ToySoldier
Forum Supporter
Coin numbers stayed very good from the mid to latter '70s on through the '80s, and by then all of the commonly worked public areas were starting to get thinned out and we don't see a generous contribution of lost coins these days because those once active locations just aren't being used much anymore.
My parents bought me a metal detector at a yard sale when I was a kid in the 1980s. I played around with it in the yard, but I sure wish I had thought of going to the nearby school and park to look for coins instead of every minute I sat around collecting baseball cards that are worthless today. Copper and silver as common as clad is today, perhaps even more so. I would also imagine people minded their own business if they saw you detecting at a school or park or some other public property, but clearly not causing damage.