Tot Lot question..... :confused:

[silversmith]

A question or two for you guys that work Tot lots a lot. Where do you find most of your good rings? Are they deep or mostly close to the surface? How about older coins there. Are they deep as you'd expect, or shallow, like they'd been dropped in the last year or two? Any info will be appreciated.
Thanks and Happy New Year.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

If someone hasn't beaten me to the site first I find the best ( Coins, Jewelry ) at the outer edges of the swing area.
Now if you can locate an older tot swing area that hasn't been detected by any body it'll be the whole area around the swings..
The other area of the sand box I've located some rings as this would be where mama stay to watch the kids playing in the sand.
A good place to find coins is where they hang upside down on the hanging bars.
The coins can be at any depth but if its a tot lot that has never been checked, the coins will be deeper.
I usually check a wider area outside the tot lot as if there pushing a stroller or pulling a wagon with the kids in they have a
good chance of losing items away from the tot lot.
Sand and wood chip are great to detect in but pea gravel is a pain in the butter.
I have had the best luck and finds by going to small towns outside the area I live in and checking the tot lots of those towns.
That can be from 10 miles out to anywhere outside this range.
This is Virgin territory most of the time never having seen a detector.
Be prepaired to dig up lots of foil wrappers pulltabs and beer screw caps.

 

[jim tn]

I do my old coin hunting throughout the week and give the tot lots a whirl on weekends. In my local, a number of the schools have small parks with tot lots nearby and for jewelry those seem to be better then the school tot lots. The school tot lots, however, have considerably more coins. The kids today do come to school with a good amount of pocket change. As Joel mentioned, the swing areas for me are the best as well, followed by the monkey bars. I hunt the whole tot lot and from under the swing seats out, front and back, all is productive. I hit the same 4-5 each weekend, so coins in the chips are seldom very deep. I use a small coil which enables me to get close to the equipement. The whole school yard, (turf) however, can also be very productive and silver jewelry finds are fairly common place. Mom has the gold, the kiddies, the silver. HH jim tn

 

[BarberBill]

The wood chip tot lots in my area generally have a plastic sheet or similar barrier under the chips so usually nothing very deep. Or, if so undiggable without doing damage.
BB

 

[norman maassey]

I started hunting tot-lots in Abilene,TX then move to Houston. The rules as a whole changed here in Houston. The swings and monkey bar are all way good no matter where you are at for change and jewel. In Abilene the little ones sit under the platforms out of the sun so a lot of change. Here most of good rings are where momma stand or sit to watch and where older kids do the Dirty.

 

[Pyledriver]

Ditto all of the above! One word of caution though-I keep having to tell myself to slow down and hunt the WHOLE tot lot instead of just focusing on the 'hotspots'! I have found a silver dime and some wheatbacks but those are really sort of an anomaly. Most of our lots are wood chips with a weed barrier at the bottom. The mulch gets replenished a couple times a year, so sometimes coins get covered by the new layer, adding depth without always translating to being buried for long. What bugs me is I've had some really sweet signals come from below the weed barrier! Tempting but I don't want to ruin it for everybody else...those targets just remind me that most places I hunt have layers of new and old activity. Back to the real focus, I've found all my jewelry, which hasn't been a ton mind you, in the 'common' areas! Not under swings or monkeybars but in the open areas where maybe that jewelry that was loosened by activity finally fell off. Hope that helps! Don't get lazy with all that easy mulch digging!

 

[slingshot]

May I add one more thought. These "easy diggin'" spots are the best places to try the a/m mode. A lot of tiny gold earrings are lost, as well as small gold charms, stickpins. Even some of the hairpins are nicely decorated and sometimes a pocketknife turns up.

 

[silversmith]

Thanks for all the uploads. The were very informative and appreciated. I also learned a lot by going to Treasure Hunters Forum and following "Tabdog" around. That Arkie is awesome. Good luck in 2010, and the best to you.