Wondering

[Docsoo]

I hunt in the Pittsburgh, Pa area. One of the places I've tried is a place on the North Side of Pittsburgh which consists of two parks, East Park and West Park. Last year I read a book on Allegheny City, which is what this North Side area was known as 100+ years ago. It closely borders the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers directly opposite downtown Pittsburgh. East Park was, in fact, a much used area where people lived and congregated during the early 1800's. During the 1700's whitey ventured over there on occasion but it was mostly peopled by hostile and violent kill for sport Indians. In this entire area of two parks I have found nothing older than Barber dimes. And I've got them at 10+ inches. Where are all of the older coins, the seateds and the capped busts, etc. I don't know if I've seen a post on this forum with any bust silver. Do these coins simply go to far into the ground to find? If anyone has hunted very old areas and found stuff could you make a few suggestions. The soil is highly mineralized and there is a lot of trash in these parks.

 

[James N.D.]

Hello Docsoo! I would have to say if you are getting Barber Dimes at 10"+, that the Seated and Bust coins are deeper yet. You never said if the river floods these areas in the 2 parks you mentioned. Does it flood each year or is it high enough that the water doesn't reach the park area? I would say the older coins must be a good 12"+ in the ground and the only way of finding them is using a WOT Coil and going real slow or wait until someone comes out with a detector that goes another 6" deeper than the recent Explorer 2 will go. At least you are finding Barber and I would imagine that you are also finding Indians and other old coins also and sounds like 2 great hunting spots to me even if you are'nt getting those real old coins you are seeking. Good Luck and HH.

 

[Ocean7]

is that frequently they have either hauled in topsoil, bulldozed the area, or hauled out topsoil, etc. It is best to try to cherry pick until you find an area where you are finding old coins. Just dig quarter sized objects for a half a day and see if Large Coppers turn up somewhere in the park.

You can switch to a smaller coil in high trash areas and see if you have any luck.

You can pick out an area where barbers have been found and start removing the surface trash in a small area. Now are you finding deeper coins?

Sometimes there is no simple answer other than:
1) you are hunting in the wrong place
2) there are no old coins to find due to landscape changes

I'd hunt as close to the river as possible and in any stretches of
woods in this area.

Bust coins are out there but they don't come easy or often.
Here's a few pics of finds from the same site. Good luck!
HH!

 

[Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO]

On the history of those parks. See what the parkland was used for all through it's history up till the present day. A large expanse of land that close to 2 rivers opposite the downtown area probably was used for many things over the years - commercial and industrial as well as recreational. Try to eliminate areas of the park that may have seen recent changes to the ground, and see if you can come up with old pictures or written history of where exactly the very old activity took place. The largest park here in St. Louis took me better than a decade of research and hunting until I weeded out the less productive areas from the promising spots and thoroughly hunted those spots many times over to get as much of the old finds as I could. You may find that only a very small percent of that parkland will produce anything old.

Try finding some "old-time" hunters in the area there who may have hunted it in years past and could tell you if and where out there they had success.

Hope this helps. Good luck and HH, Mike.