What age of a site do you recommend metal detecting?

Welcome to the forum! That is plenty old enough, they stopped making silver coinage in 1964. So your talking 20+ years the possibility of dropped silver coins in that area at the very least. It's also not uncommon to find older stuff in newer areas, due to construction and whatnot. Good luck out there, and happy hunting!

Depends on your objectives. If you're angling for jewelry , then ironically, you want the NEWER (post WWII) spots. Not the pre-WWII zones. Because prior to WWII, people wore little to no jewelry. A wedding ring at best. Contrast to NOW, and ....... ssshheesskkk, everyone's got a nose ring, a toe-ring, a bracelet, a necklace, etc...

This is why so little good gold jewelry is ever found @ ghost townsy pursuits. Yet the dude plying the sand at a modern beach can find gold . Doh !

Or if your objective is silver, then : The post WWII (1950s to early 1960s) was the most economically prolific generation in American history. So you will find silver (albeit common) at such dated sites.

But if by "good finds" you meant old coins (seated and barbers), then no, of course, you won't find them in sites that date to the 1940s/50s (unless worn slicker than snot).

I know some cities in CA , and portions of CA, that didn't get rolling till the 1920s and later. Prior to that, it was desolate no-mans-land. If you're in one of those zones, you'll have to do your research to find old travel routes through your area (eg.: stage stop / watering spring locations), or : You'll need to travel to different parts of the state.

don't know where I found this but very interesting...

Depends on what you're actually looking for. Older coinage say colonial research and go to colonial sites. Those are east coast and look for the brothels, taverns, and trade areas.

Now what you describe is my fun zone. People had since WWII a whole bunch of extra money. Lots of silver change. That silver change was in higher mintages than ever. Most wheats I find are 40s and 50s. Now that maybe because they haven't sunk deeper because they were lost later. But an Indian can be the same depth as clad. Look up the mintages for the 40s and 50s.
Go have some fun

HistoryHippy said:

.... Now that maybe because they haven't sunk deeper because they were lost later.....

Click to expand...

history hippy, when I started this hobby, as a teenager, in the mid 1970s, we would routinely hit a particular elementary school in our city, that dated to the early 1920s.

And I noticed that the predominant # of wheaties and silver were 1940s/50s and early '60s losses. And occasionally when we DID find a merc or a wheatie from the '20s, it evidenced more wear (like it had been in circulation for 20+ yrs, and lost later).

And at the time, I attributed it to the notion that : The older coins must be deeper. And thus our 77b and 66TR just can't reach that deep. This was a logical thing to think, since, by then, we had rationalized that there did seem to be a correlation of depth vs age . Clad on top, wheaties deeper, etc...

HOWEVER, as technology improved in the 1980s, and we went from 3 or 4" depth ability, to 7 to 8" depth ability, we noticed an interesting phenomenon : That it was STILL primarily 1940s/50s silver. Even though depth was no longer an issue. Occasionally we'd get a teens/20s low-circulation wheatie (lost early on), that was easily in our depth reach.

And now I realize that the demographics of the teens/20s/30s, was much different than the post WWII years. In the teens/20s/30s, kids simply had very very little money to carry. Contrast to the post war years, when EVERY KID had a few coins jangling in his pocket. And schools instituted the hot lunch programs (where you had to bring a quarter to school). And milk (where you had to bring a nickel).

So it turns out the difference @ age of silver was strictly a cultural/prosperity shift thing. And nothing to do with the depth of our detectors.

One of the main places I hunt is a WWII training base only active from 42 to 45. I have found V-nickels, Mercs, Wheats, Barber dimes, Walkers, War Nickels, Jef. nickels, SLQs, Wash. silvers. The oldest coin was a 1905 Barber quarter. That should give you an idea of what to expect. As for jewelry, mostly pendants and a few rings and bracelets.

Sometimes it makes little sense. Last fall I was digging in modern built soccer fields as there is about 5 or 6 fields all along a strip of land behind the commerce in my town. Of course, the land and all the edges were bull dosed filled and leveled when the fields were made. I was swinging along the edge of one soccer field and got a couple bucks in clad, suddenly I dig a wheatie, then another and a few more spread in a 10 - 12 ft area right on the edge of the soccer field? couple more feet and I dig two Sacajawea dollar coins then back to clad and twist tops. the wheats were no deeper than clad in that spot. I was using the Nox 600. No silver but did seem strange. The old original dirt can sometimes get mixed in with the new I figure and hey, if you've no better place to hit but modern ground why not. I've been surprised before. Sometimes you hit just a little bit off the edges of a park and be on older unmolested ground.

The oldest ones you have found available.