I'd like theories on how the hell this happened please!

Thinking back to a hunt with a friend...we came across a city "aquatic center" -basically a fancy city pool with a steam room and sauna(I think) that is off the main drag through town by about 4 blocks. It is not an easy target for someone just passing through town. It is feasible that no one has hunted it for at least AWHILE. The area we hunted,to the best of my recollection,is a square 150'x150'. Not huge,but not tiny either. It was a typical hunt for us,arrive around 9am and wrap it up around 2-3pm. So in 5-6 hours we collected 129 quarters...and one silver Rosie. The numbers stick in my head cuz he beat me by one quarter and a silver dime.
There are a few things that have bothered me about this from the day it happened.
1) Not ONE quarter was silver
2) Most if not all coins were 1" or less,the deepest 2"-3"
3) None had been mangled by a mower
4) This is the ONLY site I've been to in 5 years with this kind of concentration,the second place one is a distant second at twice the area and half the quarters.

The park-turned pool area has been at least a public area since the mid to late 1800s. We went back to find basically nothing further at any depth. My questions:
1) How could have NOBODY seen these when they were freshly dropped?
2) Is this ANY indicator of coin concentrations elsewhere,only masked by other trash?
3) Why we're so many in one spot? A "coin hunt"? Dropped gradually?
4) If the grass was long enough to hide them a mower would have gotten at least one. None were damaged. How? The area is obviously maintained regularly.

I don't have any theories that make complete sense. I can only hope to run across a similar site with older coins one day,and what a day that might be.

Kevin

Park turned pool.....lots of soil comes out of a dug city pool....They may have spread the soil over the area, hence 'out of detection range' for the older goodies.

As far as nothing old imagine its been refilled with new dirt perhaps a hard clay with prevented coins from going deep...May have been some sort of vending requiring quarters reason for the large amount of quarters...still wonder why no other coins of different denominations puzzles me along with no jewelry unless you guys were cherry picking...even so should have been some dimes...

My guess is influenced by the lack of lawnmower rash. The area was probably rough and un-mown for many years, long grass means no-one sees the dropped coins.

I wouldn't be wondering about anything. I would be over joyed I found 129 quarters!

Kenny
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It's probally well known by Veteran Hunters that it has been filled so didn't detect it as they are ''Old Coin Snob's'' as I use to be. Nowaday's I take what I can get due to many close by older sites being closed to Detecting so I keep a Bigfoot coil mounted on my XL-PRO just for these type of hunts. And who knows a Gold Ring or two may come outta the ground!

Dan-Pa. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As far as nothing old imagine its been refilled
> with new dirt perhaps a hard clay with prevented
> coins from going deep...May have been some sort of
> vending requiring quarters reason for the large
> amount of quarters...still wonder why no other
> coins of different denominations puzzles me along
> with no jewelry unless you guys were cherry
> picking...even so should have been some dimes...


My friend ran across the silver dime right at the beginning,just about on the surface,so we set disc at that level,no zincolns or nickels,therefore no jewelry either. As Ozzie said the dirt from the excavation could be covering most of anything older,that makes sense. Also it is a newer facility so it could have easily been overgrown and just used as a kids play field for many years. They do have vending and they may have had a carnival or fair there as well. And yeah...I was boppin' around the whole time just trying to get up and down as fast as possible cuz every two feet it seemed there was another one. It was INSANE!! As Harold said also,it's possible some other hunters saw what was happening or saw the construction itself and just didn't bother,as anything they were targeting was going to now be too far underground to get to. Many of the possibilities mentioned could have come together in the perfect storm to create an area that was over looked,purposely avoided or maybe just hadn't been gotten to yet. I wonder if it speaks to other areas and what they may hold if ALOT of garbage is present. All we can do is look to the best of our abilities in the places were allowed....that's what it boils down to. You can only zoom the target so small before you have to go dig. Interesting....

what about this, it was hunted before and they got all the silver coins, and missed the dime and the rest was lost after the first time hunting it, when was the place closed, before 1964, if it was ,never mind

Here's a theory. You found a modern unhunted site. Enjoy.

Here is a swimming pool I detected when I first started detecting in 1971. Park established in 1891 and swimming pool built in the early 1940s.
The first day I detected was... unreal! Using a Whites 63 TR detector with no discrimination it was obvious it had never seen a metal detector before.
Dug quite a few pop tops but the coins were everywhere. I detected on my knees for several hours they were so concentrated. Long story short: over 650 coins on the first day.
Over 80% of the dimes/quarters/halfs were silver. Tons of quarters. Silver was still in the grass roots back then! So from the surface down to about 6" the coins laid.
And not that many pennys or nickels were dug. I was working 2nd shift then so I came back every morning for about 2 weeks. Towards the end of the 2 weeks readings were
thinning out so I switched to a 10 1/2" loop and dug some deeper ones. Even found some late 1800s/early 1900s coins from before the pool was constructed.
After 2 weeks I tried a few more times but found hardly anything. In the end I recovered over 3,000 coins and several gold and silver rings.
Been back there a few times since then with better detectors and a whole new layer of clad has appeared. I kinda lost interest. And the bad news is this is in north Omaha.
Almost 100% black population there now and very dangerous. About 1 month ago there was a gang murder in the park. I probably will never go back.

Now if someone detected in front of that pool now, yes, they would find pocketfuls of CLAD.

How old is the pool you detected? If it is old someone beat you to the silver. Or it was re-landscaped. I found a silver 1963 dime on top of the ground the other day.
There still are a FEW in circulation and they CAN be lost. So finding 1 silver may be just a fluke.

several things to consider here:

What were the dates of the quarters?
What was the date of the dime?
What did the soil look like? Was it fill?

If it was fill dirt(Light colored or gravel like) then it is like Dan and Ozzie said, the good stuff was deeper. If it is not, then we must look at the dates of the quarters. Also, there would be a ton of wheaties in that area.

If the quarters are 90's-2000's, it was filled(maybe the second time by then). If the quarters are all from the 70's and 80's, most likely this was detected. If the quarters were 65-? with the majority of them in the 60's and 70's, then this area might have been cherry picked but most likely filled after 1965 and then people from the 65 on, started dropping again.

The silver dime could help you too. If it's a silver rosie, then most likely, it was dropped in the 60's to 80's. If it was a merc or earlier, then someone detecting missed it.

The depth really isn't too imporant as diferent areas have different sink rates.

As for the lawn mower not damaging any coins, there can be several factors including:
What type of lawn mower used?
Were they experienced?
Is the area a hill or flat?
Even, was there a structure on top of the area like a band stand?-this can also affect the coins as maybe there was a band stand up until the late sixties.