for my career it is 2.45, this year it is 1.20 (so, about 2.5 wheaties dug per silver dug over the long term)), and the second is silvers dug/total coins dug, as a %, which you want as high as possible. 5.4% for career, 11% so far this year (so, about 1 in 20 coins dug is silver over the long term).

I track all my older coins by denomination and type, for silvers I have found 1435, broken down is 10 spanish reales, 1 trime, 2 half dimes, 1088 silver dimes, 260 silver quarters, 39 silver halfs, and 35 misc (war nickels and foreign silvers). I'll leave out types for now, as the post will get way too long.

 

[brianc053]

What an interesting topic! Thank you for posting this question, as it appeals to the organized part of my brain. (Although a different part worries that anything we say on this thread might come across as boasting to some...).
My records aren't as comprehensive or precise as some of yours, but here are some statistics I can derive from 2019-2022.
By the way, I do think that different people detect in different ways, with different goals and of course in different locations. Personally I have two different types of detecting I do: park detecting (75% of my time, looking for silver) and "old site" detecting (25% of my time, looking primarily for large coppers).

With that in mind, some numbers:
- between 2019 and 2021 I found 105 silver coins, with more than 75% coming from parks. During that time I believe I found about 350 wheat pennies (about 7 rolls, including some in a book where I'm trying to collect every variety), so my ratio of silver-to-wheat is about 1-to-3.
- In 2022 I've found 17 silver coins and 53 wheat pennies, so 1-to-3.11.
> these results surprised me, as I subscribed to the "one silver per 10 wheat" rule of thumb.

- In 2021 I chronicled many visits to a virgin park with "a sidewalk to nowhere" (link at end of sentence). At a risk of sounding like a boast, and with the intent of sharing statistics, I'll say that in this park I found:
> 5 war nickels
> 21 Mercury dimes
> 21 Roosevelt silver dimes (interesting that the dimes were 50/50 Merc/Rosie with zero Barbers)
> 5 Washington silver quarters
> 1 Standing Liberty quarters
> 2 Walking Liberty halves
I think these ratios are interesting and noteworthy because I probably won't find another virgin park like this, and it gives a good cross-section of what was dropped between 1920 (park was a school) and 1990 (school closed).
Link to the chronicle: https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/another-9-yes-9-silver-coins-from-the-sidewalk-field.659944/

As for copper & nickel coins, some numbers and then a conclusion:
- 2019-2021 large coppers (various): 16
- 2019-2021 Indian Heads: 17
- 2019-2021 old nickels (buffalo, V, Shield): 15
Conclusion: while the sample size is small, this tells me I should be equally excited about finding any one of those types of coins (yet the large coppers are actually WAAYY more exciting than the nickels....)

I hope this was interesting to someone, and thank you E-Trac for the chance to share some stats.
- Brian

 

[FreeBirdTim]

I have 54 IH and 3500 wheaties, so we are at way different ratios.

Wow, that's about a 65 to 1 ratio! I think mine is closer to 15 to 1. I've found 55 IHC's, but not sure on my total wheaties. Definitely less than 1,000, though. I do hunt older sites in the woods most of the time, so that probably skews the results.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

Okay, one more for now. Silver dime finds:

2 Seated, 7 Barbers, 32 Mercs and 15 Rosies.

I can understand the low number of Seated and Barbers, but didn't realize how few silver Rosies I've found. Mercs did have very large mintages, so maybe that's the reason for the much higher number compared to Rosies.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

It seems like a lot of people find more Mercury Dimes than silver Roosevelt Dimes.
You'd think it would be the other way around.
I've found (94) silver Rosie's and (143) Merc's.