White's Treasuremaster - am I doing something wrong?

[Sir Publius]

I'm brand new to metal detecting. I bought a White's Treasuremaster a few days ago, and have used it for a two days straight on my folks old farmstead from 1840. I've been looking for coins and haven't found ONE!!!! I've found a few old axe heads, old hammer, a button, few ammo casings, part of a an old pioneer stove, lots of chunks of steel/farm machinery pieces, lot of old and current pipes (water/electrical etc.), a lot of coke cans, pull tabs, some bottle caps, and lots of other trash, but not ONE...ONE coin!

I have my Treasuremaster set on the coins and jewelry mode, at mid sensitivity, maybe a little past mid, and the discrimination default only is set to block out iron. I don't know too much about metal detectors, but this baby does seem to go DEEP. I've dug quite a few holes where it seemed a foot or more where the item was in fact. So I know it goes deeper than needed for most coins.

I've also tested it with silver coins and quarters and stuff on the the surface to see where it was hitting, the sound, make sure it was picking them up etc., and it did, so it seems like it works fine....but no coins...nada...over 20 acres of land...1840's farmstead...and no coins??!! Looked immediately around the house in the yard, front, back, side, by large old trees, by the old outhouse, places like that. What am I doing wrong? I mean, there has to be SOME coins on such in inordinately old farmstead, right? Pretty sure no one else has detected it considering the property and what I've been finding. Any thoughts/tips?

 

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[Rogue Relic Hunter]

I have hunted places like that and not found coins also. if you are digging the signals and checking your holes, i say prob no coins. remember also, you think you are covering more area than you are. check near the house or structures of that type if u can, along the driveway, or walkways, etc. check it well. when you find your 1st, you will find others, i bet on it.

hang in there. if this hobby were easy, democrats would be out there doing it!

 

[Rogue Relic Hunter]

also, bury some coins, mark the spots and go over them. bet your detector is working fine.

 

[Sir Publius]

also, bury some coins, mark the spots and go over them. bet your detector is working fine.

Ya, I thought of that yesterday and was gonna do that very thing today, and got side-tracked with mowing the back field. Next time I dig a nice plug that doesn't all fall apart I'm gonna put a seated half by itself, then maybe a morgan to see what they sound like. Also, someone from another forum where I just posted the same question said maybe I should try opening it up and turning off the iron discrimination to see if I can find coins inside areas that might be ringing off as iron. Maybe there's a lot of iron where I'm at? Think I'll try doing both of those things for starters. Thanks.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Ahhh grasshopper, the problem you speak of has frequented many a metal detector. Location is everything, followed by S-L-O-W-I-N-G your S-W-I-N-G Speed! Just keep putting time in on your headphones, using and honing the B-A-S-I-C skills, like keeping your coil as low and flat against the ground as you can while SLOWLY overlapping your swings.

No mystery or tricks to learn. If you put your coil over it and know what you're hearing - You'll find it!

 

[smokeythecat]

A lot of times the big trash covered the coins. Once the metallic remains are gone, the coins can show up. I was working a colonial farm lately and finally got 2 colonial buttons and 1 musket ball after digging 500 million discarded aluminum cans, pieces of iron and other stuff. After I got the big stuff out, the coins were simply not there. The people who owned the property apparently did not have much money.

 

[Chug And Red]

Ahhh grasshopper, the problem you speak of has frequented many a metal detector. Location is everything, followed by S-L-O-W-I-N-G your S-W-I-N-G Speed! Just keep putting time in on your headphones, using and honing the B-A-S-I-C skills, like keeping your coil as low and flat against the ground as you can while SLOWLY overlapping your swingNo mystery or tricks to learn. If you put your coil over it and know what you're hearing - You'll find it!

What terry Said I have Slowed Way Down and Am Digging Deeper Slowed Down Because of Medical Problems With My Arm But the Finds Are Better And More Frequent Swing Slow Dig More Less Joint Problems Reds Getting Excited We get To Go Hunting This Weekend No Rain

 

[Liu21]

Take your time, if people find nice coins/treasure on their first day out, everyone would be out swinging looking for treasure. Lol, you gotta work for it. I didn't get my first silver coin till 2months after I started metal detecting...

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... lots of chunks of steel/farm machinery pieces, lot of old and current pipes (water/electrical etc.), a lot of coke cans, pull tabs, some bottle caps, and lots of other trash, but not ONE...ONE coin! ....

I hate to be a kill-joy, but I'll do it: Currently lived-in old country farm yards (no matter how old) can SUCK for coin-hunting. Because think of it: the list of junk items you cite in your post are oh-so-true of a lot of country farm yards. Go figure that even up to the 1950s (or even to the present?) they don't have curb-side trash service. Unlike residential in-city homes that had curb-side trash service starting way-back-when. So guess what country folk used to (and perhaps still do in some cases) with their trash ? They have burn incinerators (barrels or whatever) and incinerate their household trash.

Then .... bless their little hearts ... they spread out the ash around the yard. And being a farm for pete's sake, they park their tractors & trucks etc... (and doing mechanical work, welding, etc...) RIGHT in their yard of their house. Unlike city folk who park in a driveway, not on their lawn.

And kitchen scraps are tossed out the front door onto the yard for the chickens and pigs to peck at. An instant recipe for trash.

Hence unless a farm served as a stage stop (serving travellers whose EXPRESS purpose was to stop and spend money), I shun normal single family farm houses that are still lived in. Exceptions would be if the farm ceased to be habitated by the early 1900's. Because then you're before the era of electricity (read "junk"), automobiles (read "junk"), indoor plumbing (read "junk"), and so forth. Preferably even gone by the 1870s so you can predate the throw-away-age of catalog ordering type of stuff.

Sure, exceptions exist. And some farm yards might be clean and non-industrial related (ie.: mimic in-city turfed lawns of similarly aged homes). But overall, I skip such sites and go straight for places which served retail purpose. Like saloons, stage stops, etc....

 

[Steve Ia]

I agree with what Tom in CA wrote. Some places are just so full of trash that it's hard to find that elusive coin amongst it. A good place to start when you're new at detecting is going some place with a lot of coins, and it's easier to find a place where you will likely only be getting newer coins, such as a school, playground, sports field. A good tip is to put a dime in the toe area of your non-metallic shoe. When you get a target, compare the sound of the target to the dime. Large targets will be quite a bit different. See how quickly the dime(coin) signal disappears as you raise the coil while swinging it. A lot of junk that you are digging you will be able to raise much higher without losing the signal. If the targets sound big, they probably are, and most likely junk.

 

[cudamark]

There just might not be any coins lost there. Maybe they were very careful with their money and didn't keep change in their pockets. If you really want to figure it out, dig up an area around the most likely area for coins I.E. front door walkway, parking spot, closeline spot, etc, and dig it up and sift the dirt. I'd do that to the outhouse pit too, regardless of the outcome from the other spots.

 

[s.c.shooter]

Keep looking. Think outside the box. Any big shade trees? Garden areas. Old shrubbery. Where would the kids have played. Sled hill.

 

[Randyg12]

I feel your frustration! Back in the 80's after seeing an ad in a magazine I bought a White's coin master that ended up in my closet after a few months. I had grand visions of finding silver dollars, gold coins and artifacts. All I was finding was junk and didn't take the time to seek help, back then I did't know about detecting clubs, we had no internet, and I didn't have the sense to seek help from someone else or the dealer. I didn't try detecting again until 1999. Even when I started in 1999 I would get frustraded when I tried detecting the dirt so I stuck to the beaches about 80-90% of the time. I met a friend online that lived close by and we hooked up at the beach. He finally talked me into dirt fishing more and now I love dirt detecting and do well.

I'm getting carried away here so my two cents worth of wisdom is this: I wish I would have kept using my white's Coin Master until the lights went on in my brain. I missed out on a lot of fun and some great finds. Get out and use your detector often. You'll learn from every target you dig, the more targets you dig the more you learn. Get on line and learn what good detecting technique is and use it. Find someone local that you can detect with and learn from them. Be patient grasshopper, get out and detect and learn your machine. Practice, practice, and then Practice some more. HH

 

[Illinirelics]

I can relate to your post. I live in an 1860 home that sits on three acres in town but was the country until about 50 years ago. I hunted it daily for the first few months of summer last year and found some cool stuff but it took me months before i started finding old coins. After at least a few bags of trash dug I have a really good collection of coins. Too many Wheat pennies to count, a buffalo nickel, three silver Washingtons, 4 IH pennies, 3 mercury dimes, a barber dime, and just got my first seated dime last week. Some areas had to be where horses were kept with all the small nails, but a slow swing, from multiple directions will pull it out. Im getting ready to get the smaller coil do it all again!

 

[luvsdux]

For the people on many old farms and homesteads money was not in great supply so they handled what money they had, carefully. Some losses, sure, but it meant more to them so they were more carefull.
luvsdux

 

[rogueaviation]

I agree with the others here. I had my father in law go over my grandparent's place, it has been a farm for more than 100 years and the house has been in the same spot. He found the same assortment of stuff you describe. No coins, other than a few modern clad ones.