most caches - mason jars or tin cans?

bikerjon

Greenie
May 9, 2013
15
1
Detector(s) used
Minelab
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Are there more caches found in mason jars or in tin cans? How many caches of silver do you think have been passed by as junk with a metal detector because they are in a tin can. I kept thinking about that the other day when I was out detecting around an old foundation.
 

1) Jars
2) The coil will pick up the silver
 

Most of the ones I find are in sardine cans.

You need to look for larger targets and skip the sardines.

Like BDD, he only looks for 55 gallon cans.

V
 

Last edited:
Most people know that a simple tin can will rot out in a few short years if outside. Older ones have been found in cast iron containers as well as jars outside. I am of the school that most caches were inside caches and I have found one and seen two others that were coins in cigar boxes. I have seen a friend find a small tin can inside with a small roll of bills in it. Yes, a cast iron pot of coins with a lid might give you a funny signal, that is why most true cache hunters don't use discrimination.
 

Most people know that a simple tin can will rot out in a few short years if outside. Older ones have been found in cast iron containers as well as jars outside. I am of the school that most caches were inside caches and I have found one and seen two others that were coins in cigar boxes. I have seen a friend find a small tin can inside with a small roll of bills in it. Yes, a cast iron pot of coins with a lid might give you a funny signal, that is why most true cache hunters don't use discrimination.
If you cant hunt without discrimination, it will give a lot more targets. I sometimes only get the chain instead of the pendant. I can go deep that way and I am never disappointed when I pull a ear ring back out of the hole, or a zinc penny that has corroded. Still looking for my cache. Good post guys.
 

Most people know that a simple tin can will rot out in a few short years if outside. Older ones have been found in cast iron containers as well as jars outside. I am of the school that most caches were inside caches and I have found one and seen two others that were coins in cigar boxes. I have seen a friend find a small tin can inside with a small roll of bills in it. Yes, a cast iron pot of coins with a lid might give you a funny signal, that is why most true cache hunters don't use discrimination.
I've been hunting in an old mining town and like most of these towns you hear about how cutthroat they can be. I can't help to think that if I were in a town like that I would hide my money. You can't carry it around and you don't want to leave it in the bunkhouse. I've been detecting around old stone walls foudations large tree stumps and other landmarks. I'm not using discrimination but there's so much trash I hear. I can't help but think I may pass a hoard that is in a can or cast iron. I'm pretty new to detecting but i've been trying to go out and learn as much as I can. Any tips you can give would be great. Thanks
 

Thanks casca. I kinda found one that was my dads. He built a cabinet for his shop. Nothing to fancy but it looked really cool. I noticed that the top front doors were green and about the size of a dollar bill. the rest of the cabinet was unfinished. I took both sides apart and found a one hundred dollar bill in one of the panels. I think he has more caches but I couldn't find them. I hope to go back to search the house more. I think he would of told us about them but he passed away kind of fast. I hope you find your cache someday.
 

My grandpa was a bootlegger in Texas during prohibition and the way he and grandma hid their money was to put it a tin can and toss it out the back door on the trash heap. I'm pretty sure they didn't leave any tin cans to be recovered today but there are a couple of large cache's of full liquor bottles that i know they never retrieved.
 

I find more in plastic jars ,like peanutbutter or mayo jars.
 

gunsil, I've found 150 year old Prince Albert cans that still had paint. They don't rot that quick.
 

I've never found a coin cache thus far. Although a friend found a few coins placed in an old makeup cameo. Its all metal with a cameo face on the front.
 

when i was a teenager , my dad was paid to haul off a bunch of junk from a mans back yard. we took the stuff that was metal back to our house to add to a truck load to sell for scrap. there was a old refrigerator that when we opened it , had a bunch of pill bottles in the door, we started to throw them away when my dad noticed there was money in them . found over a thousand dollars in 20's and 100's.
dad put them all in a brown paper bag and drove right back and gave it back to the old man.
not sure if that counts as a cache ?
lol
 

when i was a teenager , my dad was paid to haul off a bunch of junk from a mans back yard. we took the stuff that was metal back to our house to add to a truck load to sell for scrap. there was a old refrigerator that when we opened it , had a bunch of pill bottles in the door, we started to throw them away when my dad noticed there was money in them . found over a thousand dollars in 20's and 100's.
dad put them all in a brown paper bag and drove right back and gave it back to the old man.
not sure if that counts as a cache ?
lol
Wow thats a cool story. Yes, I think that was a cache. I'll bet you can still see the look on the old mans face when he looked into the bag.
 

I think there's a story behind everything you find treasure hunting. Maybe the person buried it so they could return for it someday. Most of the treasure we find can't talk but it's fun to use your imagination to try and figure out, why you found it, who wore it and/or who wanted to spend it but lost it. Cash is cache.
 

Last edited:
I've never found a coin cache thus far. Although a friend found a few coins placed in an old makeup cameo. Its all metal with a cameo face on the front.
What a nice find. Not only did he find a cool makeup cameo but then coins are inside. I'd like to think that's a cache.
 

Most people know that a simple tin can will rot out in a few short years if outside. Older ones have been found in cast iron containers as well as jars outside. I am of the school that most caches were inside caches and I have found one and seen two others that were coins in cigar boxes. I have seen a friend find a small tin can inside with a small roll of bills in it. Yes, a cast iron pot of coins with a lid might give you a funny signal, that is why most true cache hunters don't use discrimination.
I value your opinion. East and west are different. Theres so much humidity in the east and almost no humidity in the west. I've been in both climates and even today if I had silver and I was out in the west and it was a temporary storage I probably would still go with tin. It's small, more available and it won't break. Again the cache that i'm looking for would be around the 1900s . I like what you say "most caches are in caches" Sorry for my rookie questions I guess I just need to do some tests with silver inside of tin, cast iron, ect. That would be cool to find silver in a cigar box. I hope i find something like that and I wish the same for you too. thank you.
 

Last edited:
I have found coins cached in old masons jars with zinc lids that had white glass seals. I have found old large paper money in Prince Albert tobacco tins, but they were inside a wall of an old building. I don't keep count. Frank...

111-1 profile.jpg
 

I have found 2 cache's ,, one was a cache of 120 brass trade tokens ( saloons,book stores,billards,cigar stores etc,etc,) it was buried about four feet deep in an old coffee can,,,,, the other was hidden under the attic floor boards of a house from 1895 it was a cigar box from a Colorado tobacco store,8 barber coins,gold ore ,and an old fire dept button that was still shining like the day it was made. Hope I get to find another someday,,,,,ahhh what a feeling
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Discussions

Back
Top