what... no gold?

[GRAY GHOST]

you know ,its really funny that ive never found a gold coin. i suppose lady luck turned her back on me in that regard. found everything and i mean everything but a gold coin of any type. there dwells in the back of my mind on every hunt [seems to be preprogrammed] " you hafta find a gold coin today. reach the top echelons of your hobby by doing so. todays the day." i can only guess that at one time or maybe more than that i actually did find one but ignored the signal thinking it was junk. gold often comes in very low on the scale and sounds like a low junk grunt on my machines, much like rusty iron. so as you can imagine, i am digging a lot more beeps today than i did this time 5 years ago. its been tough sometimes digging those low beeps, takes a little more patience and discipline. but, ill keep trying... hh,

 

[pulltab]

if play long enough your bound to get a good hand

 

[jim tn]

 

[Elton]

Remember they were not pocket change in every area. You stand a better chance of finding a stash of gold coins than a single lost gold coin.

 

[lordmarcovan]

If and when I finally get my first one, I have a hunch that it will be on a rural relic hunting site where I am digging practically every signal. The discrimination or just plain old lazy meter-watching I do when I'm in urban coinshooting mode would probably make me overlook the ones hiding in town. For all I know, I've already passed by (or even over) a gold coin a time or two. I imagine several of us have.

Kind of tantalizing to think about, isn't it?

The only other time I can foresee myself finding one is if I happen to be on the beach, which is another place I dig every signal. Obviously I'm on the lookout for gold (rings) when I am on the beach, so if a gold coin was under my coil there, I'd dig it up for sure. I've never found anything old on our beaches, though- if I found an old gold coin there, chances are it would be mounted in a jewelry bezel. Heck, I'd settle for that. Actually, I know of a few people who have found gold coins that way- either modern or old coins put into newer jewelry.

Still... you never know. Lady Luck can be a frigid tease an awful lot of the time, but sometimes she decides to give up a surprise gift. Maybe one of these days I will be in a semi-trashy park and decide to dig one of those screwcap-range signals below zinc cent range, and it'll be a $10 Liberty. I do chase those higher midrange signals because many of them are Indian cents. Speaking of $10 Liberties, a local buddy of mine dug a nice 1907 $10 Liberty here locally (and a 1781 Spanish gold escudo on the same site- how's that for weird?)

 

[tabdog]

My brother lives in Shreveport LA. He may be moving down here soon and I hope to get him involved in this hobby. He has a reason to be interested.

His neighbor and friend is a detectorist. His friend likes to get old topos and other maps and calculate their coordinates of old structures and GPS the site locations.

He found the location of an old commissary (that's what they called stores back then). He was inside what he believed to be the foundation of that old commissary and found an uncirculated Territorial Fifty Dollar Gold Piece. Valued at $6,000. They had a little write-up in the paper about it & photo.

That's as close to home as it has come for me.

I'm still hoping. I don't pass things up like I yoused to. I don't use discrimination much any more. I don't want to pass by another gold coin without finding it. Fat chance huh. That ain't comma stop me though. I know what I'm after.

 

[Dyna_Willie]

$6000 coin? Do you think there are many left in the ground?

 

[tabdog]

No I don't think there were ever many in the ground.

People very seldom lost a penny much less a gold coin.

My uncle was born 112 years ago.

Before he died I took him and his little sister (my mother) to their old home site. It's in the middle of no where. He was the oldest of twelve kids and my mom was the youngest. This was 24 years ago.

I had my old Technatics with me and I started searching around the old house site. Nothing but a field there now. But it was close to an old dirt road.

My uncle asked me what I was looking for. I told him I was looking for old coins or something. I said "kids loose money and stuff all the time". He said don't bother. When I asked why he said. " When I was a kid I never had any money. I mean not a penny. We didn't know what money was. If my mom and dad ever had any, I didn't know about it. The first time I had any money in my hand was when I was 16 years old. I left home and got a job making $0.25 a day. I worked at a rock crusher from sun up til sun down. I learned to cut hair and later I later got a job cutting hair. I got $0.50 a day for that. I got a part time job and was making $0.75 a day. I was in tall cotton, and in high standing in the town."

We drove to the cemetery and they were walking around so I started searching around the old church site. An old man in a pick up showed up and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was looking for old coins with my metal detector.

He was telling me how they didn't like outsiders coming around there. I interrupted him and said "let me introduce you to my mother and my uncle they grew up around here."

When I introduced him, his eyes lit up and he said " MILDRED " . That's my mom's name.

It turns out my mom was his first love. They dated when he was 19 years old and she was 14 years old. ( that's how they did it back then ).

He started acting like a little kid and was flirting with my mom. I asked him if I could metal detect and he said " do what ever you want to kid ". I was 35 years old at the time.

I did find some silver there, but it was from the 1940's. After the depression and during the US industrial boom.


That's one reason it's hard to find a gold coin.

HH,

 

[Dyna_Willie]

That totally makes sense. I would like to just find some silver. I am going to start doing some research of old homesteads and see what I can find.

 

[tabdog]

n/t

 

[Skillet]

On most machines, these would hit just under an IH penny, in the upper round-tab range.

You might be able to even up the odds by digging all of those roundtab signals.

Just some food for thought.

Skillet

 

[Dyna_Willie]

I'll dig all the garbage, it will be like paying my dues.

 

[tabdog]

If it's round I can usually tell it from a pull tab. A nickel is obvious to me. A button in the pull tab range is also obvious to me. Not very often that a pull tab sounds round to me. But I dig a lot of pull tabs because they could be jewelry. About the only ones I pass up are shallow and screaming, "aluminum" at me.

HH,

 

[mattockman]

How often have you seen any gold coins in a pocket change transaction......nobody with a half a brain would be carrying around gold coins in the pockets........in my mind the west would be a good spot to find gold coins......I can picture some old cowboy riding away from the enemy in hot persuit and him ditching them to save them from robbery......and then going back and forgetting where he left them.......or of course pirates stashing them after a big heist on the ocean.....or a shipwreck washing ashore........gold coins.......but don't keep hoping for a find in a park ....wishful thinking I say........even though its possible.....but very unlikely......I dream just like you but I am not in the right place to be finding them......

 

[Daniel A.]

Found mine in Dec. 7 inches down was really surprised . Dan

 

[GRAY GHOST]

n/t

 

[rmptr]

Pretty good Tabdog story...

I'd believe every bit of it.
Folks just never had much money.

I'd think just as much chance of finding a posthole cache as finding drops.

Here in CA we know, all the gold is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in someone else's name!

But that doesn't keep people from getting lucky, from time to time.

Lady luck favors those with persistence!

 

[coinnut]

Nice. Once in a lifetime find (hopefully not). Is that a 1 dollar gold coin in there? Great find. Can almost hear your heart thumping when you found it! This hobby is not for the weak hearted. If I gotta go, I hope it's when I dig that box of gold coins

 

[coinnut]

To copy a realtor's term, It's LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!! I would expect to find gold coins in the mining towns of the west, as it was probably as safe to bury your cash as it was to trust a bank from not getting robbed back then. And let's not forget about the saloons and drinking too much and maybe dropping some when you stumbled home. Wealthy residences are another good place I would expect to find some. Let's face it, a five dollar gold coin to someone who had millions back then was probably like us having lost a nickle or dime, and I've found those quite often. It's really location and persistence. I find colonials, but not much gold of any kind. A beach hunter would put my gold and silver finds to shame. It's all about finding what is in your area.

 

[Daniel A.]

I'm not sure someone told me that its a .25 cent pre 1870s replica its 22K weighs 4.2 grams and thats how it looked straight out of the ground. Dan