Just wondering . Coin Hunters ................................

[Elton]

In my area the easy Silver spots are just about gone.. Maybe one, or two pieces in areas that produced dozens in the past.

Most people will not let you detect their property..So it's rare to get on an unhunted site .... Where we gonna be detecting in the next 10 years..... Will we have to be happy with Clad, and Nickles..
Will we have to learn to like tot lots.
Will we all have to find water areas where fresh dropped jewelery is lost...
Will we have to look for lost rings more than coins


What does your future for detecting look like.. I'm old enough it will still be a little productive for me. maybe..But you young fellows and gals..What are your thoughts on future sites to detect..

Inner city parks are getting iffy for sure............ Safety is the main concern....

Should we all come up with a nice plan to get permission on private sites......... Or should we just be happy detecting no matter the finds.......

Give me your take. Maybe your area is different than mine.......... Some seem to be finding Silver coins in abundance.. Remember
it's been since 1964 since mint released Silver Dimes, and Quarters.........and half dollars except for the Kennedy halves of which about 80% were hoarded..

48 years and counting.........Since Silver carried and lost..............

 

[Rick N. MI]

I like finding cellar holes, old lumber camps, old boy scout camps. Now there might not be many coins but there is a lot of relics and old bottles in them. I don't find it hard to get permission to hunt a yard but I do live in a very rural area. Old farm houses are great and there can be a lot of old coins in them. I got my fiorst seated quater and a large cent a big old farm house. Also old churches can be very good for old coins. I was just at an old church this Mon. with a friend and found 2 Indian Heads and a 1910 wheat. There's a county park by my house that used to be a boys camp. One day I was driving by it and my dad said there used to be a house right there. I hunted only the part where the park mowed it and found a 2 cent coin, a saloon token and a few wheats along with some relics.

I think there are a lot of places that haven't been hunted yet. I know most times you don't enough time to go out asking permission at places and you just keep going back to the same old places you hunt because you only have a couple hours to detect.

Here's a great site for research. Just go to search and type in your township and state and old maps come up with an overlay of new roads. Shown is my township 1902 map. It shows where all the old schools were, churches and other things. This map shows an old church a mile from me that doesn't exit anymore. http://www.historicmapworks.com/Overlay/?m=472987&c=US&lat=45.3780330&lng=-84.7139350

I'm just trying to encourage you Elton. Hope you find that silver coin javascript:editor_tools_handle_smiley_select("")

And lake hunting for jewelry isn't to bad. I found by me where there used to be a casino in the 1880's on a lake . All private but I'm taking a canoe over there and hunting in the water. This is a very large lake so the water isn't private..

Good luck in finding that silver coin,
Rick N. MI

 

[osgood]

Some of the parks up my way are getting fairly well hunted, but i agree with Rick. Except for the virgin park where i found a lot of old coins, most of my oldest coins have been found at cellar holes and on private estates- village greens are good if you can get permission. I will admit Ive run into some old estates that from the finds or lack of them, I suspect, have probably been detected before. In the years since detectors have been invented, its like some son, or nephew, or aunt or cousin might of hunted on grandpas farm. But at least we go in there with machines that are much more productive than the earlier machines. You have to keep researching and updating the list (i keep one posted on the wall as it easy to forget a site you might decide looks promising, or one, maybe out of town that you have been given permission for but you cant get to right away.) I have expanded my forays, sometimes even driving up to two hours one way on a short day to get to a site. As for my work, If I have an out of town trip, I also figure in extra time for hunting along the way. CO

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Old town urban demolition sites provide fresh hunting potential . But you have to be fast to get on them when the timing is critical. Also have to have some balls to know how and when to get into them.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

When you say "village green " , I assume that's east coast jargon for "park"? If so, why do you need permission? Unless there's a rule against it, or unless you're being some sort of nuisance in some other way ..... isn't it a public park ?

 

[joe dirt_1]

We all know a spot is never truly hunted out. It takes a good detector and some experience to find the coins that have been missed by so many others....but the coins are there. Sure, some of the easier coins have been found, but there are still many deep coins to be found.
Try using different coils on a hard hit site, different detectors, hunt different angles, etc. Many nice finds have came from "hunted out" sites.

Research is the key to finding great sites to hunt. Old 1800's county atlas books are a very valuable source of information of the history of your area. They have old maps of all the towns in the county, plus they show old schools, churches, and residences from the past that may be nothing
more than a farmers corn field today. Use Google Earth as a research tool. An ariel view of a site will sometimes still show outlines of foundations of old buildings or sometimes just a darker spot in a field from an early house site. Use the overlay feature to overlay the old maps onto the modern
Google Earth photos and you can pinpoint a site easier. It's easy to do and it's free on Google Earth.

I prefer hunting farm fields and old picnic groves. One picnic grove we located in 1986 is still producing a few coins 26 years later. One real advantage of hunting picnic groves is there is no pulltabs, no foil, no can slaw, no modern trash period. These sites exist more often than you think. it just takes
someone to spend the time to locate them. Over 100 years ago people gathered at these spots for ice cream socials, church picnics, 4th of July celebrations, and many other celebrations. People ate picnic lunches under the big shade trees in the groves, children played games, and
they all lost coins and valuables just waiting for you to come along and find them.

I have seen many times where it is said the best detector is between your ears.... put it to use, do the research, and you will have more sites to hunt than you thought possible. You gotta think outside the box unless you enjoy digging rotten zincs and clad in the park all the time.
Try searching the old atlas books for your county and state online. You might just find that site of a lifetime that is loaded with old coins...........HH

Roger

 

[TerraDigger]

Grass Parking Strips in pre-1964 areas.

 

[mudpuppy]

For a newbie today, I'd recommend clad grabbing in the totlots and freshdrop zones just to get to know the machine and proper retrieval techniques, and the habits and patterns of People..
Several hundred hours should just about do it, then, branch off into a skill subset this sport has to offer and master that. It might be relics, beaches, jewelry.
The immediate gratification of clad grabbing should keep a newbie entertained and encouraged enough to pay attention and research old dirt for silver coins if they want to find those. I doubt very many will make it into their second year if they begin their career hunting for old silver unless they develop the aforementioned skills and the passion it takes to really become a hunter...For an old pro like you Elton, it might be fun to go retro, or outside of the box for a while and spin off into a skillset you might not have had the inclination to persue up til now. That old silver on private property will be there if you can gain access. Anything that gives you a "kick" of the excitement of the hunt, and re-enforces your ability to read a site and get the targets. Zeek says "playfulness with some little surprises" regarding what we do. Thats good to think about, this sport should be fun, and fun is where you find it, even if it is kicking chips for pennys in a totter, stabbing freshies on the sidelines, sweeping a beach early in the morning is a glorious way to watch the World wake up!. We have to believe theres some awesome finds still out there, and its only a coil swing away, lots of these posts verify that belief. Heres to seeing some great finds from you this year! Go get 'em!
Mud

 

[MNCoinhunter]

In my case, where big, old city parks are NOT in abundance. I rely mostly on old homesteads and farms. Also, I recently acquired a copy of a county map from the early 20's that shows literally hundreds of one-room schoolhouses and old homes that no longer exist. When used in conjunction with Google Earth and a county plat book I can easily find out who owns the property. When I am driving around I will be constantly looking for new spots to hunt, you really do have to be relentless, and it drives my wife a little nuts . In fact my newest hunting spot, an old homestead, was found this way. I got out of my truck and copied the name & phone number off of the NO TRESPASSING sign ! It has turned out to be my most fruitful spot so far this year. And I have to note that in the 3 years since I got back into metal detecting I have only been turned away ONCE !

I guess (for me) it boils down to how much I want to find the old stuff ... and I really do ! So I go to great lengths to get there. And there are so, so many places up here I have not even found yet.

 

[Critterhunter]

Unless detector technology (hoping this is not the case with one new machine coming out) makes a giant leap in technology then no site is ever hunted out. Masked or super deep coins won't usually give you a great response no matter which of the machines currently available you are using. I find that there are still plenty of one way coin signals out there that null or sound like junk from all directions but one. Just like everybody else I usually pass these by looking for that perfect deep coin signal. While those still exist at any site, I think I'm going to start changing my strategy and seek out and purposely dig those real junky/masked coin signals for now on. I do it here and there but must admit I mostly look for those perfect but deep ones. Seems like I'd increase my silver finds if I started digging the bad iffy ones, as I could probably dig 10 or 20 of those if not more in the same time it takes me to find and dig a good deep coin signal.

Also, there is always digging out the trash hoping for a gold ring or a coin masked by junk. Many of the parks I hunt will take a life time to grid and put that kind of effort into...And just one of those parks would take that life time. That is, again, unless there is a giant leap in technology that makes a machine able to ID gold and leave the junk behind. Then you'll only be left with digging out the trash hoping for a gold ring or coin that was under it. God I hope that kind of technology doesn't come along as it will kill the hobby for many of us and all you'll have left to do is dig clads, hunt private land, or water hunt for fresh dropped rings.

As it stands right now even a guy using a cheap machine can still find silver if he digs the deep whispers or trashy coin signals that turn out to be badly masked coins. If an expensive machine comes along that can do these things WAY better than current detectors then it'll price the average guy out of the sport and there will just be a few rich(er) people who have the right machine to even bother with public sites anymore.

 

[John(Tx)]

I live on the Texas Gulf Coast so hunting the beaches here is an ongoing hunt, there are some good suggestions posted here. HH

 

[Dude]

Same here, lots of competition and few coins left even clad can be hard to come by sometimes. I still spend 95% of my time hitting local parks just to get out and itch that itch before work.

I find networking with people gets me into virgin areas and talking to old timers always turns up something good.

 

[osgood]

There are village greens and squares that are the very epicenter of a town or city- maybe 100s of years old, around which literally the town might of grown. On one side might be the justice building, the other the town hall etc. maybe that had public meetings there, hangings. etc. They are sometimes meticulously maintained, and yes they are public and perhaps even a park. But different then say the park a mile a way. Ive been in towns where even without ordinances, they will be much more guarded about you digging at the the village green, as opposed to the park down the road. Tom, does that help with your question? CO

 

[TerraDigger]

On a old unused picnic grove that went back to circa 1887....I dug & sifted the dirt through a screen system in grid pits down to 18". Had permission to do this. There was simply too much old trash to use any detector, as Critter points out. It was back breaking.... Good stuff didn't start showing up until about 8-9". And the deepest was about 14". However, it was by far.....the best in results in my 30 years of detecting. Sometimes creativity is required.

 

[Elton]

Usually in the center of a small village, or Town and kept immaculate as a center piece of the village.

A show piece in other words. Many Villages are highly protective of this area, and would in general frown on anyone digging in that particular area.

Yes it may be perceived as public, but respect for the area would also dictate one not detecting that area..

 

[Tom_in_CA]

ok, that answers my question. I thought you were of the opinion that all public parks needed "permission" to detect in. You're just making an exception for public parks that have a certain "historic monument" type "feel" to them, and treating just those differently. Because otherwise, you'd feel like an eye-sore.

This is true, that it might not be using obvious "discretion" to go metal detecting right where city hall is on the one side, police dept on the other side, and the library on the 3rd side, at high noon traffic. Because sure enough: even if there is no actual rule, *someone* will get their panties in a wad. Granted. Because there's no escaping that our hobby has connotations, and kill-joys (who think you'll harm the earthworms or whatever) are bound to come out, when you have that much visibility. It would be akin to having a beach where perhaps there is no prohibitions on detecting, yet, if there were an archaeological convention going on there that day, then sure enough an md'r would just "set himself up" for confrontation, to think that that's an ok day to detect that beach.

So for that matter, I can understand someone treating a "village green" different than some other form of city park. However, the downside is, as you say, it's going to be hard to "get permission" to hunt any park, even when there's no prohibitions (because we all know what the "easy" answer is going to be, right?).

Two west coast friends of mine love to tour the east coast parks every year. They fly into an airport, get a rental car, and take a week just driving all the colonial states small towns, just hunting parks. They end up with large cents, seateds, IH's, and even a reale or bust now and then. And the way he describes it, there are, as you say, these small dead-center-of-town "plazas" or whatever, with incredible dates on the plaques from the 1600s and 1700's. They hunt them all the time, but simply don't go making themselves a target of scrutiny. They'll do all their hunting at odd times. Like after 5pm for example (when office traffic is minimal), or early weekend mornings. And then do the more innocuous parks at other time-slots. Sure once in awhile they get "ushered on" (you can never 100% escape busy-bodies). But on the other hand, there are ones they hunt till they're blue in the face, and no one cares either.

This "timing" tactic (to avoid busy-bodies), is actually, when you think of it, what we ALL do anyhow, to one degree or another anyhow (for example, none of us thinks it's wise to go waltzing over beach blankets *even* if a beach has no rules prohibiting detecting, why? Because we know that's bad "timing") This would be my "respect", that Elton speaks of. Because yes, even though there may not be a rule against it, doesn't mean to go out there with a bullseye on you, is a good idea. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the way around it is to get permission, because that too can just set you up for a "no", when perhaps no one would ever have cared (so long, as I say, when busy-bodies weren't around by the legions, to have had something to gripe about, to begin with).

 

[Frank in NH]

I am finding most of my old silver water hunting.

 

[osgood]

Several of the center greens Ive done, Ive done with permission, granted, I believe, because I had the decency to walk in there and ask. Im not sure I needed to even seek permission but I offer to share any " hugely historic find". Also sometimes the staff or the mayor there might say "hey did you know we have an old depot you can hunt?", or put you on to some other leads, that has happened to me, hey you never know. Another one I did was on a Sunday, I was passing through a town and I saw some guys MDing at and asked and they said the town didnt care. I detected there. I will never forget this park though it was like a war zone, these guys where going like 2 feet deep. Theres no way to do that neatly-they where using modified roofing tools (kind of like a narrow razor sharp spatula). Now it is not a law that all public center greens are off limits, like every where else it varies and theyll probably let you know if your defacing etc. CO