Incredible quantities of copper, not much silver

[OregonMike]

Hi, all,

I am amazed at the V3's ability to find copper. Since I got mine in March, I've found over 70 wheat cents, including 1912-s, 1914-s, 1916-s, 1924-s, and 1925-s. Lots of "s" mint coins on the west coast! However, with all those wheat cents found, I'm hardly finding silver at all. Currently my count with the v3 is 5 coins, all dimes, and one war nickel if you count those. That makes the wheats to silver ratio in the neighborhood of 14 to 1. You would think that with all those wheaties showing up, there would be silver nearby, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I've heard others say a reasonable ratio tends to be more like 4 or 5 to 1.

A couple of examples: One yard had 27 wheat cents in it, but aside from the war nickel, no silver.
Just last night I found the 1925-s wheat but no silver.

So here are some possibilities--

1--People dropped a lot of wheaties but held onto their silver in the places I've happened to hunt
2--People came through earlier and cherry-picked the silver
3--I'm doing something wrong in my use of the detector

I'm guessing it's some of each. I use the hi-pro program mostly, sometimes with only the 2.5 frequency. I've also used the deep silver program. I use the 5.3 coil most of the time, seeing as how so many who post on this forum have said that it gets depth similar to the 10DD. I have been considering buying the 9.5 concentric.

I would appreciate any thoughts anyone might have about what is going on and what I can do to increase the chances that I can improve my wheats to silver ratio.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[dave5710]

A yard with 27 wheats and no silver could be from alot of things. 1940-1950 a penny could buy something. Maybe they were leftover from an Easter egg hunt or milk money dropped by school kids, lost running after the ice cream truck, who knows. If you subtract the 27 from the 70 your ratio becomes 43 to 5. Which is 8 1/2 to 1. I wouldn't sweat the stats much. What is important is you are finding silver dimes. That means the the silver quarters and halves will come, you just haven't walked over them yet.

Take care and keep us posted. Dave

 

[nw1886]

Hey Mike. Looking back to the early 70's, there were a lot of places that had ratios like that. I did my grandparents house (11 kids) and the cheapos only gave 'em penny's mostly! "If your listenin' grandma...I understand it was the depression and all so...no lightning bolts!" (See! She did one heck of a job makin' sure that Catholic guilt thing was multi-generational!) My ratios there were probably 20 to 1 at least. But...lotta kids,lotta coins and jewelry. Other places will have better ratios for you.

 

[Larry (IL)]

A ratio should be taken over the long haul, I have had huge swings in both directions Mike, sometimes finding hundreds of wheats and Indians before a silver, while at times I will have a 6 or 7 silver day. It is just a matter of time before you start getting the silver under the coil.

 

[megadivers]

I agree on the ratios. I found a silver half the first time out with my V3. The only other coin found in the yard was a 1941 wheat penny so my ratio was 1:1.

 

[OregonMike]

Thanks for the replies.

I realize it's a new machine and all, and that there's a learning curve. I just feel I'm in one of those "silver slumps" that happen from time to time.

Not that silver is the magic determining factor of whether I had a good time or not. Some of those wheats are hard to find too!

The post from Jimmy Sierra's writings (see elsewhere on this forum) suggesting that we not run the detectors so hot, and use the discrimination and all metal sensitivity settings to get more depth, may be all the advice I need.

The wheats are signs I'm getting into some older areas that are at least to a point not hunted much. I'll keep playing around with the settings and let people know what happens.

Mike