Wheat to silver ratio?

[marcomo]

I've asked this question on other forums, but never on this one.

I've never owned a Bounty Hunter, but I know a lot of people make some excellent finds here so I wanted to ask:

In Michael Chaplan's excellent book, The Urban Treasure Hunter, he said the expected wheat to silver ratio when detecting is 6 to 1.

My wheat to silver ratio is way higher than that. I haven't actually counted, but I'd say it's at least twice that if not a little more.

Chaplan's book came out in the early 90's so maybe it's changed since then? Wheat pennies were in circulation many years after silver disappeared.

I'm curious as to what ratio others are finding.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

And you hunting abilities as one can usually get better depth on a wheat penny than a silver dime as its larger and copper after many years does give a halo..I would think in a fairgrounds or local park 6 to 1 might be accurate but in my neck of the woods in old yards kids were given wheats to play with thus causing the ratio to be much higher as when I was a kid not many dimes in kids hands to lose.

 

[marcomo]

OK, I must have had one too many of glasses of iced tea at dinner tonight so I'm still up and I actually counted.

And my wheat to silver ratio was lower than I originally thought: 7.06:1

I think I might have misjudged because at the time I originally posted this I was hitting an old site hard where I found about 25-30 wheaties, mostly in the teens and 20's. Also a couple Buffs, Indians, a Liberty Nickel and various other interesting old stuff - but no silver.