How far down?

[txop]

Hello,

I am in North Texas where there is mainly black clay. My daughter recently rented a duplex that was built in the mid 50's. There are several of them in a row that the lanlord owns and she is letting me hunt them. I have been digging tons of clad coins but no silver. The last time I got a 1965 and a 1966 quarter at about 8-10 inches. Is it possible that the silver has sunk out of range? I have had an Explorer SE Pro in the past so I just ordered another one to give it a try. I have used a CZ5 so far. We have also found a few gold chains and a couple of watches but I really would like to find some silver coins. So what do you think, are they too deep to "see"?

Harold

 

[Tom_in_CA]

If your mid 1960s coins are "8" to 10" down", then that's a bad omen. That doesn't bode well. There are moist soils where coins go deeper, faster. And if I was in a turf zone, and ...... after multiple sampling of grasping for the deepest whispers I could reach, if I found only clad from the 1960s, I would conclude that the silver there (assuming the stratification continues commensurately) is going to be out of reach.

I have seen turf like that, where it's EVERYTHING we can do *just* to reach the wheaties and silver. It's pretty sickening to go 8" on the early 1960s pennies, as 8" is about the depth you can expect to get for a penny on the cz5 and Exp SE. Well, ok, maybe 9", and perhaps 10" if you're talking a quarter if you're REALLY good. Sounds like you got a case of turf that has just been too moist and soft. If there is ever some project where tractors scrape off 6" or a foot, then you'll be down to the wheaties/silver range.

 

[widebody]

[size=large]maybe a P.I. machine is needed if your sure there's silver further down. maybe put an invite out for someone who has one and see.

HH[/size]

 

[txop]

Thanks for the comments. I am going to continue to dig out all the "surface" targets and then I can go back and listen for the deeper stuff. The quarters at 8 inches gave off a solid signal. There is just so much shallow clad clad I need to get it out of the way first. My wife loves to metal detect detect so I am letting her get all the clad first and then I will see what I can find. There has to be at least some silver I can get to. If not I'll have a heck of a lot of pocket change. There are about 200 of these old houses in the neighborhood so I am going to see who else will let me hunt their yard. There are some boared up apartments across the street that they are going to tear down soon. They are from the same time period but because they have some asbestics in them they are wanting on something. I'll report back when I find some silver

 

[TokenDigger]

Maybe the home owner(s) added some dirt or moved some dirt around which is why these fairly new coins are so deep. If that's the case, I hope you can find some areas where the good stuff isn't so deep (if you're getting wheat era cents, the silver isn't far away). Keep watching the places that will be torn down because they may remove some of the soil and let you go deeper. We had this happen to us at an old park in Cleveland, OH. We pounded it with little results but after the city sold the land and they started bulldozing for homes, we found all sorts of nice coins from nickel 3 cent pieces to Barber coins to WWII era coins. Good luck & HH!

 

[JJ]

Property developed in the mid 50's leaves a chance for silver, but not much and nothing really old. As far as depth goes, its really hard to say. We pulled a merc and a token at less than 6 inches the other day, then a few feet later dug a memorial at well over 10 inches in the same piece of yard. Its good to know the history of the dirt work and construction of the property, but stuff will be where you find it. JJ

 

[dewcon4414]

Sounds like a lot of dirt has been moved around. But do what you are doing, cleaning the area of modern coins. There are always small areas where the new soil wont be as deep. Cant tell you how many times ive hit a very small area that really produced... and that was the only spot that did. On a quarter 10 inches is pretty good in most areas with very many minerals and targets in the soil. BUT the SE does very well on silver.

Dew

 

[txop]

I forgot to mention I was using an 8 inch coil on the CZ5. My Explorer SE Pro is being delivered today.

How much deeper will a larger coil go than a smaller coil? A couple of inches? This question is really a general detector question for all detectors.

 

[dewcon4414]

You may find you get NO better depth with a larger coil in a trashier area. Some one wrote that a 12 inch DD coil takes in 7 gallon of soil.... where an 8 coil only has to process 1 gallon. So you can see if that 7 gallons of soil is riddled with targets the 8 coil is going to have an easier time averaging, separating, and IDing targets. Now in an open area you will get a noticeable difference in depth. You could possibly get a little less than the size of your coil in depth just because of EMI, minerals, moisture, and other influences.

Dew