Dirt basement

[jspeedy]

I was given permission to hunt at 1860s village home including the dirt basement. Any hints on how to work a dirt basement(first time for me)? Will I be looking for a cache or just dropped coins? How deep will items be normally? The owner was concerned about me digging big holes in the basement.

 

[norman maassey]

Dropped coins will not be deep unless the basement flood or not. The cashes will be over a foot due to the owner wanting to get back into it. Check out all the walls with your detector and look for less brick. Check around all supports and any thing that can be used a landmark. Look overhead With a detector and look for any small pieces wood that don't look right "hidey holes" and look small openning that kids might have used to hide toy and base ball cards. Ask yourself over and over as you look around where would I hide this and think of different things that you would want to hide. It works for me in older homes, barns, woods,and about anywhere someone will hide something. Good Luck!!!!!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Norman gives a good answer, except that I think he meant that "caches will NOT be over a foot deep, d/t the owner wanting to get back to it".

There is somehow a perception that buried caches are necessarily deeeeep. But think of it: if you were some guy in the 1800s, who wanted to stash something in your basement (or wherever) for safekeeping, what the heck difference does 1 ft. verses 3 ft. or 5 ft. make, when the only purpose in burying it, is to be un-seen from the surface by others? I mean, the surface (to passerbys) will look exactly the same, no matter 1, vs. 3 vs. 5 ft, etc.... And also, assuming they plan to occasionally add to, or take from their stash (much like you would do to a bank account, for instance), why would they make it any more difficult for later retrieval than necessary? All that was necessary was/is to have an invisible cover, period. So caches are found all the time at a mere foot or whatever deep.

But back to the question: I would start by looking for individual coin losses. Just dig the coin-size signals, and skip the hub-cap over-load signals for now. Then when you've covered for fumble-fingers type losses, then go back through digging the big signals.

If you were strictly looking for cache-sized items (jar sized and larger), you could consider a 2-box unit, which will not even give a signal, unless the target is can/jar sized or larger (a perfect "discriminator" for those pesky coin, nail, etc... sized items).

 

[norman maassey]

I agree it can be deep and I dig the Small targets first. The most common cashes are bread and butter or egg cashes.

 

[jspeedy]

What is a bread and butter or egg cache?

 

[Canewrap]

It money socked away against a day when funds are a little short. We call it our rainy day fund.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

"Bread & Butter cache": A lot of caches are a mere $10 or $20, in old money. Sounds silly now, but back at the turn of the century, that might be 2 weeks wages! (like you or I stashing $1000.00). The kind of caches that we all dream of (thousands of dollars in gold and/or silver) are extremely rare. Most of the time caches found are coin-purses type stuff.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah the average wage back then was twenty cents an hour or less - mostly less. One has to relate the hunt spot with the era in which it was occupied. People think beause a place is old that money is everywhere but people back then had no money to lose and coins were like our big bills now and were carried in a coin purse not loose in the pockets. A nickel back then was a fortune. So they ain't laying around everywhere no more than $20 or $50 dollar bills are laying around everywhere now. Unless a small stash is buried there I wouldn't expect to find a whole lot.

Bill

 

[norman maassey]

In all lot households the wife sold the extras to made their pocket money or had it save money from the household budget to buy their personal needs.