Where are the old coins?

build said:

Hi everyone, my first post here.

I've been away from detecting since 1981 and recently borrowed a detector to hunt a town hall built in the 1860s.

What kind of detector was it and how big was the coil

Hunted last weekend, there were good signals everywhere. I dug 126 pennies with 95% dating from 1962-1974 (1-4" deep) - was tired of digging them, 11 clad dimes - all 1970s-80s (1-3" deep), 8 clad quarters (all laying on the surface in the same area), 7 bottle caps (1-3" deep), 2 pull tabs (surface), 1 big ball of foil (4" deep), various pieces of trash, and one old brass key (4" deep). My question(s) - why all the pennies and more importantly - where are the old coins? Not one single old coin!

]If the coil is too big you won't see any deeper coins until you unmask them by removing the surface junk and coins. A smaller coil will help to see between the surface targets. Then some detectors are better than others in cluttered sites. Some just aren't very good at all.

I have photos of the building and surrounding grounds taken in the 1890s and nothing has changed but a few trees. The building, sidwalks, ball fields, streets are exactly the same. Since most of the pennies were 1962-74 and looked unworn and like they'd been in the ground since new, I would think that they were dropped at that time. If someone hunted the place out back in the day they would have found them? I didn't think many people had detectors before the 60s? This area was very wealthy in the 1800s and there must be something old in the ground. Ideas on how to get it?

I've hunted sites and found wheat pennies and no silver. Some guys don't dig pennies if they are after silver. I've hunted one school site that has been hunted to death. I've found V nickels and Indian cents. The oldest V nickel was 1902 and the oldest Indian was 1862. They weren't deeper than 6", that leads me to believe the silver hunters were thee already.

Let us know what you are using for more detailed help. Rob

Jim

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