What am I doing wrong? I'm not finding anything at all old.

[jordanmills]

Jordan,

Thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like your willing to put in the work, both in doing research and in being patient during the hunt.

I haven't been detecting long either. I started 2 1/2 years ago with a Fisher F22. I detected with it for 4 months during the Fall of 2018 and from March through August of 2019. That $225 machine was great at finding clad anywhere up to 4-5 inches down. Not much of anything deeper, unless it was huge. I found about $350 in clad with that thing and was just lucky enough to find 3 silver dimes with, actually a trifecta, one Rosie, one Merc, and one Barber. I certainly wasn't looking for the silver when I found it, it just happened to be in the right place and at the right depth. Found the Rosie at a ballfield built in the last 30 years, the Barber in an old park in a small town, and the Merc in my Mother in Laws front yard of her 1950's farm house that had a previous house on property. Point it, I got so good at knowing I was digging clad (quarters, dimes, and copper pennies) that I was rarely pulling anything else out of the ground. I was knowingly skipping over nickel and zinc penny signals because of all the pull tabs and shape of the zincs. This most likely cost me a few good finds in terms of jewelry, but oh well.

Anyway, bought the Nox 600 back in early June and have enjoyed using it this year. I'm up to about 20 silvers and 5 Indians here in Central Iowa. I will admit, it's been an learning curve and probably the most difficult lesson was the fact that the silver just isn't easy to find. A LOT of it has already been plucked. I was first faced with this reality back in mid-July when I was detecting a nearby park that I knew went back to the late 1800's. The park is in a County Seat, 6000 people, and sits next to the County Fairgrounds and used to house both a pool and the HS football field until the 1980's. Point is, this park had gotten lots of use for decades upon decades. I'm in the middle of my hunt and an older gentleman (in his late 60's) drives up and yells from 50 feet away, "Hey, your swinging the Nox 600, that's a great machine! I've got one too!" Turns out, he's been hunting my neighborhood for the better part of the last 40 years. Pretty much everywhere I'd researched, he had stories of being there and what he'd found over the years. He even gave me a detecting business card and said he'd hook me up with some sweet spots and invited me along. I haven't taken him up on it yet due to the Covid, but plan to this next year when/if all settles down.

Sorry this is so long-winded. Another idea, some people are better visual learners. Have you watched Youtube videos? I know Plugmaster Ford and Missouri Mike swing Nokta's and put out quality videos detecting in Southern Missouri. I think they use Anfibios but they really tout the Nokta brand. They are big into private house permissions. Also, MDing East Texas with Kevin is another guy putting out quality videos in your area. He has a bit of a different approach, mostly schools and ballfields, but is more of a "dig it all" sort. He used to mostly use an AT Pro, but switched to the Nox 600 this year. Check out their vids if you haven't already.

Good luck with the hunt!

Thanks for sharing. Yep I've watched plenty of videos. I guess I'm doing about what they're doing. Just need better places.

I went out for a bit after work to do a park, strips, and lots in an old part of town that's had houses for a hundred years. To say it was full of metallic trash would be an understatement. I got one clad quarter and one clad dime among a bunch of trash. For the most part, I couldn't even pick a stable signal out of all the noise.

To top it off, the last spot I went to was a mostly cleared block. It probably had a dozen houses on it at one time, but had one left that was falling apart, and two that were apparently occupied and in decent shape. Trash everywhere, especially on the curb strips with hundred year old oak trees. And then I noticed that someone had dug a couple dozen plugs and left them laying out on the ground. Sure it was already trashed and about to be re-graded, but that just seems lazy. And it means I was just a few days late to get the most recent pickings.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Jordan, I'm a little late to your post, but enjoyed reading all the inputs. I notice that the answers to your lament, fall into 2 basic categories . The first category of answers puts the solution to your lament into things like these :

1) You need luck, 2) be more patient, 3) practice for deeper coins, 4) slow down, 5) stay at it, 6) get a better machine, 7) dig deep iffy tones

If you ask me, NONE of those are the solution to your lament. Oh sure, they're *good advice* for all times, but no, they do answer your specific dilemma , IMHO. Because there are locations where NO amount of luck, patience, depth, slowing down, better machines, etc.... will produce oldies. So instead I favor the other category of answer you got . Namely : Location location location :


A) jruckman38 says "knock on doors", B) GKL says: "location", C) party-of-one alludes to a permission . So to expand on these guy's advice : If you're hunting the same sad-sorry parks , that everyone rushed to and cherry-picked back in the 1970s to the 2000s, then ... .go figure .... all you're going to get is the recent addition of clad .

This isn't to say that there's NOT still silver in those pathetic parks. There may be. But since you are new to this, you are going to have a nearly impossible task of sorting out the signals. If you just simply waltz in there and dig all the loud "bongs", then go figure : You'll just get clad 99.999% of the time. And the skill to pass clad, and dig deep oldies in pathetic parks is probably only attainable by having someone proficient trade-off flagged signals, so you can see what he'd pass vs what he'd elect to dig.

But save your time, and rather than try to be a hero in pathetic worked-over parks, you should simply hit the history books and find better areas. But here too you might find yourself in a pickle. Because if you're in an area with lots of past-decades md'rs, then the odds are: Those md'rs picked up the same history books decades ago. Doh ! Eg.: stage stops, defunct country picnic sites, etc..... The only way you'll know is to buddy up with long-timers in your area, who may know what's already been exploited, vs what's not been looked into yet.

For example: I pity the poor fellow who gets into md'ing now in my area. We had active clubs here and/or nearby , starting in the mid 1970s. Lots of md'rs, some of which were quite brazen and hardcore, and who 'did their homework'. So pity the poor fellow now who picks up the same history books we did "way-back-when". Or goes to the parks we used to pull silver out of (that I wouldn't touch now with a 10 ft. pole).

HOWEVER, I still get old coins that are sometimes (most times, actually) so shallow, that I could have gotten them with a radio-shack metal detector ! Heck, sometimes I can even hear them with my pinpointer before even breaking open the hole. The reason is: Location location location. We are constantly researching new spots (some of which require ... uh .... balls). Most of which require travel. Because I've noticed that other parts of my state have had less pressure.

So it's still possible to find un-exploited areas. And there's still un-touched frontiers like: 1) oldtown urban demolition tearouts, 2) beach storm erosion, 3) old yards to old homes. I would start with 1920s to 1940s inner-city urban yards. Because even though that might only yield common newer silver and wheaties, yet the odds are : No one else has done those yards. Because if you "rush right out " to the super old yards of stately giant mansions, then perhaps others have hit it. Or perhaps it will be very junked out (since it's had 100 yrs. more time to accumulate junk). So start with newer silver in '20s-40s yards, to get your practice on. AND THEN progress to the colonial type stuff (IMHO)

And while it's true that no one tends to post their show & tell from lame boring treks, yet your lament of lack-of-old coins is not explained by this "bass-fishing channel" psychology (where "every cast is a lunker"). It does indeed sound like you're not getting oldies.


Stetam suggests: "farmers fields" . But I feel that needs some clarification : There needs to have been something there. (Eg.: the prior location of a stage stop, or cellar hole, or defunct picnic site, or.... whatever). I do not think that just simply walking out to any random cultivated field is necessarily going to work. That may work in Europe (where a lot of their fields have had 2000 yrs. of continuous cultivation). But here in the USA, .... I do not consider it a good use of time just to "walk into the middle of nowhere" (yes, even on the older east coast) and have it be time-wise. IMHO

 

[Lee1968]

I agree with a lot of what Tom said -

I found 35 silvers this year, which is a good year for me. I hunted a lot of parks, but 27 of the silvers came from only 3 locations. There was one park I had hit hard over the last couple of years, and had only found 1 silver until I tried the baseball fields. I did the ball fields this year, and found 15. Like Tom said - location, location, location.

As far as farmer's fields, I have walked my share of them for sure, as I have access to a ton of plowed land every fall and winter. There is a site I use that shows an 1873 map from my area, and I hunt the field where it looks like a structure was back in the day. Most times it takes a lot of walking to find the specific spot. I once spent a total of ~16 hours walking back and forth before I finally started to find square nails, and then coins. I have walked fields with no confirmed history, and I have never done any good doing that. There has to have been something there.

 

[rx8driver]

Yes Jordan hang in there it comes but if it were that easy everyone would loose interest!! Like other things the lite will come on and you will go oh I see!!

 

[jordanmills]

Hey guys thanks for all the great words and advice. I want to be clear that I'm not planning on quitting. I expect to keep detecting. But I'm looking for (and getting) input on if I should keep doing the same kind of stuff I've been doing, or do something different. I'm sure I don't even have two hundred hours in yet, and maybe only six to eight with the new detector, so I have no ground to expect to be anywhere close to checking off most of a bucket list.

The only thing I'm thinking about quitting is technique or how I'm choosing locations. I'll still be swinging somewhere.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

... I'm sure I don't even have two hundred hours in yet, and maybe only six to eight with the new detector,....

Re.: Your above quote ^^ If you consider what I said, then you'd realize/see that even with only 1 hour practice, and NO "new machine", that you'd still get oldies at the places I'm talking about.

So again : The issue doesn't seem to be your ability, your machine, your patience, etc.... (that the above quote seems to indicate). Instead, it's : Location location location .

Find a post I made about how to find old-town demolition projects. It involved become a subscriber to your areas Builders Exchange (where all public works bids are advertised). And that would allow you to find out if there's going to be old-town sidewalk tearouts in your state somewhere. Or a park is going to rip out the turf and replace it with artificial sod (which requires the top 6 to 8" of old sod to be bladed out). Etc..... This is a trick to finding old-town demolition sites (yet takes work to sort through the volumes of daily bid announcements).

I also made a post awhile back about volunteering for your local historical societies and museums. Ie.: Become a docent. That will require perhaps 6 hrs. per month @ sorting files, manning a desk, leading tours, etc... And you attend a quarterly meeting, blah blah. You get to know the local historians on a first-name basis [without revealing your true intentions]. You become a fly-on-the-wall. You will eventually get back-room white-glove entry to stuff (yeah yeah, fox guarding the hen-house ) It will provide you with a cool name-badge on a lanyard that you can "flash" (for credentials sake) for an ice-breaker @ getting permission (since you are "doing research", blah blah).

These last 2 tips require time. And are just more food for thought.

 

[jordanmills]

Jordan, I'm a little late to your post, but enjoyed reading all the inputs. I notice that the answers to your lament, fall into 2 basic categories . The first category of answers puts the solution to your lament into things like these :

1) You need luck, 2) be more patient, 3) practice for deeper coins, 4) slow down, 5) stay at it, 6) get a better machine, 7) dig deep iffy tones

If you ask me, NONE of those are the solution to your lament. Oh sure, they're *good advice* for all times, but no, they do answer your specific dilemma , IMHO. Because there are locations where NO amount of luck, patience, depth, slowing down, better machines, etc.... will produce oldies. So instead I favor the other category of answer you got . Namely : Location location location :


A) jruckman38 says "knock on doors", B) GKL says: "location", C) party-of-one alludes to a permission . So to expand on these guy's advice : If you're hunting the same sad-sorry parks , that everyone rushed to and cherry-picked back in the 1970s to the 2000s, then ... .go figure .... all you're going to get is the recent addition of clad .

This isn't to say that there's NOT still silver in those pathetic parks. There may be. But since you are new to this, you are going to have a nearly impossible task of sorting out the signals. If you just simply waltz in there and dig all the loud "bongs", then go figure : You'll just get clad 99.999% of the time. And the skill to pass clad, and dig deep oldies in pathetic parks is probably only attainable by having someone proficient trade-off flagged signals, so you can see what he'd pass vs what he'd elect to dig.

But save your time, and rather than try to be a hero in pathetic worked-over parks, you should simply hit the history books and find better areas. But here too you might find yourself in a pickle. Because if you're in an area with lots of past-decades md'rs, then the odds are: Those md'rs picked up the same history books decades ago. Doh ! Eg.: stage stops, defunct country picnic sites, etc..... The only way you'll know is to buddy up with long-timers in your area, who may know what's already been exploited, vs what's not been looked into yet.

For example: I pity the poor fellow who gets into md'ing now in my area. We had active clubs here and/or nearby , starting in the mid 1970s. Lots of md'rs, some of which were quite brazen and hardcore, and who 'did their homework'. So pity the poor fellow now who picks up the same history books we did "way-back-when". Or goes to the parks we used to pull silver out of (that I wouldn't touch now with a 10 ft. pole).

HOWEVER, I still get old coins that are sometimes (most times, actually) so shallow, that I could have gotten them with a radio-shack metal detector ! Heck, sometimes I can even hear them with my pinpointer before even breaking open the hole. The reason is: Location location location. We are constantly researching new spots (some of which require ... uh .... balls). Most of which require travel. Because I've noticed that other parts of my state have had less pressure.

So it's still possible to find un-exploited areas. And there's still un-touched frontiers like: 1) oldtown urban demolition tearouts, 2) beach storm erosion, 3) old yards to old homes. I would start with 1920s to 1940s inner-city urban yards. Because even though that might only yield common newer silver and wheaties, yet the odds are : No one else has done those yards. Because if you "rush right out " to the super old yards of stately giant mansions, then perhaps others have hit it. Or perhaps it will be very junked out (since it's had 100 yrs. more time to accumulate junk). So start with newer silver in '20s-40s yards, to get your practice on. AND THEN progress to the colonial type stuff (IMHO)

And while it's true that no one tends to post their show & tell from lame boring treks, yet your lament of lack-of-old coins is not explained by this "bass-fishing channel" psychology (where "every cast is a lunker"). It does indeed sound like you're not getting oldies.


Stetam suggests: "farmers fields" . But I feel that needs some clarification : There needs to have been something there. (Eg.: the prior location of a stage stop, or cellar hole, or defunct picnic site, or.... whatever). I do not think that just simply walking out to any random cultivated field is necessarily going to work. That may work in Europe (where a lot of their fields have had 2000 yrs. of continuous cultivation). But here in the USA, .... I do not consider it a good use of time just to "walk into the middle of nowhere" (yes, even on the older east coast) and have it be time-wise. IMHO

Well I'm digging things I am pretty sure are clad because that seems like one of the best ways to get a feel for how my detector operates. I have a few different sources that say what certain silver coins will come in at, say a modern clad quarter is a 90 but a seated is 91/92. Well how do I really know that in my dirt with my coil those numbers will be accurate? I best dig the 90s, and the 89s for good measure. I do feel okay ignoring the 40s and 50s - the chances of me hitting a $2.50 or $5 gold in a local park seem remote enough to risk passing up the can slaw.

I'm willing to bet a lot that you're right about every park near me being well detected. My wife even saw one guy while she had the kids at the park, though I haven't ever seen them. But even with them having mostly can slaw and caps, a few clad coins, and almost zero silver, I feel like it's getting me good practice, and I'll be able to make more out of my more limited time in neighborhood yards.

You're probably right about anything accessible to the public anywhere near me. I'm in the Houston area, and not only do we have a lot of nerds around here with NASA and all the oil and gas engineering, but there's just a lot of people. I'm short on availability to make trips out of town with young kids, but that's on the list of things to do. In the meantime, I am keeping an eye out for recent house demolitions and sidewalk tearouts. One thing that really caught my eye is that this month the mayor announced a plan to improve the city's accessibility by replacing lots of old sidewalks in the near future (though that's part of some ten year plan). I thought they already did that, but whatever, I'll keep a closer eye out for sidewalks that have been removed. And I need to keep at trying to ask people in my neighborhood. Plenty of the yards in walking distances have been here for a hair under a hundred years.

And that old farm/ranch I have access to. I'm excited about that, but it's tough to get time to go out that far. Near-continuous habitation/operation for at least a hundred fifty years seems like it would have potential.

So thanks for the tips and encouragement. I will make use of them.

 

[jordanmills]

Re.: Your above quote ^^ If you consider what I said, then you'd realize/see that even with only 1 hour practice, and NO "new machine", that you'd still get oldies at the places I'm talking about.

So again : The issue doesn't seem to be your ability, your machine, your patience, etc.... (that the above quote seems to indicate). Instead, it's : Location location location .

Find a post I made about how to find old-town demolition projects. It involved become a subscriber to your areas Builders Exchange (where all public works bids are advertised). And that would allow you to find out if there's going to be old-town sidewalk tearouts in your state somewhere. Or a park is going to rip out the turf and replace it with artificial sod (which requires the top 6 to 8" of old sod to be bladed out). Etc..... This is a trick to finding old-town demolition sites (yet takes work to sort through the volumes of daily bid announcements).

I also made a post awhile back about volunteering for your local historical societies and museums. Ie.: Become a docent. That will require perhaps 6 hrs. per month @ sorting files, manning a desk, leading tours, etc... And you attend a quarterly meeting, blah blah. You get to know the local historians on a first-name basis [without revealing your true intentions]. You become a fly-on-the-wall. You will eventually get back-room white-glove entry to stuff (yeah yeah, fox guarding the hen-house ) It will provide you with a cool name-badge on a lanyard that you can "flash" (for credentials sake) for an ice-breaker @ getting permission (since you are "doing research", blah blah).

These last 2 tips require time. And are just more food for thought.

You're definitely right about location. I must have only been two or three hours in when I found that 40% silver kennedy half in my front yard. Now I want moooooore.

I've been looking into getting in with local historical associations any way. I'm actually pretty interested in local history and pre-history, both here and at the farm site in central Texas. So I don't even have to play at it. The only thing is, like you said, the time it takes to do all that stuff.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

..... I have a few different sources that say what certain silver coins will come in at, say a modern clad quarter is a 90 but a seated is 91/92. .....

Jordan, don't take this wrong, but the above quote shows/tells me you're still not grasping this. You, again, are focused on interpreting the machine (as if that's going to tell you old vs new, silver vs clad, etc....). Ditch that concept for now. Ok ? If you're in some sort of area where THAT is your objective (that you think you need to learn better), then you've totally missed the point.

Dude, I've been at sites where, for example, we dug 150 coins, none of which were newer than 1923 (they were all seateds, barbers, and an occasional nuisance early merc or teens wheatie). And guess how many clad coins we dug to get those 150 oldies ? Drumroll : 1 (one). A rogue fluke clad dime, perhaps dropped by a rancher tending cattle or whatever. I can give you example after example like this, where there is hardly any chance at getting clad. And thus every coin is a seated, or reale, or barber or whatever.

And so again, the trick is : Location location location.

..... by replacing lots of old sidewalks in the near future....

Just make sure it's in very old areas. Because, for example, if it's in a 1910s/20s area, then perhaps those walks were cement from the first day of development. Meaning they had never been dirt or wooden paths, in the first place.

Also beware of "2nd generation replacements". Meaning, let's say the sidewalk tearout is indeed in an 1870s/80s part of town. HOWEVER : Who's to say that it wasn't already replaced back in the 1960s ? And then the trouble is, that that is recent enough that it falls into the "heavy equipment" and modern building/engineering eras. Eg.: No doubt, when dug and replaced in the 1960s, they dug out the subsoil, added chicken screen reinforce, added fill dirt, blah blah blah. So for oldtown sidewalk demo's to be good, your best bet is if they are first generation sidewalks, that have never been out before. Sometimes you'll see date-stamps in the cement to let you know. But most of the time, you can just tell old (original 1910s) versus modern 1950/60s/70s walks.

..... And that old farm/ranch I have access to. ...

By all means, if a farm/ranch-house has been in use since the 1870s ("150 yrs"), then you can try it. HOWEVER, a word-of-warning : If the ranch is still in modern operation (which it sounds like it still is) , then it might be an industrial waste-land of junkage. The much BETTER "old ranch" sites, are ones that ceased and disappeared by , say .... 1900. Thus before the era of modern mechanized ag, before autos, before electricity, before indoor plumbing, etc.... Once you go much past that date, you enter into the throw-away catalog order era, the auto era, the aluminum era, etc....

And often time farm people, back in the early days, did not have curb-side trash service like their in-town urban folks did. So guess what they do with their household garbage ? Simple: It gets tossed into the yard for the chickens and pigs to peck at. Or burned in barrel-garbage burn incinerators located in the yard, blah blah. Thus inner city yards are much cleaner, since they're not for agricultural industrial purpose.

For example, where I live in CA is heavily agricultural. I can drive down the freeway south of me, for 100 miles. And I can continually point out 100+ yr. old farms (old barns, old ranch-houses, old outbuildings, etc...) on either side of the freeway, left & right, non-stop. But I wouldn't touch any of them with a 10 ft. pole. UNLESS I knew that the location doubled for some retail/recreational usage of crowds/people/travelers. Eg.: The place was used as a stage stop. The place was the gathering spot for all the locals to picnic at, or hold barn dances at, etc....

But to simply be a "150 yr. old ranch" of a singular family-concern .... you might be in for torment. Try it, but .... just sayin' .....

 

[jordanmills]

Jordan, don't take this wrong, but the above quote shows/tells me you're still not grasping this. You, again, are focused on interpreting the machine (as if that's going to tell you old vs new, silver vs clad, etc....). Ditch that concept for now. Ok ? If you're in some sort of area where THAT is your objective (that you think you need to learn better), then you've totally missed the point.

Other way around. If I'm in a place where older stuff should be (which I thought the parks, or the church, or the houses in the neighborhood were), then I should dig stuff that comes in like a coin. Now that I'm more sure that the pickings there are slim or gone, then I shouldn't bother with them at all.

Dude, I've been at sites where, for example, we dug 150 coins, none of which were newer than 1923 (they were all seateds, barbers, and an occasional nuisance early merc or teens wheatie). And guess how many clad coins we dug to get those 150 oldies ? Drumroll : 1 (one). A rogue fluke clad dime, perhaps dropped by a rancher tending cattle or whatever. I can give you example after example like this, where there is hardly any chance at getting clad. And thus every coin is a seated, or reale, or barber or whatever.

And so again, the trick is : Location location location.

"nuisance merc" lol. I get you, but woof on me. Thing is, I do not have ready access to those locations around here. I'm going to keep researching and asking, but it's pretty unlikely that anything I can get access to will not have been picked over by the mobs.

Just make sure it's in very old areas. Because, for example, if it's in a 1910s/20s area, then perhaps those walks were cement from the first day of development. Meaning they had never been dirt or wooden paths, in the first place.

Also beware of "2nd generation replacements". Meaning, let's say the sidewalk tearout is indeed in an 1870s/80s part of town. HOWEVER : Who's to say that it wasn't already replaced back in the 1960s ? And then the trouble is, that that is recent enough that it falls into the "heavy equipment" and modern building/engineering eras. Eg.: No doubt, when dug and replaced in the 1960s, they dug out the subsoil, added chicken screen reinforce, added fill dirt, blah blah blah. So for oldtown sidewalk demo's to be good, your best bet is if they are first generation sidewalks, that have never been out before. Sometimes you'll see date-stamps in the cement to let you know. But most of the time, you can just tell old (original 1910s) versus modern 1950/60s/70s walks.

We do not have areas like that near me that are not already leveled, filled, and concreted over. You'll probably scoff and think that I'm quitting too early. But keep in mind that I basically live in a swamp. Anything that was inhabited over a hundred years ago has either been built up (if it's been in use since) or has sunk into a swamp or bayou. That's not an exaggeration
- with all the ground water pumped out of higher aquifers as the area was building out between the 1940s and 1970s, all land around here has sunk one to three feet. When you're only fifteen to thirty feet above sea level to start with, that's significant.

Also, we don't keep old buildings here. It's lame, but it's what Houston is known for - demolish and rebuild.

Now to your actual point (and not talking around it), yes those places are "near" here, but farther than I can get to most days. I'd have to be able to leave my wife and kids for at least three hours for driving, plus however long I get to stay actually detecting and digging. If I do get a block of time long enough for me to do that, then yeah I need to go to those places and not waste time at the tapped out parks around me even if I could hunt for much longer.

By all means, if a farm/ranch-house has been in use since the 1870s ("150 yrs"), then you can try it. HOWEVER, a word-of-warning : If the ranch is still in modern operation (which it sounds like it still is) , then it might be an industrial waste-land of junkage. The much BETTER "old ranch" sites, are ones that ceased and disappeared by , say .... 1900. Thus before the era of modern mechanized ag, before autos, before electricity, before indoor plumbing, etc.... Once you go much past that date, you enter into the throw-away catalog order era, the auto era, the aluminum era, etc....

And often time farm people, back in the early days, did not have curb-side trash service like their in-town urban folks did. So guess what they do with their household garbage ? Simple: It gets tossed into the yard for the chickens and pigs to peck at. Or burned in barrel-garbage burn incinerators located in the yard, blah blah. Thus inner city yards are much cleaner, since they're not for agricultural industrial purpose.

For example, where I live in CA is heavily agricultural. I can drive down the freeway south of me, for 100 miles. And I can continually point out 100+ yr. old farms (old barns, old ranch-houses, old outbuildings, etc...) on either side of the freeway, left & right, non-stop. But I wouldn't touch any of them with a 10 ft. pole. UNLESS I knew that the location doubled for some retail/recreational usage of crowds/people/travelers. Eg.: The place was used as a stage stop. The place was the gathering spot for all the locals to picnic at, or hold barn dances at, etc....

But to simply be a "150 yr. old ranch" of a singular family-concern .... you might be in for torment. Try it, but .... just sayin' .....

Well nobody around is certain of the site's history. At least not that I can find. That's part of the kind of thing I'm interested in related to history. There was an old farm house that was abandoned when the father of the current owner bought it. But the ranching operation had moved a half mile away some time around the 1940s. I'm reasonably sure I have something near the house site because If found some overgrown pomegranate trees planted in a row and some now-wild wild grape vines (along with rock walls, scattered foundation stones, and the like). The people that lived there made a certain kind of rock wall and they're visible all over the property and in fairly good repair. Those would have had to be built some time before about the 1880s and couldn't have been built before about the 1820s (the early limit of significant anglo population of the area, and probably at least twenty years after that).

But after getting time to do some serious looking around the property, I've found swales and berms that are way too long and straight to be (at least to my mind) anything but older boundaries built by Spaniard colonists who tried to inhabit the area earlier, possibly as early as the 1600s. I really need to get some good photos and a basic survey and ask some historical society people.

Okay they don't have trash pickup there NOW. The previous inhabitants would definitely have had trash fills. I know a very general location of one of them because we find some old bottles that have washed out from it some times (I found two in october, dating from about 1920).

So fair point on setting up for disappointment. But there are times when I'm out there and don't have much else to do. I'd prefer to be outside and at least a little active than inside drinking with the other guys who are killing time until it's time to head out for the next hunt (and don't even get me started on drinking then grabbing your guns to go shoot something...). So I might not rake in the silver there, but at least I've found some interesting relics, like an old plow point and square nails.

I know what you're advising, and I know you're right. The catch is, like you said, getting the time where I can get to a location more suited for having a concentration of what I want to find.

 

[Kale1278]

I’m north of Dallas, and the same is happening here. Our areas were not as heavily populated as the NE was 100+ years ago. The oldest coins I have found are from the 40’s and I only have 8, maybe 10 of them. Most of which were found curb surfing in old downtown areas. Good luck.

 

[kweis]

Tom is right on all accounts. Only thing I would add and maybe already has been said is private permissions where the ground has not been added to or moved around in its lifetime. That in itself is a tall order though but usually can be seen by studying the topography around the house.

 

[KOB]

Just adding my 2c regarding Tom's babble here. This is extremely good , knowledgeable information on everything he's said in my book. Some of what he says describes me in parks. I was never big into this back in the day , but remember some oldtimers cleaning up in the 70s and 80s. Lots of silver , but I really wasn't into that. Now , I'm doing a bit more dirt hunting. Not much luck yet. But it is an option for poor beach conditions. Great advice here guys....

 

[Iggyks]

I went from a "beep and dig" Tesoro Mojave to a Nox 600 because it was time to move to a machine with VDI but am finding the depth meter just as essential. Hunting two old school sites I am mostly digging the deep signals and avoiding a lot of can slaw that way.

 

[CalReg]

Keep the faith! I'm in the same boat you're in. I've been detecting since May and while I have found some silver (3 silver coins to be exact) I didn't find my first silver coin until August! I thought I'd have found a lot more by now! I used to MD 45 years ago and finding silver was much easier. I think there are a few of reasons for this. One is, there are more people out there using metal detectors and they have found their share. Another is that urban sprawl has taken over a lot of what used to be open spaces, so there aren't as many places to detect. Finally, silver coins, with the passing of time, have sunk to depths in the soil that are making them harder and harder to find. Yeah, I think a better detector would help, but I think the biggest factor is where you swing your coil. Some sites just have more treasure than others. Keep your head up! Finding clad isn't all that bad. I've had a ton of fun, got some exercise and found almost $400 for the year. In the meantime, I'm doing more homework to find those sites that will yield silver, and maybe (dare I say it), gold! Good luck, happy hunting and Happy New Year!

 

[diggindaboot]

So I'm not finding anything but recent clad. No old coins, no silver (except a very shallow ring), etc. Can anyone offer advice on what I might be doing wrong or where I should go instead of where I've been going? Here's the long story:

I haven't been doing this for too long, but I think I've been giving it a good shot. I got an "advanced entry level" detector when a landscaper guy lost his truck keys in my yard and it was on sale.

With this Bounty Hunter Land Star, I went over almost all of my yard (except over buried electrical and around the metal fences with overhead power lines). At first, I dug pretty much every signal, and I found some interesting stuff (a chromed plastic pendant, a couple of matchbox cars, a fishing weight, a few dollars in clad - the only coin worth mentioning was a 1968 half dollar). As I got a better feel for it, I tried messing with discrimination and being more selective about targets. I got to where I could reliably identify and pull out quarters and dimes and ignore almost everything else. But the MD does have the limitations you'd expect from an entry level model at its price point and I believe I hit them.

After asking for some advice (and not being able to buy an Equinox 800 on a whim) I bought a Nokta Makro Simplex+. It's pretty different from the BH LS, but I gave it some time and I feel like I have a good handle on it now. It seems to be FAR more capable, and can find targets with better identification (and better indication resolution than ten LCD segments, duh), more depth, and more ways to tune it to particular scenarios and environmental conditions. I've found even less with it, but I'm sure that's mostly because I've made a point of going over the same places with it and pulled most of the targets out with the first detector. I also made sure to dig a variety of targets across the identification spectrum just to experience what it sees first-hand (but I also familiarized myself with posted lists of what IDs it gives for common targets, air-tested, and made sure to keep the ID in mind when digging a target - and everyone else's list is pretty much exactly what I see too).

I'm in Houston, Texas, and live in a house that was built in about 1930, along with most of the neighborhood. I've gone over my entire yard, and my next door neighbor's yard (with permission of course), about an acre of surface area detected between the two. To the knowledge of them and the previous owners of my house, nobody has ever detected their yards (that goes back to the late 1970s or so).

I've also detected a most of one neighborhood park, boy scout house, church yard, elementary school, and part of the other neighborhood park. The swing sets at the parks had plenty of clad, and clad (and lots of can slaw) are scattered around the rest of the parks (including some whole buried old cans). The church yard (built in the 1930s, used for church until about five years ago and now a high school campus) was FULL of modern clad, but nothing at all old (which probably just means that high schoolers play as fast and loose with their pocket change nowadays as I did when I was in high school). Between all of them, the oldest coin I found was a late 1950s penny and everything else is 1965 and later.

After a while, I made sure to research to focusing detecting efforts on places that seemed more likely to have high traffic. For example, I verified which church buildings were present in the 1950s (earliest aerial photos I have) and spent extra time around them and likely paths to them. In one park, the baseball diamond has been in the same place for 90 years, so I gave greater scrutiny to the places with more likely drops (home plate, deck, spectator areas, and outfield). At the other park, the diamond moved some time in the 1960s, so I focused efforts on where those places would have been then. I'm sure some spots have been re-graded (the old whole cans buried eight inches deep would seem to indicate that), but others have not (evidenced by older buildings having ground levels as expected around their foundations).

One site of interest is not near my house, and I don't have a chance to go there often. A family member has a ranch that had a farm on it some time in the 1800s (possibly earlier). We have practically no information on the history of it, but it has rock walls of various ages, and a targeted archaeological dig got lots of artefacts of an indian village that likely traded with earlier settlers (apparently they've found lots of arrowheads, and I've found tons of flint knapping fragments but no arrowheads). I was able to spend a few hours detecting that with the BH LS detector, and found one square nail and a whole lot of rusted barb wire and metal panel trash, but not much else. Identifying building/habitation areas was a higher priority than detecting, but I think I have a few spots to focus on next time I'm there. But the point is that I spent hours detecting one of those spots and found nothing but trash.

So all told, I have a few hundred hours in on this. My finds are a bunch of can slaw, a couple of pieces of iron farm implements, a fishing weight, matchbox cars, one sterling silver ring, and a dozen dollars in modern/clad coins.

So am I doing something wrong that I should be doing differently? Do the detecting gods hate me, and how can I repent for offending them? Should I be looking at other kinds of places (yeah curb strips are on the list)? I'd really like to find some silver coins. I mean a huge cache of gold coins would be nice too, but one or two silvers would be just great if I want to keep to what seems realistic.

I live in Houston as well. There is a metal detecting club in Houston called HARC. They have a lot of members and hunt Houston hard. You're doing all the right things but as Kob said, you need a little luck. It took me two years to find my first silver dime. Then I found another and so on. I dirt dig and beach hunt. I've become one of the top jewelry hunters in the area because I will dig signals that others pass on.

Those areas you wrote about having permission to hunt, you need to keep hunting them. You may want to consider joining HARC. There are a lot of retired guys in that club and they hunt all the time. It can be a challenge to find silver. If you're near an area where some houses were torn down, hunt there and keep hunting then hunt them again. Dry ground, wet ground will affect a target in the ground. No one gets it all the first time around. Sometimes the fun is picking out a keeper in a hunted out area. It sounds like you live near the Heights though I could be wrong. Trash is part of the gig unless you just want to coin shoot. Many that hunt in front of you are looking for the easy targets too. If they dig them that doesn't mean there isn't anything else there.

If your goal is to dig silver only you're going to be disappointed. I love finding relics as much or more than silver. Silver is just a bonus to me if I can find a relic. Old toy guns, painted lead soldiers, military buttons, an old RC Cola money clip etc. I've found some very cool things. Try not to limit yourself to just coin tones and finding silver. There's so much more to find.

 

[jruckman38]

The bounty hunter is on a shelf for now. Using a Simplex+ instead, and it's definitely better. Can't afford an equinox 600 or 800 right now.

I just got the simplex for Christmas can’t wait to see how it does. Let me know how you like it.

 

[jordanmills]

I live in Houston as well. There is a metal detecting club in Houston called HARC. They have a lot of members and hunt Houston hard. You're doing all the right things but as Kob said, you need a little luck. It took me two years to find my first silver dime. Then I found another and so on. I dirt dig and beach hunt. I've become one of the top jewelry hunters in the area because I will dig signals that others pass on.

Those areas you wrote about having permission to hunt, you need to keep hunting them. You may want to consider joining HARC. There are a lot of retired guys in that club and they hunt all the time. It can be a challenge to find silver. If you're near an area where some houses were torn down, hunt there and keep hunting then hunt them again. Dry ground, wet ground will affect a target in the ground. No one gets it all the first time around. Sometimes the fun is picking out a keeper in a hunted out area. It sounds like you live near the Heights though I could be wrong. Trash is part of the gig unless you just want to coin shoot. Many that hunt in front of you are looking for the easy targets too. If they dig them that doesn't mean there isn't anything else there.

If your goal is to dig silver only you're going to be disappointed. I love finding relics as much or more than silver. Silver is just a bonus to me if I can find a relic. Old toy guns, painted lead soldiers, military buttons, an old RC Cola money clip etc. I've found some very cool things. Try not to limit yourself to just coin tones and finding silver. There's so much more to find.

Nope, I'm down by hobby airport. I looked up HARC, but haven't found much info on them.

I've been sticking to coin signals lately because a vast majority of anything else is can slaw. At least where I've been going.

Thanks for the info and suggestions.

 

[jmaclen]

jordanmills, if you aren't digging some wheat pennies in your locations, you either are in the wrong location, you are not able to get deep enough yet, those locations did not have people who were losing money during the silver coin age or like others have said.....the easy old coins were detected long ago. I have been to several places that seemed to work well time wise, but the people who visited or lived in those places just did not have much money to spend or especially to lose.

For example, I hunted for three days at my 90 year old mother's family farm even though she and her brother told me plainly that their family did not have any money to throw around or lose. In fact, my mother said she didn't ever remember seeing any change in the house and that she personally as a teenager never had more than a nickel or some pennies in her purse........ In 20 hours of hunting I found two 1920s wheat pennies. The rest of the coins were all modern clad from later owners of the property. I did find some interesting relics though.

So, for me, wheats, older Jefferson nickels and plenty of 1965 dimes and quarters are indications that silver could be in the area. Without those coins being found regularly at 6" or so, your prospects are not sounding good with the detectors you currently use. When I hunt a promising area but am digging modern pennies and modern clad at 8" or deeper I will probably need my Equinox or a pulse induction detector to hit the older, even deeper coins.

 

[Jamflicker]

You have to have a machine capable of finding the deep coins first of all. Then it takes hundreds of hours using that machine and digging thousands of targets. Then you have to try a bunch of spots that are old enough to have old coins. Some might be busts but think outside the box and don’t go right to the middle of the park where everyone goes. Hopefully after all this you’ll be finding old coins.