Just a wheatback, but I got skunked last time at this site! Why no silver??!!

[atomicscott]

Hi everybody! Took the X-Terra Pro out to a lot I have had some succes with finding coins back to early 1900's. 1908 V nickel, wheats and some cool tokens. They plowed this field about 3 weeks ago so I knew it would 'grow' some more finds! My first hunt with the new XT Pro, I nabbed a 1958 wheat and some old 1901 shotgum stamps. Been gridding this spot in 40 ft sections, but got skunked last time here. Today I went to a different area of same lot and was running in 5hkz and found 5 pennies: 3 zinc, 2 memorials and this 1920 wheat! No silver, can't figure out why. Been digging about 12 years, not a single silver dime! Am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be great!

 

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[E-Trac-Ohio]

A lot of sites don't give up any Silver coins.
I know a few guy's that were really into metal detecting back in the late 1960's and 70's.
They told me that most of the time they would just "cherry pick" the Silver, Dimes, Quarters and Half Dollars.
This was a common way to hunt back in the old days of the hobby.
I've seen this myself on dozens of sites - all you find on these sites are Wheat Pennies and Nickels.

Good Hunting !

 

[mjb Mike]

yes i was wondering the same thing on an old site that had a house on it in the 1700.Ive found lots of stuff gold plated bottoms artifacts old early 1800 copper coins but no silver yet

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

The other things to consider are ...

(1) - In the "old days" Silver coins had real spending value - so they were more closely guarded against loss.
(2) - A Silver coin dropped on the ground is much easier to see and recover than a copper coin.

Because of the factors - most of the people in this hobby - including myself usually find an average of (10) to (15) Indian Cents or Wheat Cents for every Silver coin.

 

[Georgivs]

You have to remember that the further back you go the more a silver dime was worth. Now a days you lose a dime and it's no big deal, but back then it was worth searching and searching for. The poorer the people were the less likely they lost silver. I hunt tons of one chimney farmer houses and hardly ever find any silver there. The silver I find has usually been from around WWII when people had more disposable income and that comes with all the modern (for the time) trash like aluminum cans. .

 

[pepperj]

Public venues (parks, schools, churches) the silver is readily available over a private spot, meaning a (homestead/cellar hole.)
I have one site that has given up 30+ token/lrg cents and 2 silvers (both being english a 1 Shilling & 6 Pence)
I hold this as a rare thing getting 2 silvers out of the site.
Hunting non public venues a site might give up 1 silver at best and that is somewhat infrequent.
Site ratio 10/1 for not giving a silver

 

[releventchair]

A dime bought a day old bakery loaf of bread when I was a kid.
And that was in the era we went to clad and Dad was sorting silver from cad at a till. (Pre-till entry.)

A full belly for a dime back then. Even two bellies.
Meaning , keep ahold of a dime!

Why would you/anyone need money in thier pocket on a remote homestead? That increases risk of loss. There's no where to spend it IF budget allowed.

Teased a friend after hunting his families multi generation farm and the haul was about 30 cents of modern clad.
Told him that if he'd told me they were poor (they weren't "that" poor) I wouldn't have hunted it.

A clothsline has produced a clad dime or two. One heck of a long time of laundry being hung there to see that much for drops though. And that family wasn't dirt poor either.

Find a site hundreds of people gathered regular , or where thousands were once. Or a few people were together a long time often.
But if they've been hunted before don't expect much silver.

A site that fit all the above criteria started getting well worked in the mid seventies. Maybe a bit earlier.
A storeowner had a detector and could hit an area in sight of his stores entrance ,allowing him to detect a lot sometimes.
On his counter was a gallon jar of Indian head cents.
It's a safe guess he detected beyond when off work. But others were detecting there too.
One of them the guy who with my Dad introduced me to detecting.

I'd run potential sites to detect past Dad after ferreting old places and events out.
About 99% had been hit already years prior. And who knows how many others hit those sites.
Sites that "nothing" exists on to indicate anyone had been there type sites!
But those old timers were not so old then , and they knew old timers that recalled those sites.

Keep looking for sites. Find some others have not detected and then it will depend on what went on there in terms of coins. Maybe silver , maybe not.

Carnival had a table of glass dishes when I was a kid. Toss a dime and if it lands on a dish you win it.
The ping ping of bouncing coins... We may guess the ground around that site got studied after the tents folded for the year. Detector or not.
A different site I recovered multiple tokens from a carnival that no longer uses them.
Why others had not recovered them on the pounded site I can only guess was due to it being a wet spot in spring allowing me a signal that wasn't enough during the rest of the year.

Silvers have come from under iron and other metal time and again.
That means prior detector users left them as iron or junk signals.
And the same has happened for another detectorist on a different pounded civil war related site.
A site I recovered a seated dime...Under multiple small pieces of metal. But enough to not whistle "look here I'm silver".
If I didn't dig iffy mixed signals , my tiny pile of silvers would be much smaller.
Meanwhile ; on the right day you can see one or more detectorists race across a park near me as if they were trying to locate manhole covers.
Signal after signal being passed up as not the blow your ears off good enough silver screams. I guess...

The silver left (in that park) is deep. And not screaming.
A detectorist from out of state and I have hunted it a while.
Our guesses at how many pails of coins came out of that park were fun conversation.
A former local detectorist no longer alive is memorialized for donating over four hundred dollars of local recoveries to a project. That's a pile of coins....And just one hunter.

 

[atomicscott]

Hi everybody! Took the X-Terra Pro out to a lot I have had some succes with finding coins back to early 1900's. 1908 V nickel, wheats and some cool tokens. They plowed this field about 3 weeks ago so I knew it would 'grow' some more finds! My first hunt with the new XT Pro, I nabbed a 1958 wheat and some old 1901 shotgum stamps. Been gridding this spot in 40 ft sections, but got skunked last time here. Today I went to a different area of same lot and was running in 5hkz and found 5 pennies: 3 zinc, 2 memorials and this 1920 wheat! No silver, can't figure out why. Been digging about 12 years, not a single silver dime! Am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be great!

Thanks y'all for the great info and comments. I have found over 50 wheats, 2 IH pennies, 1 SLQ, a V nickel, some jewelry and many other cool finds, but still searching for that elusive silver dime! Happy hunting, Scott

 

[Silvermonkey]

From one Scott to another...
Just keep at it. The trick is to find new sites that are off the beaten track. Places where other detectorists have never thought to hunt. They're out there, you just need to get a little creative. Good luck!

 

[atomicscott]

From one Scott to another...
Just keep at it. The trick is to find new sites that are off the beaten track. Places where other detectorists have never thought to hunt. They're out there, you just need to get a little creative. Good luck!

Thanks for that Scott! Great tip. I am not resting until I find at least one silver dime!

 

[Digger RJ]

Hi everybody! Took the X-Terra Pro out to a lot I have had some succes with finding coins back to early 1900's. 1908 V nickel, wheats and some cool tokens. They plowed this field about 3 weeks ago so I knew it would 'grow' some more finds! My first hunt with the new XT Pro, I nabbed a 1958 wheat and some old 1901 shotgum stamps. Been gridding this spot in 40 ft sections, but got skunked last time here. Today I went to a different area of same lot and was running in 5hkz and found 5 pennies: 3 zinc, 2 memorials and this 1920 wheat! No silver, can't figure out why. Been digging about 12 years, not a single silver dime! Am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be great!

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[atomicscott]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

Thanks RJ!

 

[Gare]

In the OLD DAYS there was no CLAD just nickle, copper and SILVER this was of course pre 1965