Seeking Advise

penneyrich said:

Can anyone give me a few pointers on finding silver. I don't know where to look and the few silvers that i have found have been jumpy on my detector (ace 400). I see folks loaded with silver coins and rings and i know that i must be missing at least a few. Do i just need to be patient or are there things that i can do that will increase my odds of finding silver.

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Location first .And a smaller coil might help,like a 5x8,, although they're pricey and seldom sell used for Ace's..Slow down,and sweep really good in all directions,I find alot I miss when I do that in previous hunted spots. but location is better than any machine,gotta be there to find it,and 90 Percent of machines will find 90 Percent of the finds out there.

penneyrich said:

Can anyone give me a few pointers on finding silver. I don't know where to look and the few silvers that i have found have been jumpy on my detector (ace 400). I see folks loaded with silver coins and rings and i know that i must be missing at least a few. Do i just need to be patient or are there things that i can do that will increase my odds of finding silver.

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Are the old parks hammered hard in your area ? If so, research out old scout camps, fraternal or lodge type camps/resorts, etc..... If they too have been "hit hard", then a final frontier is to knock on doors of old homes. Especially the post WWII type homes (blt. late 1940s to early 1950s). Because that was a very prosperous time in the USA economy. Every kid had coins jingling in his pocket during that era. And yet the yards are new enough to not be riddled with junk, iron, etc.... So those era homes are always good for common newer silver.

But if you're angling for old stuff (seateds, barbers, etc...), you'll have to research out where the old stage stops were (and hopefully no modern homes on the site). Or old defunct resorts, country picnic sites that went defunct @ before the 1920s. Or hit old-town demolition tractor scrapes, oldtown sidewalk tearouts, etc....

thanks for the info! I'm not sure if the area has been hit hard or not. I have lived here all my life and i have never seen anyone other than me out with a metal detector. i know things must have as i cant be the only one in wichita who has a detector! anyway thanks a bunch and i will try these areas. wish me luck!

woodbutcher said:

Location first .And a smaller coil might help,like a 5x8,, although they're pricey and seldom sell used for Ace's..Slow down,and sweep really good in all directions,I find alot I miss when I do that in previous hunted spots. but location is better than any machine,gotta be there to find it,and 90 Percent of machines will find 90 Percent of the finds out there.

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This pretty much says it all . Keep your sweeps really close together
( overlap ) and keep the grit from building up between your coil and cover .
Welcome from California , good luck , have fun , keep your digs unnoticeable and post your finds !

Old fairgrounds and demolition sites where old buildings once stood are good for silver. Especially the fairgrounds....they can be a lot of work at times but because of all the money and traffic involved over the years they probably hold the highest concentrations of silver and jewelry possible.

don't judge your silver performance against others on forums

some of these other guys that post their finds are very, very experienced with their detector and in general very experienced at hunting coins, rings and relics. They also know how to really do their research and get good permissions. As with beach hunters, they know how to read beaches and know which beaches have the best gold jewelry, eg often the more expensive hotels and condos on the beach.

If you are a beginner or intermediate you will not even come close to these guys in terms of silver finds, gold rings and relics. So don't let it get you down. For a long while I ask my self - Do I have the right detector? Do I have the right location? Do I have the right experience?

For the last two questions the answer was no. And I am even wondering about my Equinox 800. I often wonder if I need a less sophisticated and less sensitive metal detector.

So just learn from the more experienced guys, learn your machine and hunt as much as you can and you will improve. Keep in mind when you are out metal detecting you are in open getting exercise, having fun and not working. That is a good thing. The thrill of the hunt is what keeps most of us going along with many other positive things about metal detecting. Heck, even jawing with our fellow metal detectorists on these forums is fun and educational.

penneyrich said:

Can anyone give me a few pointers on finding silver. I don't know where to look and the few silvers that i have found have been jumpy on my detector (ace 400). I see folks loaded with silver coins and rings and i know that i must be missing at least a few. Do i just need to be patient or are there things that i can do that will increase my odds of finding silver

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Yes, patience can be a big help.
Most of those who are actively finding older coins, especially silver coins, are usually more experienced, they know their detector(s) well, have accessory coils to help search more challenging sites, and like Tom and others suggested they do research and find more overlooked or out-of-the-way locations.

One other thing is that it is usually going to be the more Avid Detectorists who find more of the silver and older coins than the 'average' Hobbyists because they have made the right detector and coil selection, know the device well, and select the more likely sites to hunt. They also tend to use a slow and methodical sweep speed and not hurry along.

But the one thing most of them do to be successful is put in the time and effort. The more you hunt the better you can become and mix that with ample patience and skills/knowledge and your success rate will go up.

Oh, one other thing. I believe you said you are 48 years old so you were born about 1970. I started detecting in early '65 and the metal detecting surge really got started in the latter '60s and early '70s, by the year you were born, and we could drive around most big cities and see one or two people out detecting, maybe a small group or a metal detecting club, or even a family out for some detecting fun and that continued until the metal detecting hobby pretty much peaked about '86 or so in this country. You would have only been about 16 years old then and not noticed the activity.

There were hundreds of metal detecting clubs across the USA from the mid '80s to mid-90s and then, like local metal detector dealers, they started dying off. You might have had other things on your mind, and so far as urban Coin Hunting goes, there have been far fewer people going out working parks and schools like in the 'good old days,' and clubs and hobby growth was dwindling.

One reason is because many people who did get into this great sport had visions of finding a lot of older dated and silver coins bought a modern detector, thought the visual TID was 100% accurate, then found out it wasn't and they were not finding much in the way of older coins. Why not? They were mostly GONE!

Those of us who got an early start in the hobby put in the time and found a lot. I still enjoy this great sport but mainly Relic Hunt older sites. Most local Coin Hunting sites have been hard hunted and do not see much use these days so there is very little lost and when it is, they are modern coins. It's not like when I was actively hunting, often, in that early era.

In '68 and early '69 my brother & I, using one BFO w/6" coil and each armed with a screwdriver, could fill a pint jar with coins in 2½-3 hours. From '71 on and using better basic TR and TR-Disc. models I hunted every day and all the free time I could. For ten+ years, to about '82 when you turned 12, I found 60-70K coins a year when working extra time or overtime, and on the better years when just working straight time I managed 120K coins a year.

By the early '80s many common places had been and were being hunted, hard, and the numbers of found coins started to decline. Still a lot, but not as many. In '98, the year you turned 28, I only managed 12,479 coins and I haven't hit that coin count per year since then.

During those first 15 banner years I was hunting, '65 thru' 80, the percentage of silver coins to clad was astounding, but as time progressed through the '80s and into the mid-'90s, the silver-to-clad ratio quickly declined. In short, you and others newer to this great sport missed out on the hey-day of silver-finding fun. Today you have to approach it the same way I and others do, and that is research, seek permission to un-hunted or overlooked sites, and patiently use the right equipment.

Sorry to ramble, but so many people newer to this hobby might have great visions of what might be out there, but sad to say, we already did a whole bunch of thinning out the popular sites long, long ago.

Monte

Good post Monte. Love to hear the nostalgia of the early days of the hobby

Lots of good advice here. I’ve dug a couple hundred silvers in the last eight years, mostly from public spots that were supposed to have been hard hit. I’m not afraid to say, my big gains were made when I changed detectors, and it had nothing to do with the cost of the machine.

Location is certainly important, silver's got to be there to be found. It's been said many times before but I'll say it again. Make a test garden. Put some silver in the ground, get very used to the way your machine reacts to it, from different angles. With different swing speeds. At different depths. Slow down and use the best swing technique you can, tight to the soil and perfectly parallel to it. Silver is not jumping out of the ground anymore, optimize your chances by knowing intimately what your machine does when it gets over that elusive silver coin or ring.
Don't be afraid to attack a location from a different angle ie, after walking parallel to a fence line and finding nothing, start again and walk perpendicular to it, or at a 45 degree angle. This works, I've done it many times and achieved success. Definitely get out there after a rain, seems like I always do better after a rain.
Even guys that do this a lot have "silver slumps" we all do. It'll happen, just know your machine, pick a good likely location and be diligent.

I have had a two year slump on finding silver coins. I know I am not doing anything wrong other than detecting locations where there is no silver to be found. Last year I dug $444.90 in modern clad (I do not count lincolns/zincolns) and only two silver coins.

Silver has to be there for us to find it. Do not give up on a likely area after only one time covering it I had a park that at one time was a ball field. First time I covered that property I found one silver coin and lot of clad. Subsequent trips yielded four more silver coins.