How many silver coins do you average per year?

[Tony N (Michigan)]

I belong to a metal detecting club here in Michigan but hardly ever get to get out with anyone in the club. It's not my body odor cause I take a bath once a year.

Anyway, one guy in our club found over 500 silvers last year. Others in the club find close to 100 per year on average. Some, like me, don't do nearly as well.
Now I realize detecting is not just about how much silver one finds. But, well, we ain't in this to find nothing! Anyone who tells you its just about the fun is
one who doesn't find much. After all, we didn't purchase a metal detector to just have fun and find nothing, did we?

So I'm curious how many silver coins you folks find per year on average.

I probably average about ten per year. Please don't tell me I have to go where the silver is. Believe me, I do.
It just gets kind of depressing to see someone's pictures of a bunch of silvers they found after a few hours hunt.

Frustrated in Michigan

 

[WV62]

Wish I could say 10 but I am maybe 4 to 5 a year. This past year I got 7 and I think that was pretty good, 3 of those was in one day.

Ron in WV

 

[cz70pro]

I usually average 30-50 a year. We spend at least half of our year in the Fall and Winter hunting in the woods and fields at early home sites or Civil War sites searching for early coinage and relics. My part of Tennessee in the mountains was very poor and when they had a bit of money they kept a pretty good eye on it. It's also hard for me to resist going to an early colonial home site or Civil War camp site versus just hunting for Mercs and Rosies. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE digging and seeing silver coins in my holes but the relics and their history have great appeal to me too. I do plan on doing more door knocking this year in order to find more virgin coin shooting ground. I'm also planning on getting a Deep Tech this year to try it out on some of our beat to death relic sites.

 

[cz70pro]

Great topic Tony. One other thing that I think is related to the topic and needs to be said for the beginners in the hobby and probably some of us seasoned hunters too. I go to a lot of parks and they are slap full of low and mid tone targets. You can tell that people came into them and just high toned them to death. I LOVE those parks. So many people today let the TID numbers rule their hunting and they will only dig the high tones and often only those registering dime and above. After that they call the place hunted out and move on. But they left so many better and often more valuable targets in the ground. They left Fatty Indians, Flying Eagles, Nickels, gold rings, Civil War buttons, bullets, brooches, 3 cent pieces, half dimes (ring up like zinc pennies), watch fobs. tokens and on and on. That gold ring I found last week rang in at 12-21 and Sunday I dug a Gallagher cartridge shell that rang in at 12-05, an early 1900's cloisonne brooch at 12-25 and a 1902 V nickel at 12-10 .

I always find it ironic when I meet a "high toner" and they say that finding a gold coin is their ultimate bucket lister. Fat chance ever finding one if they are not going to dig the trash. I know everyone has their own definition of treasure or success in this hobby but I just consider the silver coins as icing on the cake while I am out hunting. Would I like to find 500 silver in a year? Heck yeah, but I really love all those relics and doo dads that you find in the ground just as much. It's nice when you can have a big jar of silver coins in the treasure room but it absolutely awesome when you also have case after case full of historic relics and treasures of our American history as well.

Just my two cent piece (which rings in at about 12-39/40 LOL)

 

[IDXMonster]

When such a question arises,certain other questions have to be asked. Like the guy who found 500...where does he hunt? Are you saying that you guys hunt the exact same types of sites and he is that much better than you?? That COULD be...but I think you guys are doing something very different in terms of signals dug.
If you are doing as you say and going where the silver is,why are you not finding as much as you’d like? It’s a simple calculation,which does not involve any high math or magic. Either the site is devoid of coins which can be accessed by your setup(result=0) or your skills will not allow the coins to be found if they are within reach of your setup(result=0). The only way you can determine if it’s the latter is to have someone very skilled go in and try to find some. None being found by anyone? Move on. Coins ARE being found by the expert? Learn from the expert!
I have a very specific method to accumulate silver. It works MOST of the time. If you’d like me to get long winded and post it,I will.
This year=150+(CTX)
Last year=90-ish(CTX)
Previous year=44(Explorer)
What machine/coil have you been using the most Tony?

 

[IDXMonster]

And CZPro has an excellent point....there are many more valuable things lying around than silver coins,but silver tends to be easy to reliably target,so that’s why people hunt it and have hunted it for decades. If you want to ONLY dig silver,well...there’s a method. Just like there’s a method to ONLY dig nickels,or clad quarters.

 

[Simpsonslammer]

A few more things to consider are.. some people just plain have more time to hunt than others. Are they retired, single, no kids ect ect. I love to get out and hunt but their comes a point when becomes an obsession too

 

[IDXMonster]

A few more things to consider are.. some people just plain have more time to hunt than others. Are they retired, single, no kids ect ect. I love to get out and hunt but their comes a point when becomes an obsession too

Obsession? Us? No...... That’s also another observation that isn’t taken into consideration sometimes...time to hunt! If I go 20 hours a week and the next guy goes 20 hours a year...there’s going to be differences in finds,for sure.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

When such a question arises,certain other questions have to be asked. Like the guy who found 500...where does he hunt? Are you saying that you guys hunt the exact same types of sites and he is that much better than you?? That COULD be...but I think you guys are doing something very different in terms of signals dug.
If you are doing as you say and going where the silver is,why are you not finding as much as you’d like? It’s a simple calculation,which does not involve any high math or magic. Either the site is devoid of coins which can be accessed by your setup(result=0) or your skills will not allow the coins to be found if they are within reach of your setup(result=0). The only way you can determine if it’s the latter is to have someone very skilled go in and try to find some. None being found by anyone? Move on. Coins ARE being found by the expert? Learn from the expert!
I have a very specific method to accumulate silver. It works MOST of the time. If you’d like me to get long winded and post it,I will.
This year=150+(CTX)
Last year=90-ish(CTX)
Previous year=44(Explorer)
What machine/coil have you been using the most Tony?

The coil I use most would be the stock coil on my E-trac. I do use the 13" Ultimate also quite a lot.
I did go out with Tom Holliday who finds at least 300 silvers a year. He helped me set up my E-trac to be like his. In this small area we detected, which he and his buds already detected to death, I did find a nice heavy silver ring he and all them missed. Tom might have found a silver in that short hunt. He works during the day and is a drummer by night in a band. I'm not retired, just retarded. LOL (oops, are we not being politicaly correct in using that term? LOL)
Tom lives closer to Detroit and goes where high traffic used to be years ago.
I live far away from Detroit amongst the farms.
I've been detecting for many many years but probably the best year was finding about 15 silvers in a year. Of course I found large cents and other very old coins.
I just don't get it. The other folks in the club I belong to use el-cheapo detectors and their silver counts are way beyond mine. Just goes to prove you can find more silvers with a Radio Shack detector
if you go where the silvers are than you can with a CTX where the silvers are rarer to find.
It must be WHERE I'm going, which is everywhere and that everywhere I go, people just didn't lose much silver. Maybe I should just go into basket weaving. LOL

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Great topic Tony. One other thing that I think is related to the topic and needs to be said for the beginners in the hobby and probably some of us seasoned hunters too. I go to a lot of parks and they are slap full of low and mid tone targets. You can tell that people came into them and just high toned them to death. I LOVE those parks. So many people today let the TID numbers rule their hunting and they will only dig the high tones and often only those registering dime and above. After that they call the place hunted out and move on. But they left so many better and often more valuable targets in the ground. They left Fatty Indians, Flying Eagles, Nickels, gold rings, Civil War buttons, bullets, brooches, 3 cent pieces, half dimes (ring up like zinc pennies), watch fobs. tokens and on and on. That gold ring I found last week rang in at 12-21 and Sunday I dug a Gallagher cartridge shell that rang in at 12-05, an early 1900's cloisonne brooch at 12-25 and a 1902 V nickel at 12-10 .

I always find it ironic when I meet a "high toner" and they say that finding a gold coin is their ultimate bucket lister. Fat chance ever finding one if they are not going to dig the trash. I know everyone has their own definition of treasure or success in this hobby but I just consider the silver coins as icing on the cake while I am out hunting. Would I like to find 500 silver in a year? Heck yeah, but I really love all those relics and doo dads that you find in the ground just as much. It's nice when you can have a big jar of silver coins in the treasure room but it absolutely awesome when you also have case after case full of historic relics and treasures of our American history as well.

Just my two cent piece (which rings in at about 12-39/40 LOL)

Oh, I for one LOVE finding relics and, of course, love finding gold rings. I'm wearing a gold ring right now I detected that, over Christmas vacation, I had a script N put on it for my last name. I love going into a park they say "I wouldn't waste my time going there. I detected it and there's nothing there." Those are the perfect spots for finding gold rings, buffalo nickels, Indian Cents etc. I've done very well in those parks. And I have found silver in them where they said were none. Just have to differentiate between the trash and good signal when detecting in trashy areas. But I only found a few silvers in those places. If there were 300 silvers hanging out in a given park, I am convinced I could find them.
But still, I'd be a super happy camper to find 300 silvers a year. After all, I'm not in this to just have fun. I purchased my detectors to find treasure.
I think we are lying to ourselves when we go out and don't find anything and say: "Oh, I just get out for the fresh air." Bull crap. Of course, that is one reason I get out of the office but, really, I go out to find that elusive gold ring or silver or relics or whatever is of value.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Wish I could say 10 but I am maybe 4 to 5 a year. This past year I got 7 and I think that was pretty good, 3 of those was in one day.

Ron in WV

We should start a club called "The Underachievers Silver Club." LOL

I detected the farm next to mine circa 1834. I've found very old coins on that farm. I've hunted it to death. But never have I found one silver coin. I know I'm the only one who ever detected it.
I don't consider a half-dime as silver.
Other farms I've detected where I've found fatty Indian heads and other nice old coins but no silver.
The silver gods have cursed me I tell ya! I have some of the very best detectors on the planet too, except I don't have a CTX and can't see spending all that money on that.

 

[WV62]

You can be president and I will be vice president. LOL

 

[IDXMonster]

Tony...let’s have an example. Thinking back to your last 5 hunts of 2017...WHERE were you hunting?

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

I'm not hunting as much as I use to because of long work hours over the last two years.
I'd say I average between 30 to 60 Silver coins a year - not great but not horrible either.
I've never added the Silver rings and other types of jewelry into my Silver totals - guess I should have - probably and additional 5 to 10 per year.

Good Hunting !

 

[IDXMonster]

I'm not hunting as much as I use to because of long work hours over the last two years.
I'd say I average between 30 to 60 Silver coins a year - not great but not horrible either.
I've never added the Silver rings and other types of jewelry into my Silver totals - guess I should have - probably and additional 5 to 10 per year.

Good Hunting !

Those numbers are respectable,considering how places have been hammered. The real story is in your signature...and what it takes to find THOSE.

 

[diggervance]

Hello Tony,

I will say the first 3 years when I got back into detecting I averaged 70+, last year 95 and 2017 33 didn't hunt near as much as the previous years.

Rick

 

[diggervance]

Hey Tony,
I was just sitting here thinking about the guy in your club that found 500 silver coins. I know the year I found 95 I hunted about 30 hours or more a week it became a 2nd job.
Last year I bet I didn't hunt 20 hours a week but yet I had more fun. I would bet the guy in the club hunts 50 plus hours a week to have that kind of success. Now add in the number of clad coins ,junk, and other odds and ends I wouldn't even want to know how many holes this guy dug my back and knees hurt just trying to phantom it.
Rick

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Hey Tony,
I was just sitting here thinking about the guy in your club that found 500 silver coins. I know the year I found 95 I hunted about 30 hours or more a week it became a 2nd job.
Last year I bet I didn't hunt 20 hours a week but yet I had more fun. I would bet the guy in the club hunts 50 plus hours a week to have that kind of success. Now add in the number of clad coins ,junk, and other odds and ends I wouldn't even want to know how many holes this guy dug my back and knees hurt just trying to phantom it.
Rick

According to him, he only digs the deep sounding silver and wheats, at least mostly he does.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Hello Tony,

I will say the first 3 years when I got back into detecting I averaged 70+, last year 95 and 2017 33 didn't hunt near as much as the previous years.

Rick

I've been detecting many years and have never found 33 silvers in a year.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Tony...let’s have an example. Thinking back to your last 5 hunts of 2017...WHERE were you hunting?

Some were private properties with permission and some parks. I didn't find any silver in the permissions though which is sort of strange. But did find some old indian heads.