Silver Dollars etc... How many have you all found?

[nw1886]

There are several coins that many have not ever found. The fact that silver dollars haven't been found, by many, puzzles me? (Then...equally puzzling is the fact that I have never found a Barber Quarter.) I guess out west here we used the dollar coins heavily and back east they opted for paper currency more. That could explain some of it. In the last 30 or so outings, I've found FOUR though?!!! (Just picking up my detector again so those 30 hunts have been over the last 5 years.) How sad is that!

These last few days, I've been checking out this site and am amazed at the other finds this community has been pulling up! You folks in the east are retrieving old copper, colonial buttons and ammo, Spanish fractionals and on and on. Guys in the U.K. are pulling out hammered, Roman and pre-Victorian coins from their past. Everything is relative... but for a guy whose been studying history and numismatics (since pushin' pennies into a blue Whitman with PBJ on his hands), that stuff would be my "Holy Grail" of finds.

Like most, I never got into the hobby for the "riches", but for the joy of the hunt.(Plus...there were no coin shops in northwest Montana and Idaho!) You can go out and buy an AU Merc for a few bucks, take it home, pop it in the book, and appreciate it for it's beauty and close the book until you open it up for the next addition. Small memory. Dig the same coin (worse for the wear) and what do you have? A memory of getting stuck to the axles, a burger joint that had some great people to talk with (and a burger that you would come back for). Great memories!

My "silver dollar" find? 13 years old, Melanie Butts had just walked by (Chick a Boom) and out came an old coin purse hasp...followed by an AU 1914 Barber Half, a 1909-S Wheat and a dollar twenty two in other change! (Nothing newer than 1917!) Ahh... life was good.

What is your "silver dollar" find?

 

[Larry (IL)]

We are from Central IL Scott and are blessed with a good assortment of coins from the mid 1800's to modern. Some finds earlier than that are made but rare. Except for the major city's in IL, most of Illinois was pretty barren and small towns were just starting to sprout. Coins were being used, but bartering was far more common at the time. Coin usage later in the 1800's was becoming more common and most of the 1800's coins found around here are from 1880-1900. Silver dollar usage didn't seem popular here and I hear of one found once in a great while. A Silver dollar find here is about as common as a Gold coin find, it seems. I have yet to find a US Silver dollar in my 25 years of hunting. I did find an English 1804 Trade dollar last year here in my town. If it only came with a travel log of where it has been and who has touched it.

 

[nw1886]

That trade dollar would fit nicely into a Hudson Bay collection of mine!(Lots of barter type of stuff in there.) Lucky find!!! Just posted a new thread that shows the best of my last two hunts. I needed to have some good hunts after a long,long,long dry spell and inactivity with detectin". Some day I am going to head out east to visit friends in Tennessee and get some detecting done in some old dirt.(Massive amount of family land he thinks has been untouched.) Guess the area was really actively used in the early Jacksonian period and should be a blast! Just to pull a large cent out would be a big thrill for me.

 

[Larry (IL)]

On your way to Tennessee, stop by in IL and pick me up, It sounds like fun. ..... OOps, the thumb is supposed to be sideways........

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've got somewhere's about 13 or 14 of them here in central coast CA area. Beach storms, demolition sites, etc....

I hear that in certain silver producing states (Montana? Idaho? etc...) the state govt. didn't circulate paper money, all the way through 1964, when silver itself finally went out of circulation. It had something to do with the state's effort to promote their state's silver mining industry or something. So in some of those states, the first guys to get into detecting in the 1960s & '70s racked up incredible amounts of silver dollars, since they had circulated into fairly recent times. They'd even find them in sandboxes, etc.... and thought nothing of it. Another state that was good for silver dollars for the early md'rs of the '60s & 70s was Nevada, in the gaming towns. Silver dollars were used for slot machines right up to 1964 also I think, so silver dollars are found there as well.

 

[ROADKING]

I have yet to find one would make myyyyy day.Maybe some day in the mean time I will be happy find what I can. I cant complain I have been blessed

 

[steelheadfever]

I have only found two in my 30+ years of detecting and I did not find them until a year or so ago, and I have found none since. I remember as a kid in growing up in Idaho picking spuds during the potato harvest. We would pick spuds all day long and at the end of that day we would be paid with silver dollars. I remember I had over 300 silver dollars saved up when the harvest was over so that my sister and I would have school cloths when school started. I accounted for each and every one and I did not loose any. I am sure there were other who did not loose any of those silver dollars as they meant so much in those days. HH Dennis in Idaho

 

[nw1886]

Larry,
A tag along to Tennessee would double the loot!

 

[Monte]

[size=medium]20

 

[nw1886]

Ya know...a 20 cent piece has never even been on my "mental radar". I've been in numismatics since I was seven and those are not a coin you see a lot of. (Even in coin shops... generally.) To find one of those would have me howling! I've been detecting since '71 and started in the Lewiston Valley of Idaho. There was a dealer there by the name of Roy Lagel... Needless to say, he sold a lot of detectors (out of his little shop) and the area's public parks had been hit pretty hard. I ("read Dad") purchased a GhostTowner TR and started canvassing the old neighborhoods and thought that I was doing just ok. Went in to visit Roy and he asked "How have you been doin' kid?" " Well... ok." I said..."But I've only found just over $30.00 in silver?" "Is that face value?" he asked. "Yup... and I found this stuff too." Out of my pockets came an assortment of tokens,medals and a 1945 Mexican two and a half peso gold coin. "Am I doing ok?" He started laughing and called to his wife. "Jerry... come look and see what this kid has found in his first week...and he wants to know how he's doing?. Plus... said he only has $30.00 face, in silver until now!" Jerry came out and said..."Your doing just fine, honey!"... and fed me lunch! After that he kinda took me under his wing and taught me a lot! Those folks were some of the best people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. (Didn't realize what a legend Roy was and wouldn't have cared less.) He was just one hell of a good friend to a kid new to town!

As with you, my old finds have all went by the wayside also. But what a lot of good memories and friendships!

I know a couple guys around here who've done the slopes very successfully. Was also amazed at all the excellent finds. Yes...lot's of things still out there waiting for us to find!

 

[fieldboy]

n/t

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Monte, great post! You can "ramble" anytime here. I love reading about your take on the evolution of the hobby.

NW1886, great reminisces! I too remember when it was no uncommon to get several turf silver on any given hunt. Heck, I remember when you could take a beginner out to an old park in my town, for "lessons", and it wasn't uncommon for them to get silver on their first time out. NOW THOUGH, at those SAME parks and schools, 25 to 30 yrs. later, I shudder to think how hard it would be for a newbie to get anything more than clad. They've been worked so hard, that all the "4-star deep easy gimmee" signals are gone. You've got to be an ace now to get any more silver or deepies. Also ....... go figure ..... in the late 1970s/early '80s, silver had only been out of circulation for 15-ish years. Now though, "15 yrs. old coin" is gonna be zinc or clad. So I guess we were sort of "cheating" in those days, eh?

 

[R-n-R Magnolia SpringsAla]

Detecting is very popular in the south due to the fact you can hunt 365 days a year. The older machines were(60's- 70's) great for hitting the larger targets at depth and leaving all the smaller ones. Even todays machines would hit on a dollar like a gong and prob overload the machine hence the easy finding of these monsters. I've got one silver half that was sitting sideways 90 deg on edge that was a double beep(nail sound) in a naily area, i turned the coil on edge just to see and it hit good so i dug it. In short there there but their rare!!!! Yall have a good X-mas!!!! My ground is froze darn it!!

 

[Ray(Ca)]

I've been detecting since late 1995 and have found 8 silver dollars (6 Morgans and 2 peace dollars) I found 2 Morgans 2 months ago at a sidewalk demo near my work. One of the Morgans I found a few years ago was a 1881 CC in VG (a very tough coin in VG). They are not as hard to find as you might think and a lot of detectorist just don't dig the big screaming signal (they think it's a sprinkler head). My hunt buddy found a nice 1900-s Morgan at a park recently that has been pounded by detectorist. It was about 4 inches deep and had been hit several times with a coin probe! Silver dollars are around you just have to dig those sprinkler heads. I have only found one Ike dollar (now thats a tough coin).

Ray(Ca)

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

One reason that silver dollars are a rare find is that they really were not circulated by the general public. Silver dollars were used mainly by banks and for commerce between large businesses, but most people used copper and small denomination silver coins for every day use. . Almost all Morgan Dollars that were minted can still be accounted for in collections. Cents were largely circulated and many early ones are difficult to find in good condition, even in collections. That is why we can find the older, rare cents, but not the newer, common dollars.

 

[TesoroScout]

I am very lucky to say that I too have a "Silver Dollar Find

 

[TesoroScout]

Oh I forgot to mention, the only thing that would of made that Silver Dollar day better would have been having my dad Ernie there to share in the find!
We don't get to hunt often but we sure chased some lost treasure stories in the past especially looking for "THE LOST PADRE MINE"
He got us started in metal detecting back in 1988, THANKS POP! those are the best of times and memories for a lifetime!