?? for all of you in the "Gold Coin Club"...

[JoeinMemphis]

I have been purchasing older coins lately to work up a good "old coin" pattern for my explorer, like what is shown in Andy's book, and it got me thinking. My question for you "Gold Coin Club" members is what denomination did you find, and what type of area was it found in? (Old farm house site, woods, older occupied home site etc.) This isn't a question as what to buy to add to the program, I can just run it wide open and dig everything repeatable, I am just curious as to what is the most commonly found gold coin. There were 19,534,693 one dollar coins minted in three varieties, but they are TINY and could present a detection problem due to their small size, conductivity, and possible depth. However, I would think there would be far more of these in the ground due to their smaller denomination. (People might have actually USED them, and LOST them due to their size etc) Larger gold coins would be easier targets to detect due to their size, but they might also be deeper due to their weight, and how many of them were actually USED in day to day life. Any thoughts??
HH Joe

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've found 11 gold coins here in CA: Two $20s, One $10, Seven $5s, One $2.50, and One $1. So you can see that $5s are the most commonly circulated type, and thus, the most commonly found by md'rs. You will see this born out in all articles (like in the treasure mags) of people who've found gold coins, that $5 is the most common. It also seems to be born out in any web forum: when you read of someone finding a gold coin, typically it is a $5. You can see that, based on the fact that the $5 was only one of 5 types made, for it to represent half of those being found, means it is the most common type.

$2.50s read at about pulltab. $5's read at about square tab (the beefier sturdier type of square tabs ... the ones that read 47/48-ish on the Whites scale). $10's read at about zinc penny, and $20's read at about penny/dime.

The places I've found mine at: 3 were during beach storm erosion, 3 were at old ruins sites (old historic places, where people once lived/camped), 1 was in a turfed park, 1 was at a stage stop, and 3 were during old-town demolition sites (buildings coming down, sidewalk removals, etc...).

Basically anywhere you are getting 1900 and earlier coins, you have the chance to find a gold coin. Even though gold coins were minted up into the 1910s, most of the ones found are earlier than 1900. This was because of the changing economics (wiring money, auto and train travel, paper checks, paper money, etc...) that was changing about that time.

Your success may also have to do with what state you're in: There are east coast excellent hunters with SCORES of seateds, busts, colonials, reales, large cents, etc... that have never found a gold coin. But here on the west coast, for some reason, they seem to be found more often, wherever a person is in the time-frame of pre 1900s.

hope that answers your question

 

[JoeinMemphis]

11!!! DANG!!! That is incredible!! Thank you for your input, it is greatly appreciated! You definitely broke me of thinking the $1 would be the most used / lost. I am in Memphis, I have only heard of one gold coin find here, and I don't know the denomination of that find, it makes me wish I was back out there on your side of the world, I am originally from West Covina... HH Joe

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[Beale]

11 gold coins!! Man that is amazing! I would be a happy camper to find one! Very impressed, Beale.

 

[JoeinMemphis]

I did a bit more research, in addition to the 19,534,693 $1 coins, they made 20,213,060 $2.50 coins, 77,832,951 $5 gold pieces, QUITE a bit more than the $1 pieces. There was also 52,684,435 $10 gold pieces. Yes I have been keying all those mintage per year numbers into the calculator, my fingers are tired, I'll do the $20's tomorrow.... HH Joe

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Your welcome And don't think that the reason $1s are not commonly reported, is that people discriminate too high (since I suspect it reads down around nickel....... I dunno ...... I'm not near mine to test it). The places I've found mine I was not discriminating out anything but iron. Ie.: I was in "relic mindset".

One exception to the relic mindset, in the list of my 11, was one of the $5s. I found one of my $5s (an 1899) while going as high as square tab disc: I was working beneath some 1920s rodeo grandstands they were demolishing. It was an ocean of pulltabs and foils, since, for 70+ yrs, people had passed their trash through the slats in the bleachers. After each event, maintenance people would clean out the surface trash (cans, paper, etc...) but of course, there was still coins and tabs, etc... that made their way into the hard-pan dirt floor. There was only a few days where this window of opportunity to hunt was available, so no one was going to be a "hero" and look for nickels You'd simply have gone crazy using a relic-mindset (no disc) in that environment. But silver, wheaties, etc... were easy, so we hurried to bulk up on those, before the site became fill-dirt. Imagine my surprise when I found a $5! I thought "wait, I thought I had low conductors tuned out?" So I waved it, and sure enough, it beeped. But interestingly, the Eagle SL90 I was using at the time, read it at about 48-ish. I double checked my disc. settings and could see that I had everything from 47 (where some of the square tabs were reading) tuned out. Pheewww! Very close call! If I'd been using a machine that groups them into broader categories (like a CZ6), I'd have missed it by trying to pass square tabs!

 

[JoeinMemphis]

Dang, that was amazingly close!! One point off and it would have been gone!! I wonder why an 1899 gold coin was in a 1920's site to begin with, were they still commonly in circulation that late? Thank you for letting me pick your brain... HH Joe

 

[nad]

The gold coins, especially the $2.50 and $5.00 were birthday or Christmas presents during the 20's.I was told where one was lost, very trashy, and I can't get permission to go there..Cordially Nad

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Joe, the grandstands they were demolishing dated about 1925 or so, as I recall. But before those grandstands, there'd been rickety ones (that dated to the late 1800s) there. Those had been torn down in the 1920s to make way for these bigger ones.

So I never really knew if this 1899 $5 was either 1) from the earlier usage of the location, the prior generation of smaller grandstands, or 2) was circulated (or given as a gift as Nad says) into the 1920s. There supposedly was still some gold coins still circulating into the 1920s (afterall, there were some still being MINTED in the 1920s, doh!), but by then, the practice was very rare. Paper money, paper checks, wiring larger amounts, etc... were all changing the landscape of the type $$ people traveled with and/or carried. But the point is, it would not have been impossible for persons to still have, and spend, gold coins even as late as the 1920s.

I tend to think this particular $5 was a loss in the 1920s, rather than a loss from the earlier usage of this site. Reasons: a) it was well-circulated, and not "crisp" anyhow b) we didn't get any seateds. The occasional barber we found indicated they were 1920s and later type losses c) the lay of the land, judging from the surround turf, track, etc... verses the under-belly of these grandstands, seemed to indicated that during the 1920s construction, some scraping had occured. Ie.: it was a little lower under there than the areas outside the grandstands.

 

[DonNWF]

Joe - I did your exercise a few years ago to see what my odds would be of finding a gold coin in Pensacola Fl. I concentrated on mintage figures for the New Orleans mint., the "O" series. My thinking was that my chance of finding and "O" was better than any other because logically the "O" gold coins should have migrated along the gulf coast to Pensacola. Pensacola was one of a few northern gulf coast towns in the days before the Civil War when the mint was in operation. The gold coin mintage from the New Orleans mint is substantial . The odds seemed good. It's not likely that "O's" would move west to California. Or north either..(Tom- Are any of yours "O's"???).
I have not found a gold coin here nor have I heard any reports of others finding one. A gold coin was found downtown in the Pensacola historic area but it was of Spanish origin. Choice hunting areas in the old part of town are restricted. Concrete a popular ground cover.
As Tom says few gold coins have been found in the Northeast. The theory is that common use of gold coins was taken over by paper money and the greater number of early banks. Those in the east had faith in the banking system. As I understand it , Westerners liked to deal in gold coins and not paper and had little faith in the few banks until well after the Civil War..
There is historical record of a substantial American gold coin find in the early 1960's in south Florida in one of the inlets . I believe the total was 28,000 (face value) in assorted denominations. It was found by two local guys snorkeling in the inlet. They came across a few gold coins and worked in secret to recover the rest. Of course the word got out and I believe they settled for part of the hoard and the rest went to the state. It is an interesting story because the gold was traced back to the Seminole Indian Wars. A paymaster lost the loot while crossing the inlet. It was a payroll for Army troops. He was tried for dereliction of duty and found innocent. The numberr of coins found in the 1960's was within a few dollars of the amount in army records. If I recall correctly the coins were mostly "O's" and "D's". It is likely that army payrolls were pretty standard then and that troops all over Florida were paid in gold coins and not paper money. I'm still looking along old river crossings. Hope springs eternal or something like that. . Don

 

[JoeinMemphis]

n/t

 

[JoeinMemphis]

The absence of seated coins would tend to make me agree with your assessment. Sorry for all the questions, I am just trying to " get my head right" to hunt for them. I am currently hunting a large area (about 20 acres) with a cotton plantation house built in 1849 on it. It has been hunted to death over the past 30 years or so, as it sat empty for countless years before the current owner bought it, and it is the most iron strewn site I have ever hunted. I KNOW there MUST still be something there worth finding, those before me HAD to miss something with all the iron trash and bits of junk. I am hunting it with the blessing of the owner, and when I have been in the yard with my dainty little digger trying not to make a mess, he walks up with a shovel and says, "here, use a real shovel". Can it get any better than that??? My biggest problem is the TRASH, and learning a new machine (Explorer SE Pro). I can't help thinking that the trash might end up being my best friend when I figure out how to deal with it, because it had to discourage some of those before me. So far after hunting weekends for about four months, I have two clad coins and a wheetie to show for all the coin finds..... maybe they DID find all the good stuff. Two of the three coins were found on the same day, with a shiny new EXcellerator 6" coil. HH Joe

 

[JoeinMemphis]

Good luck in your hunt, here I only know of one person that found a gold coin, and I don't know the denomination or mint mark yet. I will definitely find out when I see him again. The same fella was hunting a chimney sticking up in the middle of the woods and kept getting a signal from under the rocks that made up the foundation of the fireplace. He removed stone after stone till he found a hollow in it that had an oilcloth wrapped around something. He pulled it out and found TWO old Colt cap and ball revolvers, still loaded, in mint condition.... They are still out there. HH Joe

 

[R-n-R Magnolia SpringsAla]

and crawl! Just my two cents! Disc at 3 sens 7-8 dig all repeatable signals. Good luck Joe!! there's still cool stuff in there!!

 

[licn2chill]

Great information Tom in CA...I enjoyed reading your posts here...finding a gold coin has always been my Metal Detecting Dream, thanks for the good info!

 

[Mi$$ouri Jim]

I am not of the gold coin club (I am not even a member of the silver dollar club), but I remember reading an article about a fellow who found that taping 3 modern nickels tightly together...it read exactly the same as a gold coin (I cant remember the denomination.... think it was a 5 dollar coin).

I also remember that he eventually found that gold coin he was hoping to find.

 

[JoeinMemphis]

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