Interesting back yard find

[tripseven]

Hi,

I am a newbie to this hobby and so far it is really alot of fun. I decided early on that I would use my own back yard as a training ground. Our neighborhood is new, thirty years old but was once farmland and backs up to a very old railroad that is still in use. I found some small change, nothing old. I next found a brass hose nozzle about two inches down. I wondered how many times have I stepped on this spot and never knew it was there. The next item found was a coin, larger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter and about three inches deep. I took it in the house and scrubbed one side with backing soda. It said twenty cents. I flipped it over and scrubbed the reverse. Lo and behold it is a Singaporan twenty cent piece dated 1985. So, as a newbie, my question is; How do objects such as coins get worked so deep into the ground? I would think that with our cycles of freezing and thawing here in Minnesota, objects would get worked out of the ground. Thanks and happy hunting.

 

[mwaynebennett]

I don't really understand it myself but have a theory. If the coin was found in the grass, grass grows up and then falls over on top of other near by material such as a coin. Each time this happens, a tiny amount of material is added on top of the previous. After many years this all adds up .

Mark

 

[Woodsman469]

Google around for Coin Sink Rate. The question comes up fairly regularly in various forums as to why new coins can be found deeper than older coins or how a coin can be inches below the top of sand in just a few hours. Besides the usual environmental impacts such as water saturation, vibrations, grass build up, freezing, etc, my understanding from what I have read is it also depends on the difference in the density of the soil and the metal object. The greater the density difference the faster the sink rate.