Question: 1945-1965. How well did the military MD's perform in those post WWII years?

[Fabio]

We had British and American troops here in those years, de-mining the territory. Were those metal detectors capable of finding the smaller stuff like coins or rings? Did they only detect bigger things like mines or bombs? Just wondering, since all the stuff I've found is very small. There's one area full of those WWI long hand grenades which have been disassembled. Only the carcasses remain. The guys interested in these war relics go crazy when they see them. I don't care about them, just trash to me.
So, back to the question. Would they have been able to clean out the area completely, including nicer gold and silver stashes? I'm hunting for hidden Nazi treasures abandoned when they were retreating. So far, no luck. I do know that alot of German families came over for summer holidays during the sixties and seventies, and camped up on the plateau above the city. I don't think all of them would have found everything they've hidden...

 

[ken ward]

You must find a lot of them war artifacts. Maybe there could be a market here in the US for that stuff. Maybe someone would like to buy from you. I don't want any. I find stuff like that in the Philippines. Lot of
WW 2 things their.... KEN

 

[GeorgeinSC]

The military would have been mainly interested in explosive ordinance not coins. They might have found some coinage but the detectors they used were designed to find larger items like hand grenades, mines, bombs and other hazardous items.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The answer to your question, is that WWII mine detector were only capable of finding big things. Not coin-sized things. Probably nothing smaller than a jar or hub-cap sized item. And even then-so, those mine-detectors were often time hard to use, hard to keep balanced, and not-trusted by the operators. They learned early on, for instance, that their performance wained in mineralized soil. So often time, the GI's would abandon them, and resort to sideways bayonette poking in the ground, instead of metal detecting.

There were several different makes of WWII mine detectors though (different countries, different manufacturers and experimental types, etc...). Some may have been better than others. But none of them were going to be capable of finding coin-sized items, by a long-shot. However, by the Korean conflict, there was indeed at least one made, that could find an object as small as a U.S. quarter.

As far as private market detectors, they pretty much followed the same evolution: None of them, prior to the late 1950s, were capable of finding coin-sized objects. That's why you rarely ever hear of anyone coin-hunting prior to the early 1960s. A few exceptions of a few makes could do it perhaps as early as the mid 1950s, but the hobby was an oddity/rarity, and the machines could probably have done it only to a few inches, and only with lots of hassles balancing, interpretting sounds, etc... It wasn't till the early '60s therefore, where you start to see the hobby of individual-coin detecting start to go.

 

[Fabio]

Good in-depth analysis and reply.
That means that there are alot more things to dig up in them thar hills (like they say when gold prospecting ).
Adding that the thickness of the topsoil is only about 2 to 5 inches over bedrock, I should be able to find alot more stuff out here.
I'm searching in the forests, mainly because this plateau used to be almost completely barren until after world war one. So that means anything could be found anywhere. It's only too bad that almost all the ancient roads are now covered by current roads... Well, we can't have everything, right?

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Keep at it Fabio your persistance will pay off.
You may find that cache yet.

 

[Fabio]

It sure is gonna be hard digging up silver coins at Sinclair Park in January...

We can try...
Maybe a hot spell...
Blow torches?
Maybe breakfast at Timmies...