Part II: Penny vs Nickel vs Dime vs Quarter

1320

1320

Silver Member
Dec 10, 2004
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East Central Kentucky
Last week, I posted a thread about my percentages of each coin that I've found detecting, a total of 338 coins. It went like this:

52% Penny
4% Nickel
25% Dime
19% Quarter

Someone replied with a question about using too high of discrimination to explain the percentage of nickels. I usually hunt a notch below nickel so I should be picking them up. So, I conducted another study to further validate the lack of nickels! I cleaned out my cars' coin holder (ashtray) yesterday. It's amazing just how close my ashtry matches my detecting......

319 Coins in the ashtry

49% Penny
7% Nickel
21% Dime
23% Quarter

I guess our coin loss is directly related to what we receive back in change when we make a purchase. This might help explain why we don't find many nickels? Any opinions?
 

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1320, You may have some theory with that.My tray is abought full.I'll match my findings with yours.Come to think of it my dresser top always has a pile of change on it and it seems to match your theory without even looking.
 

Let me know! The two of us may change the entire metal detecting mindset in regard to the mighty and elusive nickel!
 

Altho I agree on your Percentages

I would also consider the Fact, most Detectorists, get Tired of digging Tabs & turn their Discrimination up. Grabbing all the other coins & leaving the Nickels

now over a long period of time like this, the Volume of Nickels should rise, as the Percentage of other coins Decrease? ;)
 

Jeff, how true. I have had more luck on the nickles of late only becouse i have been running with my disc, down for the rings. I never had a lot of nickles before that.
 

jeff of pa said:
Altho I agree on your Percentages

I would also consider the Fact, most Detectorists, get Tired of digging Tabs & turn their Discrimination up. Grabbing all the other coins & leaving the Nickels

now over a long period of time like this, the Volume of Nickels should rise, as the Percentage of other coins Decrease? ;)
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That is true for me, Dozens of pull tabs and wasted time, or skip and get a true reading.
 

I've driven the Chicago land tollways for years, where the tolls for many years has been $.40 (quarter, dime, nickel). The one coin missing the most in the change holder has always seemed to be nickels. At the same time, pulling coins out of my pocket to refill the toll change holder, I was and still am always short on nickels. Something tells me that if one did a study that one would find that nickels aren't given out as change very often compared to other coins.
 

I guess you can say i found a nickel mine . Have one school i hunt , my ole standby , always good for a few dollers in goodies . If it shows as nickel or tab 90% of time it is a nickel . Very few pull tabs or scrap . And ,no , i`ll not tell where it is !!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D Ain`t that mean !!!
 

Not sure how many folks this will help, but.....on my XLT, the numbers 17 through 21 are almost always nickels. the 20's are the pulltabs. Just my 5 cents, HH, dave.
 

last year me and knorrski totaled 497 nickels this year we are at 427.I think getting to know your machine is what helps us.On my MXT shallow readings(3 in.and less) of 18-20 are almost always nickels while deeper 14-16 readings usually are.

bigrig
 

My .02 worth... 1) My numbers are P=77% N=3% D=11% Q=9% 2) over 300 coins in your ashtray??? What the heck do you drive??? :o
 

Might want to check out the mintage records over the years. If nickels aren't used as often, they wouldn't be in as much demand at the banks which in turn would cause the mints to back off production to match the demand. I would think. I have no data to support this theory of course... But obviously there would be the pop tab dilema thrown in for good measure too.

Could also be that it only takes two nickels to equal a dime. When you get change back and you need $.19 back, they will most likely try to give you the least amount of money (number of coins). So 1 dime, 1 nickel, 4 pennies. Which could also explain the influx of so many pennies, it takes 5 of them to get to the next denomination so when you get change back you are stuck with 4 of them. Rarely would you ever get more than 1 nickel back in change because 2 of them would just get you 1 dime.

Just a thought.

Dudes
 

I would say that you are an anomoly UNLESS the settings that you hunt with are giving you a partial discrimination of quarters and dimes. But then again, we tend to find exactly what we're looking for. With that in mind, you effectively are targeting nickels! Thanks for sharing your stats. 181 coins in two weeks is a wonderful start. Good job on the buffalo and wheaties.
 

Thanks Free, I'm starting to buy into my own theory now! I'm guessing that you dig everything too. Can't tell you how bad I've beat myself up over nickels when in fact they might not be there in the first place. Thanks for sharing.
 

Here's mine for about the last month or so (my total career).

P-57%
N-5%
D-26%
Q-11%
D-less than 1%

Total 545 coins. Probably not bad for a rookie, but not a single one of them older than 1965! Can you believe that?
 

My percentages on nickels went up yesterday....found three 1940ish, in the same hole!

Funny about them halves, I've detected about 6 years never found any until this year....I've found five since February. Almost as many halves as nickels!
 

My percentage is skewed because of where I hunt. I'm probly at 95% quarters. Hey I need gas money.
 

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