Wheres the deep coins?

[olstinker]

Where's the deep coins?

I have a large schoolyard near me that I have been working pretty steady. The amount of coins in this 50+ yr. old schoolyard is amazing. There are spots where 1 swing may get 3 or 4 different signals.I have pulled over 100 coins out of this yard and have barely scratched the surface. The problem is not 1 single silver yet. The oldest coins Ive pulled are mid 60's. Do you think the newer coins near the surface are masking the older deeper coins?

 

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[ExpressJetter]

I don't know if the school was something else before, but if it's 50 years old and your finding 1960's coins, my simple math seems to think your on the oldest coins there.

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[fella]

I don't feel that 50yrs for a school is particularly old. Also, silver coins haven't been made, for circulation, in the US for 50yrs.

Im not saying they're not there, just that the numbers are against you. Plus detectors have been around for 50yrs and schools are prime hunting grounds so the goodies have been picked over the years.

Could surface coins and other trash be masking deeper older coins? Sure! But I wouldn't be betting the farm.

Keep at it. Clad spends well and who knows, maybe you'll turn up a silver.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The only way you're going to find out if the newer signals are masking older deeper ones, is to clean out an area of all clad (and even low conductors if there's a ton of them you fear might also be masking stuff). Then go back through and listen for deeper whispers.

But to be honest with you, a school that is only 50+ years old (late 1950s? early 1960s?) doesn't seem like silver should be that much deeper than the mid to early '60s memorials you're digging. I mean, if you can tell that you're getting memorials from 1959 to 1964-ish, that give evidence of having been there a long time (patina distinctly different than the 1970s memorials), then you should have the depth to get the silver and wheaties.

Maybe you're school got worked to a frazzle during the "silver rush" years of the late '70s to early '80s? A lot of guys at that time cranked the disc, and hammered any school that dated 1960 or earlier. I remember, for example, hitting a parochial school (blt. 1956-ish) near me HARD during those years. Between myself and another few guys pulled 100 to 200 silvers out of there. I have no doubt that if I went back there now, 30+ yrs. later, that I could find "100 clad" in no time, just like you. Go figure, it's had 30+ yrs. to build up a think layer of clad now.

 

[lastleg]

Schools have been hunted since metal detectors became available to the public in the late '60s. That
means the pre-1964 silvers were harvested before clads and pulltabs littered the yard you are combing.
Silver coins were common finds and not considered unusual back then. They became salable during the
silver craze when silver climbed to over $50 a troy ounce. Not to say there weren't pulltabs but fewer
of them in schoolyards.

People today can't imagine the ground they hunt has been hunted many times in the past. Many THers
concentrated on schools and city parks because they were available without restrictions. When these
were exhausted they went out in the sticks to schools long closed, It was basically a race to get to
them first.

 

[olstinker]

Im in a small town in Louisiana. I can count the metal detectors in this town on 1 hand. Im fairly positive this is almost virgin ground. Im also not keeping the clad for myself. im giving it back to the school for much needed things. The property is huge I wonder if the current building is the original.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Schools have been hunted since metal detectors became available to the public in the late '60s. That
means the pre-1964 silvers were harvested before clads and pulltabs littered the yard you are combing.
.....

Last-leg, this was very geographically specific. Yes some areas had people combing the school yards by the mid to late 1960s. But other areas still had virgin school yards till the early, or even mid 1970s. Depended on how many md'r enthusiasts were in an area. And ALSO: even if a city had some guys by the late '60s plying the school yards, those early machines were ANYTHING but efficient. Because at the advent of motion machines (the first 6000d, for example), that added an immediate 2" or so AND LOTS OF SPEED, which brought the parks and schools to life all over again.

So barring some amazing stories of the first guys to ever hit fairgrounds concession stands or something, and assuming we're talking regular turfed schools and parks, then in my opinion, the golden age of silver harvest was about 1978-ish to 1982-ish.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Im in a small town in Louisiana. I can count the metal detectors in this town on 1 hand. Im fairly positive this is almost virgin ground....

What big cities are you near? Because "back in the day" (heck, still to this day), md'rs will travel to find and hunt good sites. Like where I'm at, it wasn't unusual for us 30 yrs. ago, to drive an hour to some podunk little town JUST because we had a park there that no one else was working (or .... not working deeply or efficiently). So the fact that there's few md'rs there now, or that it's a little town, etc... , doesn't mean a whole lot.

However, with that said, since you're saying the school is only 50-ish years old, then it's going to depend. Exactly how old is it? Because if it's 1964, then sure, no hard-core hunters (not even back in the silver-rush craze) would bother with that. But if it's late 1950s, then sure, guys could indeed have hammered it for the silver. I know a guy, for example, who during a layoff from work, personally harvested well over 100 silver coins from our downtown park, in the space of 6 months. That was about 1980 and he was the first in our town to swing the 6000d. But now, if you talked to anyone who lives around that park, they'd probably tell you "no one's ever hunted that park". Why? Because md'rs avoid it like the plague now, d/t it's junky, clad-ridden, and the easies got picked off decades ago. However, that might not be a fair comparison, since this park goes back to the turn-of-century

So when you say "50+ yrs old", can you be a little more specific?

 

[olstinker]

I dont know exactly but Im going to find out when it was built. I spent an hour there this evening and picked up $7.19. Also I have the blessing of the principal to dig away. Im giving all the clad I dig back to the school to buy equipment.

 

[Dave Rishar]

Anything post-silver is still commonly circulated. I can't tell you how many 1965 quarters and dimes I find in the wash. (I've come to truly hate that year.) Don't get too caught up on the dates; instead, check the level of corrosion. It will give you a more accurate picture of how long the coin has been buried, more accurate that even the depth perhaps.

The old-timers are giving you good advice here. It's quite likely that your site hasn't been hit in a while, but it was worked hard in the past and plenty of clad has accumulated in the meantime. If enough time has passed for a lot of clad to accumulate, it's quite likely that some jewelry has as well. How much silver will a gold ring buy you?

EDIT: $7 in an HOUR? DIG THE REPEATABLE MID CONDUCTORS! Either somebody carpetbombed that field with buckets of clad recently, or else that place hasn't been touched in decades. If someone had been there and missed all that clad, they also missed the gold.

 

[olstinker]

You know what its like when you throw seeds by hand in a field? Thats how the coins are in this schoolyard. Im walking past the middle and low signals otherwise I wouldnt move 10 feet in an hour. My goal right now is to get as much clad collected by this summer to donate back to the school, so I rarely dig any signals other than dimes and quarters. Once I get it thinned out a bit then I can focus.

 

[olstinker]

According to some local friends it was built in the early to mid 50's. The silver must be down there. Im rarely getting anything deeper than 5". Could that be the issue?

 

[releventchair]

I dig a park dating back to the mid eighteen hundreds many others have worked. Still plenty of trash and whats below it? I can reach the rubble base under the topsoil in some places where the oldest coins are. My average should probably only be compared to other hunters there and that info has not been gathered beyond one other detectorist. All that to say my average is approximately one silver per each four hundred coins. They are not easy and one other hunter had similar results. Its only a guess with his finds but maybe with in a hundred coins.Not complaining ,its the nature of the particular site. Willing to bet, (a nickle?) silver is on your site also and anything above it can mask it yes. All my silver has in my detectors abilities been in the lowest reach of unit on the sites here in MI. Earphones help. So clearing targets above them matters for me. One merc last year had two nails above it but there was a tiny hint of something else that could have easily been missed.I was lucky that iffy stuff was being dug.As I tire I get lazy.

 

[JunkShopFiddler]

Hey, Mr. Olstinker, Releventchair is right on it. I hunt only nearby parks and schools and in 2013 and my average was one silver coin per every 350 coins dug, and one silver coin for every 650 holes if you include trash and junk...I usually don't expect any silver coins unless the place dates back to 1950 or before. I found a modern park that used to be a horse corral for a 1800s rail depot. No one else hunted it because it was considered too modern. I dug at least one silver coin in every trip there. get old maps of your area and find ball fields, schools, or empty lots that were built on older sites and you will be one step ahead of everyone else.

 

[olstinker]

I run my F5 with discrimation up at 60 to keep it quiet. Maybe it would go deeper in all metal mode.

 

[cudamark]

Im in a small town in Louisiana. I can count the metal detectors in this town on 1 hand. Im fairly positive this is almost virgin ground. Im also not keeping the clad for myself. im giving it back to the school for much needed things. The property is huge I wonder if the current building is the original.

If that area in not hunted much, I'd research the history and find the school site used before the current one! That site might be a REAL silver mine!

 

[scotty544]

I run my F5 with discrimation up at 60 to keep it quiet. Maybe it would go deeper in all metal mode.

It will definetly go deeper in all metal, but then you will have to deal with all the trash that u have been discriminating out. Good luck

 

[olstinker]

Tried it in all metal mode today. It hears EVERYTHING. I also hit a 9 coin hole. Yahoo.

 

[olstinker]

I may have found the original schoolhouse or a farmhouse location. Lots of low digit nail signals in a small area. I also pulled a foot long piece of iron flat rod out of that spot.

 

[BryanM362]

Because at the advent of motion machines (the first 6000d, for example), that added an immediate 2" or so AND LOTS OF SPEED, which brought the parks and schools to life all over again.

When was that Tom? The first motion machines?