Florida's Inert Soil Eats Coins ?

I've been finding more and more coins, mostly cents, that are being eaten up when buried in Florida's
neutral mostly inert ground. In these shots are a few coins from the local parks and the local beach.
I don't believe that we will be hunting any 30 year old zinc cents in the future.
Anyone else finding zinc cents like these ????

[www.gspotbasses.com]
[www.gspotbasses.com]
[www.gspotbasses.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2011 12:27PM by Up to my ____ in Pulltabs, Grant.

I have lived in Florida 50 years, however detecting only 22 yrs. and yep, thats what zinc pennies always look like. On the beach it the assault of salt and in the dirt an overdose of fertilizers. A bunch of years ago my club had the opportunity to hunt the old county fair grounds after the topsoil was scraped and around 5000 coins were found, all in excellent condition. The ground had never been fertilized. The site was quite old so they hadn't invented zinc cents yet so all signals were good targets. Makes me drool just thinking about it. I doubt that we'll ever have another site like it!!!

Wally

Zinc penny: Two dissimilar metals, oxygen, salt = Battery

I'm also seeing clad that has the outer plating eaten away.
The fertilizers in the parks, the saltwater from the beach and the federal government for making money out of recycled zinc garbage are to blame.
Most all of the post 1982 pennies that I've dug out this year
are destroyed. I guess my ratio of recent dropped coin versus old drops has leaned
more towards older stuff. I did recently find a F to VF 1945 cent at one of the parks that had a total velvet green patina at 5"
surrounded by 6 post 1982 pennies that were around 2" in the same condition as the pics, heavily pitted or worse.
I'm now much more aware of just how bad zinc pennies and the latest clad really is.

Truthfully..........I wish the Zinc pennies would instantly disintegrate the moment they were lost......so as to NEVER find another one!

Tom ,
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT !!!.....I'm with you on that one !!....A waste of good Zinc !!....LOL !!

Have you seen what one of the new " State " quarters looks like after 1-2 years on the beach ???

Esteban Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Have you seen what one of the new " State "
> quarters looks like after 1-2 years on the beach
> ???


Yes, the outer clad dissolves and most of these coins will become peach or pink colored.
Some become so encrusted with concretion that they are totally illegible.
I've had many new clad from year 2000 + that have had large sand grains fully embedded in their surfaces.
I thoroughly dislike the new coinage made by the government.
I especially hate the zinc pennies. DAMN IT !