Will the silver disappear?

I recently detected a yard with a friend. The homeowner told us the yard has never been detected. The house was built in the early 1900's  and he has lived there since 1970. When we detected the yard we found coins no earlier than the late 60's, no silver.

I also recently  detected an old farm built in the mid 1800's that have never been detected. Two of us detected around the farm house. We found 1862, 1863 and 1891 Indian Penny's. We also found a lots of wheaties and clad. I think we covered every square inch twice. But the only silver coins we found were two dimes both dated 1944. 

These two recent hunts have got me wondering:

If coins sink in the ground at a continuous rate (silver sinking faster) at some point won't all silver coins will be out of reach of our detectors?

All that will be left for coin shooters will be clad.

Lots of variables . Maybe he added fill dirt at some time

nsbadge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I recently detected a yard with a friend. The
> homeowner told us the yard has never been
> detected. The house was built in the early 1900's
>  and he has lived there since 1970. When we
> detected the yard we found coins no earlier than
> the late 60's, no silver.
>
> I also recently  detected an old farm built in
> the mid 1800's that have never been detected. Two
> of us detected around the farm house. We found
> 1862, 1863 and 1891 Indian Penny's. We also found
> a lots of wheaties and clad. I think we covered
> every square inch twice. But the only silver coins
> we found were two dimes both dated 1944. 
>
> These two recent hunts have got me wondering:
>
> If coins sink in the ground at a continuous rate
> (silver sinking faster) at some point won't all
> silver coins will be out of reach of our
> detectors?
>
> All that will be left for coin shooters will be
> clad.


must consider that it is entirely possible that what you found
was ALL that was lost!...just sayin'

(h.h.!)
j.t.

I find it a common occurrence that houses built at the turn of the century had fill dirt put in somewhere in the 40's and 50's. I have detected a number of these and have found Mercs from the 40's and other objects from that time at depths of six to eight inches. Even now, as the neighborhoods where these houses stand go through a renovation period, the new owners re-level the yards with new fill dirt and now the stuff from the 40's and 50's is being put beyond the reach of my detector.

Pinpoint twice, dig once

pulltab Miner may be on to something there. Recently there have been some books published that are compositions of postcard pictures of various parts of the United States. Some are done state by state...and some are even county by county in each state. I happen to have two of them...one of them is for the county in which I live...and the other for a county below me, in which I also do a lot of hunting. In looking at the pictures, with how they are labeled....it is clear to see exactly what pulltabMiner is referring to.

In one particular setting of pictures from the 1880s - 1900s, you can see a section of town with several houses. Then a few decades later, in the 1940s and 1950s, you see pictures from the same part of town and almost every one of those homes are gone, with newer ones taking their place. The landscape doesn't even look the same, as they have came in with dozers and removed the debris from the older homes, and either took the original topsoil away or added fill dirt on top of it, to make it level. So in vague research you would think that part of town would be ideal for hunting late 1800s coins and early 1900s, but in reality you might only be finding Mercury dimes and wheat cents, instead of indian head cents and barber dimes.

And as jmaryt said....what you found may have been all that was lost. When you hit certain time periods in US history, you'll find the majority of the country was poor and didn't have a lot of money to lose. A lot of what you find OR don't find depends on who lived there and whether they had any money to lose in the first place.

Fill dirt is not just brought in to level the ground, but in some areas the property must be elevated to meet new building codes etc.

You may be right about the fill. The 1900's house had a house torn down on the lot next to it. The present owner built a attached garage on it. Knowing this we detected the other side of the house. 
We went back to the 1800's farm house with our small coils. The first time I detected it I used an Etrac with the stock coil. This time I used the F75 LTD with the 5" coil. I only spent an hour and found a 1961 nickle and a 2002 Dime. We are going back and start hitting the fields.  If we find silver in the fields I will post it.

My original question
The last silver coins being made 48 years ago.
Will silver coins eventually sink beyond our detectors range?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2012 01:14AM by nsbadge.

Same thing in my home town. I lucked up and found a very small yard that had the original contour . Houses all around are setting lower and leveler with the highway (64) that runs through town. But in this old yard that I found, you had to look down at the roadway. I was very fortunate that it was part of a CW Campsite complete with coat buttons, cuff buttons, bullets, balls, pocketknife (or old folding razor?) and alot of camp lead. Even 2 Indian Head cents from early 1880's. And a 1945 Merc. And an old Ford automobile key that had turned red with age. Sadly, the rest has been dozed and paved, and built on, and filled in. I am always on the lookout for the original contour of the town. One guy lucked up on some right across from the Chevy dealership and found 100's of different kinds of Union bullets inluding unfired Burnside cartridges, and pistol bullets etc etc.
I lucked up again and found a Barber half dollar on some land in town toward the river that hasn't been dozed....yet. The city recently bought it and it already has grade flags and markers put up for the big equipment to come in and rearrange everything. Been trying to hunt it out before the rumble of the big machines starts.
But I feel what your saying. People have been detecting around here for a while, although I rarely see anyone today with one in town. I could let that discourage me. But I don't.

We detected an Old Woolen Mill property next to a river that was built in 1890. Before that it was farm fields. In 1942 they built a shoe factory on the same property next to the mill. They dug out about a 1 acre area for a parking lot. The property has about 20 acres of fields from the original farm. An old stone wall runs down the center of the fields. On one side of the stone wall is an area built up with some apple trees on it. The apple trees were  probably planted when the shoe factory was built. By the lay of the land it looks like the earth removed for the parking lot was spread in the area of the apple trees. We detected around the mill and in the fields and did not find much. When I detected that spot I suspected was earth from the parking lot, I found a concentration of  OLD coins in a small area about 50 X 75 feet. They consisted of the 30-40 wheaties, a 1852 Large cent, a Silver 1858 Canadian 5 cent and 4 silver dimes and lot of relics from the 1800's.  Outside of this area the finds are few and far between.  My theory is that when they moved the earth from parking lot it moved deeper coins to the surface when it was spread.  That area of 50 X 75 feet was the furthest from the parking lot and possibly the top surface of the original ground from the parking lot area. 

On a side note and worth mentioning. In an area next to the shoe factory I started to find clad quarter after clad quarter. So many It was unusual, all in a small area next to a pavilion. It was amazing. I later learned that when the shoe factory had its annual employee picnic they would open and spread hay bales in that area. Then they would throw rolls of  loose quarters in the hay for the kids to dive in and find. I am sure the kids had fun and so did I.

it may have been detected before 1970. I detected lots of yards back in the 60s and so did others ( started in 62}

My 1883 founded city is a mecca for fill dirt....everywhere!!!! Trick is to find the little areas that haven't been 'violated'. There are commercial gravel pits outside of town, so when I hit rocks/gravel at a location, I know its fill and move on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2012 05:19AM by TerraDigger.