Why Wheaties?

Gadget · Sep 17, 2006

I find a pile of wheats and very few silver coins. Anyone want to guess why this happens? My guess is silver is easier to see and pick up when originally dropped.

hollowpointred · Sep 17, 2006

my guess is that back in the early 80s when everyone went silver crazy, most guys with detectors left the copper wheaties in the ground so they could load up on the silver coins more.

Sandman · Sep 17, 2006

Guys would turn in silver coins like crazy and it didn't matter what date or condition they were either. Most Wheaties were left in the ground too because detectors then didn't have good discrimination and guys got tired of digging junk which sounded like good stuff. Silver being very conductive sounded off loudest, so it was dug.

HH,
Sandman

rvbvetter · Sep 17, 2006

Just as a shot in the dark. I'm going to say it's because of economics. Even back when, a dropped penny wasn't always worth stopping and looking for. But a dime could actually buy a couple cans of food. So it was often worth the search. HH

TORRERO · Sep 17, 2006

Just to tell you guy what I think, after hunting for more than 20 years and
incountering this type of situation several times, my true gut instinct is to say
that peaple lost what they had, and if your hunting an old poor black church,
or a residencial home that was not of an upper class person, they probably did not
carry lots of silver on their person much of the time.
As for those hound dogs that cleaned out all the silver and left the Wheats, well
the truth of my opinion is that most of the older machines that just had
knobs for discrimination could not distingish between a copper penny, and silver
dime, anything that high sounded the same and sounded good and I dug it
to discover what kind of coin I had......

But I truly find it hard to believe that anyone who is digging lots of silver
will not stay and dig other more iffy targets just because they are lazy or
in a hurry...

Only todays high tech machines with a digital meter can distinguish a silver dime
from copper pennie, but still I have dug silver on copper pennied signals....
Normally worn, pretty smooth.
my odds guise is one silver dime for every 10-12 wheats dug,
and a silver quarter for ever 8-10 silver dimes...
just my 2 cents worth....

TORRERO · Sep 17, 2006

$:-\$

sfinder · Sep 17, 2006

The ratio of pennies to other coins in a person's pocket is usually higher. Another possibility is that kids carried and lost pennies from their pockets. Back then they could buy candy for a penny and didn't need to carry any silver.