Big Boys Hobbies

Detecting old schoolhouses

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k2gleaner

Elite Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
Messages
519
Location
NC
I'm pretty curious when it comes to detecting and I generally look forward to finding all sorts of relics. Since I'm relatively new to this, I've found a few flat buttons and one 1944 Walking Liberty half, amongst other junk and coins.

That being said, I've been researching the locations of former one-room schoolhouses in my area. I was wondering what one can expect to find? I'm assuming the older the school, the less chance of coins b/c how many kids had coins to carry back in the day? Am I right? Maybe they lost some marbles...but that won't come with the detector. :)
 
I have found several of my best finds at schoolhouses. Including an 1856 seated quarter and 2 1856 dimes and my friend found an SLQ amongst other old coins. I’ve also found several other old coins and a few older rings and tokens. Schoolhouses in general have been my best old coin producers, I’ve always thought they would be more relic producers.


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At the ones I detected around here I mostly found Indians. A penny was worth something "back then" and they probably didn't have a reason to carry $. I did find a seated dime at one though. I'm sure there's better finds at different schools.
 
k2gleaner said:
I'm pretty curious when it comes to detecting and I generally look forward to finding all sorts of relics. Since I'm relatively new to this, I've found a few flat buttons and one 1944 Walking Liberty half, amongst other junk and coins.

That being said, I've been researching the locations of former one-room schoolhouses in my area. I was wondering what one can expect to find? I'm assuming the older the school, the less chance of coins b/c how many kids had coins to carry back in the day? Am I right? Maybe they lost some marbles...but that won't come with the detector. :)
Click to expand...

Kids carrying coins then was more common than today.
 
Stiffwrists said:
Kids carrying coins then was more common than today.
Click to expand...

Huh ? I think this is a typo. You mean that kids carrying coins today is more common than kids-back-then. Right ?

When I was a kid, in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to talk to people who had been through the depression (my own folks, for example). Ie.: people could remember the 1920s and '30s, if they were then in their 60s, 70s and '80s. And since I was new to the hobby (in high school) , I peppered the old folks, in my town, with questions as to where they picnicked, the 1-room schools, etc....

And I remember many of the elderly people, who had gone to country-1-room schools saying "we never had coins or money". I figured this was just a "wax-romantic " comment (like the walking to the school barefoot uphill in the snow type-remarks). So I always dismissed these comments.

But as time went on, I began to see that there is a ring-of-truth to these comments. Because at inner city schools that date to the late teens and early '20s in my town, I began to notice that most of the silver and wheaties we found, were invariably 1940s/50s silver.

At first, detecting in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, I always wrote that off to : "our detectors simply aren't getting deep enough to reach the 1910s/20s silver". But as time went on, and detectors got deeper, I noticed that the date ranges never changed. Even when school turf got scraped (for various demolition projects), it wasn't like "barbers and teens coins were jumping out of the ground". Yet I could distinctly recall HUNDREDS of 1940s mercs, wheaties, silver roosies, silver washingtons, etc.... Huh ? What gives ? Where are all the SLQ s ? Where are all the crisp 1920s mercs ?

And I began to realize that what the old-timers said was actually true : Prior to WWII : Kids didn't have much need (nor affluence) to have coins in their pockets. But after WWII, the USA entered into the most prosperous affluent economy ever. And school lunch / milk programs evolved, to where every kid began carrying a nickel or dime in his pocket now.

Hence my experience (at least here in CA), is that when we hit 1-room school sites (EVEN WHEN VIRGIN), is that if the date of the school usage was pre WWII, is that coins will be scarce. Even though we get buttons, harmonica reeds, slag, etc.... (showing we're the first ones to hit it). And if its usage continued till the 1950s, then sure ..... we'll get a 1940s merc, a few 50s wheaties, etc.... And if a '20s coin turns up, it evidences more wear like it was lost in the 1940s.

JMHO
 
Tom_in_CA said:
Huh ? I think this is a typo. You mean that kids carrying coins today is more common than kids-back-then. Right ?

When I was a kid, in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to talk to people who had been through the depression (my own folks, for example). Ie.: people could remember the 1920s and '30s, if they were then in their 60s, 70s and '80s. And since I was new to the hobby (in high school) , I peppered the old folks, in my town, with questions as to where they picnicked, the 1-room schools, etc....

And I remember many of the elderly people, who had gone to country-1-room schools saying "we never had coins or money". I figured this was just a "wax-romantic " comment (like the walking to the school barefoot uphill in the snow type-remarks). So I always dismissed these comments.

But as time went on, I began to see that there is a ring-of-truth to these comments. Because at inner city schools that date to the late teens and early '20s in my town, I began to notice that most of the silver and wheaties we found, were invariably 1940s/50s silver.

At first, detecting in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, I always wrote that off to : "our detectors simply aren't getting deep enough to reach the 1910s/20s silver". But as time went on, and detectors got deeper, I noticed that the date ranges never changed. Even when school turf got scraped (for various demolition projects), it wasn't like "barbers and teens coins were jumping out of the ground". Yet I could distinctly recall HUNDREDS of 1940s mercs, wheaties, silver roosies, silver washingtons, etc.... Huh ? What gives ? Where are all the SLQ s ? Where are all the crisp 1920s mercs ?

And I began to realize that what the old-timers said was actually true : Prior to WWII : Kids didn't have much need (nor affluence) to have coins in their pockets. But after WWII, the USA entered into the most prosperous affluent economy ever. And school lunch / milk programs evolved, to where every kid began carrying a nickel or dime in his pocket now.

Hence my experience (at least here in CA), is that when we hit 1-room school sites (EVEN WHEN VIRGIN), is that if the date of the school usage was pre WWII, is that coins will be scarce. Even though we get buttons, harmonica reeds, slag, etc.... (showing we're the first ones to hit it). And if its usage continued till the 1950s, then sure ..... we'll get a 1940s merc, a few 50s wheaties, etc.... And if a '20s coin turns up, it evidences more wear like it was lost in the 1940s.

JMHO
Click to expand...

It was a little tounge in cheek. Just saying... my kids never carry money to school. I agree though. Schools active in the 40's and 50s are the best for modern silver coins.
 
I have found some pretty cool relics around old school houses. But the majority of coins are pennies. Remember there was no school lunches they packed. School houses were usually a gathering place for lots of other activities other than School. So you never know what you will find. I love old school houses!

This is the reach search I have found on average wages for the 1800s. Picture below.
 

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I attended a two room school house that had all 8 grades in those two rooms. Money? Heck a danged penny made you feel like you were rich. However having said that I suspect that old school houses in more affluent neighborhoods might have some old silver coins hiding there. I certainly would give them a try Nothing ventured nothing gained.
 
I like old schooolhouses!...I especially like using the Satellite image from Google Earth or even Mapquest...What I want to locate is the 'Kid travel routes' radiating out to and from that school...I wanna see the nearest swimming hole, the alleys leading to the corner store, the old neighborhoods, parks, curbstrips, etc...

Kids traveled alleys, they cut corners, they headed straight for the downstream swimming hole of the RR trestle or creek or nearest pond...Kids got into fights in the alleys....they hung out under the street lamps at the corner...The Good Humor Man would roll up at certain curbstrip locations at every single park/school and neighborhood...

Kids loose all sorts of stuff!...They are a primary target!...Look at any old town via the satellite, evaluate the layout and the size of the yards and the age of the neighborhood...find the creek and the bend in it that has not left its channel for a long time....downstream of the RR trestle or bridges especially...You know that creek has not changed direction since those tracks/bridge was put in and of course, the RR laid tracks/bridges were built at what used to be 'fords' on account of it was easy...

You gotta think like a kid 150 years ago, use the satellite, then track them down...150yr old Kids like lounging around on southern facing escarpments...private deep swales where they can go smoke and swing from the grapevines and build treehouses and underground forts..they liked sledding and rolling down hills..You gotta think like a kid...!

You find the 'Kid travel routes', and buddy, your best finds may not be at the school on account of its probably already been hunted...Kids buried or lost all sorts of things..I know I did!..I can walk you to the spot today where I hid a .22 pistol when I was 12...Its still there as far as I know, in case I ever need it...that was in 1971...49yrs ago.....Yeah, we all carried back then...:laughing:

When it comes to Kids, its all about topography!
 
Dan B. said:
I have found some pretty cool relics around old school houses. But the majority of coins are pennies. Remember there was no school lunches they packed. School houses were usually a gathering place for lots of other activities other than School. So you never know what you will find. I love old school houses!

This is the reach search I have found on average wages for the 1800s. Picture below.
Click to expand...

Agreed especially on the part about schools being more than schools....just about everything that COULD occur DID occur at and around schools, at least around here. There are also WAY more “one room schools” out in the country than some people may think. Kids could only walk so far, so they were spaced no more than 3-5 miles apart in this area. We have ALOT of them, but the ones still standing are all private homes now.
 
one room school house

Tom_in_CA said:
Huh ? I think this is a typo. You mean that kids carrying coins today is more common than kids-back-then. Right ?

When I was a kid, in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to talk to people who had been through the depression (my own folks, for example). Ie.: people could remember the 1920s and '30s, if they were then in their 60s, 70s and '80s. And since I was new to the hobby (in high school) , I peppered the old folks, in my town, with questions as to where they picnicked, the 1-room schools, etc....

And I remember many of the elderly people, who had gone to country-1-room schools saying "we never had coins or money". I figured this was just a "wax-romantic " comment (like the walking to the school barefoot uphill in the snow type-remarks). So I always dismissed these comments.

But as time went on, I began to see that there is a ring-of-truth to these comments. Because at inner city schools that date to the late teens and early '20s in my town, I began to notice that most of the silver and wheaties we found, were invariably 1940s/50s silver.

At first, detecting in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, I always wrote that off to : "our detectors simply aren't getting deep enough to reach the 1910s/20s silver". But as time went on, and detectors got deeper, I noticed that the date ranges never changed. Even when school turf got scraped (for various demolition projects), it wasn't like "barbers and teens coins were jumping out of the ground". Yet I could distinctly recall HUNDREDS of 1940s mercs, wheaties, silver roosies, silver washingtons, etc.... Huh ? What gives ? Where are all the SLQ s ? Where are all the crisp 1920s mercs ?

And I began to realize that what the old-timers said was actually true : Prior to WWII : Kids didn't have much need (nor affluence) to have coins in their pockets. But after WWII, the USA entered into the most prosperous affluent economy ever. And school lunch / milk programs evolved, to where every kid began carrying a nickel or dime in his pocket now.

Hence my experience (at least here in CA), is that when we hit 1-room school sites (EVEN WHEN VIRGIN), is that if the date of the school usage was pre WWII, is that coins will be scarce. Even though we get buttons, harmonica reeds, slag, etc.... (showing we're the first ones to hit it). And if its usage continued till the 1950s, then sure ..... we'll get a 1940s merc, a few 50s wheaties, etc.... And if a '20s coin turns up, it evidences more wear like it was lost in the 1940s.

JMHO
Click to expand...

My parents were both raised during the depression and families were very poor. After World war 2 my dad went to back to school and became a teacher. His first job was in a one room school house and he and my mom lived in a small trailer by the school. Each morning he had to go in and start the wood burning stove before school. That was in southern Missouri in Berry county but I don't know exactly where .
 
The sites where the one room schools once stood are my favorite places to hunt. Back in the early 90's when I first got into MD'ing I found 7 IHP's in one hole, that was exciting. I still remember pulling out a penny then swinging the detector over the hole and getting another signal. Grabbing a fist fulls of dirt and swinging over the detector till I got another one. That was awesome. Found a "V" nickel at another site and a seated dime in another.

Just got back into hunting a couple of years ago and still finding mostly IHP's. Only one Mercury dime.

I should add that I finally found an IHP at the old school that my dad attended. Also have hunted the one where my mother went but haven't found anything there. It's a cow pasture and very overgrown.
 
Yep the one-roomers around here have been absolutely pummeled over the years. I live in a rural area and there’s a one-room about every square mile or so. Some are private homes now, and some are now “invisible”. Your best chance is to research and find the sites that have disappeared since the late 1970’s, less chance of those to have been hunted. I tend to look for the old horseshoe-shaped drive that may still remain. Those are your best bet. I’ve seen a father/son team in my area hunting some of the existing sites for weeks at a time!

Youngsters had no money back then, but there were perhaps many social gatherings where coins could have been dropped by the adults.
 
Tom_in_CA said:
Huh ? I think this is a typo. You mean that kids carrying coins today is more common than kids-back-then. Right ?

When I was a kid, in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to talk to people who had been through the depression (my own folks, for example). Ie.: people could remember the 1920s and '30s, if they were then in their 60s, 70s and '80s. And since I was new to the hobby (in high school) , I peppered the old folks, in my town, with questions as to where they picnicked, the 1-room schools, etc....

And I remember many of the elderly people, who had gone to country-1-room schools saying "we never had coins or money". I figured this was just a "wax-romantic " comment (like the walking to the school barefoot uphill in the snow type-remarks). So I always dismissed these comments.

But as time went on, I began to see that there is a ring-of-truth to these comments. Because at inner city schools that date to the late teens and early '20s in my town, I began to notice that most of the silver and wheaties we found, were invariably 1940s/50s silver.

At first, detecting in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, I always wrote that off to : "our detectors simply aren't getting deep enough to reach the 1910s/20s silver". But as time went on, and detectors got deeper, I noticed that the date ranges never changed. Even when school turf got scraped (for various demolition projects), it wasn't like "barbers and teens coins were jumping out of the ground". Yet I could distinctly recall HUNDREDS of 1940s mercs, wheaties, silver roosies, silver washingtons, etc.... Huh ? What gives ? Where are all the SLQ s ? Where are all the crisp 1920s mercs ?

And I began to realize that what the old-timers said was actually true : Prior to WWII : Kids didn't have much need (nor affluence) to have coins in their pockets. But after WWII, the USA entered into the most prosperous affluent economy ever. And school lunch / milk programs evolved, to where every kid began carrying a nickel or dime in his pocket now.

Hence my experience (at least here in CA), is that when we hit 1-room school sites (EVEN WHEN VIRGIN), is that if the date of the school usage was pre WWII, is that coins will be scarce. Even though we get buttons, harmonica reeds, slag, etc.... (showing we're the first ones to hit it). And if its usage continued till the 1950s, then sure ..... we'll get a 1940s merc, a few 50s wheaties, etc.... And if a '20s coin turns up, it evidences more wear like it was lost in the 1940s.

JMHO
Click to expand...

I remember in the 1950's kids always had change for either milk, lunch (if I did not take my lunch) and cokes in an afternoon break. I also remember losing my lunch money or coke money probably at the morning recess. At lunch or break you put your hands in your pocket to get your nickel or dime and nothing. Morning recess or afternoon recess caused a lot of coins to be lost by boys. Back then we played hard. Now they don't even have recess in some schools. And if they do, it seems the kids just stand around.
 
Mud-puppy said:
I like old schooolhouses!...I especially like using the Satellite image from Google Earth or even Mapquest...What I want to locate is the 'Kid travel routes' radiating out to and from that school...I wanna see the nearest swimming hole, the alleys leading to the corner store, the old neighborhoods, parks, curbstrips, etc...

Kids traveled alleys, they cut corners, they headed straight for the downstream swimming hole of the RR trestle or creek or nearest pond...Kids got into fights in the alleys....they hung out under the street lamps at the corner...The Good Humor Man would roll up at certain curbstrip locations at every single park/school and neighborhood...

Kids loose all sorts of stuff!...They are a primary target!...Look at any old town via the satellite, evaluate the layout and the size of the yards and the age of the neighborhood...find the creek and the bend in it that has not left its channel for a long time....downstream of the RR trestle or bridges especially...You know that creek has not changed direction since those tracks/bridge was put in and of course, the RR laid tracks/bridges were built at what used to be 'fords' on account of it was easy...

You gotta think like a kid 150 years ago, use the satellite, then track them down...150yr old Kids like lounging around on southern facing escarpments...private deep swales where they can go smoke and swing from the grapevines and build treehouses and underground forts..they liked sledding and rolling down hills..You gotta think like a kid...!

You find the 'Kid travel routes', and buddy, your best finds may not be at the school on account of its probably already been hunted...Kids buried or lost all sorts of things..I know I did!..I can walk you to the spot today where I hid a .22 pistol when I was 12...Its still there as far as I know, in case I ever need it...that was in 1971...49yrs ago.....Yeah, we all carried back then...:laughing:

When it comes to Kids, its all about topography!
Click to expand...

when I was a kid in the South in the 1950's we were hands on kids. Spent almost all our time outdoors away from parents and adults. Did all those things and more. Cut grass for money and always had change in my pocket for candy bottle rockets, cokes ets.

We were rough kids always goofing around pushing other guys down (if we could) wrestling and running. Played pickup baseball and football in an empty lot in the neighborhood. Our playgrounds had monkey bars where we would climb and hang upside down by our knees. Sitting in sunny places in the winter and shady places in the summer. Lots of lost coins in that era and probably the 1940's also. Now you will find coins under the sofa cushions where kids slump down playing video games. But no silver.

The only electronic device I had was a old military surplus shortwave radio and a small transistor radio my dad brought back form Japan.
 
IDXMonster said:
Agreed especially on the part about schools being more than schools....just about everything that COULD occur DID occur at and around schools, at least around here. There are also WAY more “one room schools” out in the country than some people may think. Kids could only walk so far, so they were spaced no more than 3-5 miles apart in this area. We have ALOT of them, but the ones still standing are all private homes now.
Click to expand...

yup and keep in mind they moved them around a lot as well, so as to keep it in a good distance for the current students.
 
amc rulz said:
Wha chu ‘talkin ‘bout Willis?
Click to expand...

around me(rural areas) they jacked them up on wheels and wagons and moved them spot to spot to make distances work better for students depending on demand in the area. So one group graduates and say the new group on average lives 2 miles west, they picked up that school house and moved her there. So there are many school house sites outside of cities and towns that only had the school house there for so many years at a time.

Edit talking about pre 1930's here
 
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