Research Question......Just curious?

[rluckadoo]

Just curious of your opinions when researching properties to detect. Specifically, what age "old homes" or "home sites" or "farms" do you consider when making the decision to ask for permission on a site. For example, obviously a home site from the late 1800s would be a great site to detect for coins or relics. But, would a home built in 1910 interest you? Or 1920? Or 1940? etc.....

Just curious for some opinions on which age properties have been the most productive and at what age of construction you would consider not being worth while to hunt? Same question could also go for parks, commercial buildings, old stores, barns, etc. Just curious...............

 

[C&RHunter]

The answer all depends on what YOU are detecting for....Relics, old coins, any coins, etc....and remember the word "old" is a relevant word....keep that in mind. Just say, I am looking for silver and other older coins. Silver was in circulation in the US thru 1964, 45 years ago. For many that is old, but to me that is still a "newer", not new as in a clad coin. So I personally like to hunt homes that were built in the 1920's or so and older. If they are still lived in they should have a mix of both "old" and newer coins. Bottom line for me, the home sites or parks need to be quite a few years older than 1964 construction to produce the old coins that I am looking for. Have a Merry Christmas and HH

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

We live in a very rural farm area in Ohio - a lot of old foundations - no longer lived in houses, etc.
I always try to hunt all of the sites that are available - of course - the older the better.
Even if the site has been abandoned for a long time - I try to get permission to hunt.

Something that's been a HUGE help to me ...
Go to your local Town Hall or Court House and go to the Map Room.
They will make you copies of the older maps of your area for approx. $0.25 each.
I have about (20) maps of my area from 1876 - 1921 and 1952.
These maps have helped me find the locations of many - 100 + year old - Schools, Churches, Mills, etc.

Good Luck & Happy Holidays ! --- Mark

 

[rbholt80]

im a 1950,s guy. if its newer than that i dont realy want to waist my time. sometimes ill hunt a place newer if it has a lot acrivity were i can clean up on clad.
i had a school that was built in 56 that gave me about 200 dollars in clad and a few silver and 2 rings one was gold one was silver.
i break my places down into catogories. old silver places or new pocket change places lol then i make up my mind as to what i feel like finding. i also have the beaches here on the texas coast. i hunt them in the winter when we have a good north wind. the kind of day that the wind is so cold it makes your eyes water. ever been the only person on a 10 mile long beach lol its kind of lonely feeling.

 

[rluckadoo]

Great replies to this post!!! I had my own ideas, but always like to compare what I am doing with what the "pros" are doing, especially on researching their sites. For schools, I have had the best luck from those built in the 1920s and 1930s, especially for some silver. The ones that have been remodeled and are still operational schools seem to have a lot more newer trash though. But.....will have some decent clad too. I actually use the 1940s as a cut off for my home sites, since they usually don't get as much traffic as schools, or parks. You need a few more years for them to be "in service" to collect more of the good stuff....just my opinion though. I LOVE the older sites, built in the early 1900s, but tons of iron trash, and harder to find in a big city where they "push em down and build new ones on top of them faster than you can blink"!!!

I have found that most of the counties which contain larger cities, now have GIS mapping systems with overlays for aerial photos, tax records (with property owner names and addresses), tax maps showing property boundaries, and the dates when the buildings were constructed. In fact, I looked up a local school here last night. I had detected a couple of the athletic fields there, but had not found any silver yet. From the architecture of the school, you can tell that some buildings are new and others are quite old. It looked to me like there were 4-5 different building periods there. Well, when I pulled it up on the county tax records, the first 3-story building was built in 1930, the old gym building in 1952, the cafeteria in the 1970s and another remodeling and addition in the late 1980s. So, the key to that location is to figure out which areas were used originally as the athletic fields, etc., and which have not really been disturbed since that time by the new additions, remodeling, etc.

Anyway, keep the posts coming. I would be interested in hearing other opinions on this and any good ideas or tips for research!!!

 

[Dig]

n/t

 

[C&RHunter]

You mentioned using GIS mapping systems for reference. Is there a free site or do you have to purchase the software...it sounds like it could be very helpful.

 

[rluckadoo]

I live in Wake County, NC (Raleigh) and if you go to the Wake Government Tax Map site (just search it on Google) you will have many free options from their homepage. You can research the property owner, construction date of buildings, when remods occurred, size and boundaries of the property, tax value, etc. In fact, it will even show you a photo of the property taken by the tax assessor. Most larger cities and the counties containing the larger cities now have GIS mapping in their county government. There are tons of other info you can get from the GIS maps, but these examples above are the most relevant for coin shooters or relic hunters.

Hope this helps!

 

[big-ears]

it was good as a homesite in the 60's, it probably was a good home-site in the 1860's. New homes can fool you as to what is buried in the ground. If I know the road in front of a home was there on old maps, I never discount it. Tip: watch for small areas on lawns surrounded by large trees, or trees that form a square in the yard.

 

[bcoop]

I think any home from mid 1960's should be considered, ie any possible silver is a keeper.

BCOOP, Missouri

 

[grumpyolman]

They require the correct user name and password and even though I got into it using hacked passwords in the past, now, most library systems have subscribed to that site. Used to be you had to go to the library to use but I have found that some systems in some states let you log in to Sanborn with your library card number and your password for the library. Most of the time it's limited to the state in which you live. Then you can hunt and research the area in which you are most likely to detect at your leisure. Those maps can be over layed into Terrain Navigator Pro and Google Earth. That'll get you coordinates to 'goto' that are probably within 10-30' of where you want to be. Depends on the number of satellites overhead and the accuracy of the receiver on your GPS.Jim

 

[chuck ky]

i first started in the early 70's we had 3 elementary schools that were built in 1957. i found lots of silver dimes at these schools. mostly mercs.

 

[gear box]

Just a little food for thought here. I was born in 1951 and when I was 7 to 10 year's old I can remember my dad giving us change to buy candy and in that change were Walker's worn SLQ's and of course Merc's and wheats. So even though it appear's a 40's or 50's house isn't that old,we still had old silver in circulation up until the early 60's. Maybe you shouldn'y be so fast to pass them up. Just a thought.
Good luck hunting, Gary

 

[CT Todd]

Hi,
For me it starts with Areas where things happened way back when. Old for me means things from 1800 and back.Everyones "OLD" really does differ.It also has to do with where YOU are in the world.I live and detect in the NW corner of CT so my "OLD" fits for where I am.You could do the same amount of research and get nothing near 1800s it may not have had much going on where you are before 1920 so that would be "OLD" for where you are. In England they laugh at us. So... how do I go about it? I start with "Areas" like I said at the start. If there is a 1740 farm house along the road near here then theres a lawn there and a bunch of 1740s farm fields.Some of them might have new houses on them now but the ground is the same.Some of them maybe timber now but the ground is the same.I do buy old maps of my area on line as well because sometimes there is no clue of where some things were happening years ago and the maps really help.This is how I go about it.
CTTodd