What's the verdict? Old silver coins really deep?

[Digdoggy]

I know this is an old subject. I've also read the huge threads full of science on density and conditions and how most coins are unearthed at 2" to 4" deep, old silver included. But....I still read many veteran detectorists writing the term, "deep older coins". I've recently wrote how I've been hunting schools that have ball fields built in the 1970's over old farms and farm fields. I've given up on signals that were 40 to 44, (coins like quarters on my 705) . Gave up because I'm only digging with the lesche hand digger and at 7 inches already. Sometimes I've wondered if I left a nice old half dollar down there because the 705 is usually spot on telling me its trash. But deep stuff like nice solid bolts and some steel caps can fool me and my trusty 705.
Then I read that term again, Deep old coins, makes me wonder. So what's the verdict? Do we have deep silver coins down there? I know there's some variables in this scenario but I like your opinions anyway.

 

[MarkCZ]

I will say this about deeper older coins. They are things that change things in the ground, people are always digging, large tree roots push and move things, dirt moved in or out of parks and the like change the depth of things.
But places that are mowed and the grass clippings for the most part are left increase soil growth, (parks and many sports fields and lawns) wooded areas in many cases were its just brush and leaves have less soil growth.

So, lets take our local city park and the undisturbed areas (dirt not added, dug, or not around the large trees).
Clad is in the upper level along with the upper level of the pull rings 0"-4"
The beaver-tall tab layer is from around 3" to near 5" (that's 1965-1975).
So the later silver 1940-1965 will on average start showing up in the 4"-6" range.
The fresh drops of the 20's and 30's runs more towards 7"-8.5" range.

Mark

 

[Digdoggy]

Thanks Mark, that makes sense and is a good guide on coin depths. It makes me feel better about some signals I've left because they were deeper than 7 and even 8".

 

[BarberBill]

I've always avoided digging 8" or deeper in parks, sports fields etc. even though I've had some promising signals at depth. Probably missed a good target or two, but don't want to get the anti-detecting folks roiled up.
BB

 

[RLOH]

Mark, that was an a "spot on" description of coins and depth. Though coin depth is not an exact science, your post accurately describes how and how fast a coin sinks. In my neck of the woods, I find 90% of my coins over 50 year old from the 6 to 8 inch depths. Once in a while, I will stab a silver coin with my screwdriver that is less than 3 inches deep. As always, excellent post.

 

[Southwind]

Here in southwest Kansas we were party to the dust storms, "dirty 30's", and the Arkansas River which used to flood every 30-40 years. Between the two of those most our coins are fairly deep. I would say 6-8" is a good guesstiment on 50+ year old coins in most places. The exceptions would be closer to the river where the depositing of mud happened a lot and the coins are very deep, and on the bluffs where wind erosion has removed a lot of soil and 100 year old coins can be on top the ground.

 

[Mega]

I never limit myself by saying that i wont dig deeper than say 6'',over here in the UK if my detector picks up a good signal i dig its as easy as that,after all we are metal detecting and if the audio tones are right then the spade goes too work.Regarding the science about how fast,slow or deep a item goes its one of those question that has so many variables its just not worth worrying or getting stressed over.

Even if its the faintest of signals and one of those i am not sure signals i have to dig it,some of my best finds ie Celtic gold stators and George 111 full Guinea had been deep and over the years have found many gold and silver coins right on the audio limit they are that feint the signals dont show up on the screen.

I never ever knock out silver foil the reason being is our very early hammered coins come in the foil range hence the reason we never discrim foil,much prefer to run as little discrimination as possible so that i miss nothing,have always said buy the best headphones that you can afford so that you miss nothing signal wise.

 

[Digdoggy]

That's super and I love to hear from you guys in the UK. We have an issue here with the fact that in a lot of states most of our open spaces are city or state parks.We face rules on no digging most often. Even town parks with no codes against digging we dare not carry a spade. Even my 20" mini spade is for woods only. Guys here have been kicked right out of parks for carrying small spades. The hand held lesche and popping coins with probes is best for us, not to draw negative attention.
Wow, Roman coins!! Dang y'all have history.

 

[Mega]

@Digdoggy,Celtic,Bronze Age and Iron Age go way back before Roman,Bronze Age over here goes back 3000 odd years

 

[Digdoggy]

That's so cool. 3000 years? I think we have a few stone spear heads dating that far back. Well after all its called "New England" where I live.

 

[ChicagoJohn]

I found 1970's coins at about 7 inch deep in large city park. Might add new soil and new grass make coin go deeper. I found 1892 quarter and Buffalo nickel at only 2 inch deep at hard ground with rocks in the woods. More people use park make coins go deeper quickly! Walk or run on grass, ride lawn mower, rain, etc.

 

[MarkCZ]

Wooded areas doesn't get the soil growth (normally) like grassy areas where the grass is mowed and the clippings left behind.
Unless the conditions are very sloppy, very wet, and or sandy coins don't really sink! maybe in the first inch or so due to the mud and maybe being stepped on. (beaches are different) Most times in lawns and parks the depth of the coins are from being buried from soil growth.
the same thing happens in often flooded areas where debris wash in and bury them.

In our park I found a Morgan quarter in around the 8" plus range. Then the next year my brother finds one near the same area that was pretty much at the surface, but he was searching an area where the park workers had move some stones, there was no soil growth under them.
Some park my other brother find one at about 3" to maybe 4" deep, but! he was hunting around some giant 100 year old Oak trees where the ground around them was raised very high from the roots, so the roots moved and raised the soil pushing and moving things in the ground and to add to that around these roots there is hardly no grass at all and then you have run off from the mounds.

In the same area my middle brother and I hunted a closed down golf course a couple of years back and out behind the pro-shop used to be a caddy bench, this was right on the crest of a wooded area, well here we were finding Wheat pennies no more than an inch deep, but I also noticed very little top soil covering the clay.

Mark

 

[Rainyday101]

Mark I would say your numbers are pretty darn accurate. The area around me is sandy and they get slightly deeper. That said I found my 1894 Barber Quarter at 3" deep, but there was an old gravel road at that level that it was on.

 

[ironsight]

Can't count the silver, wheats and Indians i dug up from 10 to 13+ inches. IMO, there is no rule of thumb for coin depth. A lot of old parks here have been filled and sodded over, varying soil types, etc.
I always dig deep targets that ID in a park or site with a history. If i don't dig it someone else will. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes its a corroded stubby iron bolt or short corroded nail. Never know til its dug.

Years ago i also didn't dig deeper than 6 inches in a park until one slow day decided to dig til i recovered that damn iffy target. It turned out to be my record merc depth around 14 inches. Was tempted to abandon a couple times but something compelled me to keep digging.
Here's 14 incher i was tempted to abandon in a park. Turned out to be an old early 1900s Chalmer's Auto key fob medallion.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o273/moparado/2_zps702c53d0.jpg

 

[MarkCZ]

Can't count the silver, wheats and Indians i dug up from 10 to 13+ inches. IMO, there is no rule of thumb for coin depth. A lot of old parks here have been filled and sodded over, varying soil types, etc.
I always dig deep targets that ID in a park or site with a history. If i don't dig it someone else will. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes its a corroded stubby iron bolt or short corroded nail. Never know til its dug.

Years ago i also didn't dig deeper than 6 inches in a park until one slow day decided to dig til i recovered that damn iffy target. It turned out to be my record merc depth around 14 inches. Was tempted to abandon a couple times but something compelled me to keep digging.
Here's 14 incher i was tempted to abandon in a park. Turned out to be an old early 1900s Chalmer's Auto key fob medallion.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o273/moparado/2_zps702c53d0.jpg

Your right about location, so, here and where I hunt I learned the conditions, I've learned the pull & Toss tab ranges, I know the age of the main park and some of the other places I hunt.
If I was going to visit another old city park in another state I would work on recovering a number of the Pull & Toss Tabs and try to find their average depth over several different spots. This tab depth range tells me the 1965 through 1975 period, knowing this and how deep it is I can somewhat judge the above age and soil growth and then estimate the below age and depth. If the tabs are an average of 7" to 9" range then I can forget getting the early 1900's stuff except a few key spots. Now if the tabs range is 2" to 4" then I've got a good shot at unearthing some of the much earlier fresh dropped coins.

Fresh dropped coins? these are ones that were lost that year, 1899 silver coin with lots of wear wasn't dropped in 1899, pocket and handling wear isn't an excite science but if its badly worn you can add ten or more years to its date to get an idea of the year it was fresh dropped. So this 1899 silver coin with a good bit of wear may have been in circulation until around 1910 or so, now the same coin with very little signs of wear would mean it was a fresh drop much closer to its stamped date.

Mark

 

[ironsight]

Don't give up on the oldies because pull tabs are 7 to 9 inches. Unless the soil is really unique, pull tabs that deep are likely the result of the park being filled/sodded over sometime during the past. Any oldies there should be within the reach of a good detector if willing to dig that deep. Digging foot deep holes in a public park i'll admit might not be for everyone.
The trick is to absolutely leave no trace of a foot deep hole and don't use or be seen with a full blown shovel in a park environment especially well manicured parks. I typically spend as much time filling the hole as digging the hole. There are more techniques i use but i digress.

Case in point, this one site produced a lot of clad and pull tabs down to about 3 to 5 inches but none older than the 70s. I searched this same area a year later concentrating on any deeper targets. I dug around a dozen WWII era mercs all deeper than 10 inches some over a foot deep.

Shallow layer of 70s clad / ~6 inch layer of NO coins / 10+ inch layer of 40s coins strongly indicates a layer of soil fill decades ago.

 

[Digdoggy]

Yeah, I'm thinking that's why I've not dug a coin older than 1966 at the school I hunt. They've filled pushed and terraced the ground making these ball fields. What was dropped on the old farms that were right here is probably @ 10" plus. I've been shy by using only the hinged sod cut. The three sided 3" - 4" flap of sod and only going barely to 8" usually no more than the lesche blade of 7". I need to open it up a little more and check some deeper hits down to 10"-12" or whatever recovers the target.
If I do I'll post back for the heck of it just to prove it out at this site.

 

[Hobo lobo]

Wooded areas doesn't get the soil growth (normally) like grassy areas where the grass is mowed and the clippings left behind.
Unless the conditions are very sloppy, very wet, and or sandy coins don't really sink! maybe in the first inch or so due to the mud and maybe being stepped on. (beaches are different) Most times in lawns and parks the depth of the coins are from being buried from soil growth.
the same thing happens in often flooded areas where debris wash in and bury them.

In our park I found a Morgan quarter in around the 8" plus range. Then the next year my brother finds one near the same area that was pretty much at the surface, but he was searching an area where the park workers had move some stones, there was no soil growth under them.
Some park my other brother find one at about 3" to maybe 4" deep, but! he was hunting around some giant 100 year old Oak trees where the ground around them was raised very high from the roots, so the roots moved and raised the soil pushing and moving things in the ground and to add to that around these roots there is hardly no grass at all and then you have run off from the mounds.

In the same area my middle brother and I hunted a closed down golf course a couple of years back and out behind the pro-shop used to be a caddy bench, this was right on the crest of a wooded area, well here we were finding Wheat pennies no more than an inch deep, but I also noticed very little top soil covering the clay.

Mark

Correct, coins do not really sink as much as they get covered up, parks are the worst. Foil, pulltabs and slaw could not sink since they are lighter than most soil but they do end up 4to5 inchs deep. In undistrubed areas where there in little foot traffic, coin are generally not very deep. Lawns that bag the clippings from mowers also have shallower coins.

 

[tonopahkid]

It really depends on the area you are hunting I have hunted very deep with detcetors tuned to the max and with big coils to find deeper tatgets.One of the thangs you have to do is get all the trash and stuff that isent deep out of your way fist then go in an dig the iffy signals deeper signal and yes good stuff can fool the best of units.I liked using the older compass machines in old parks in grass they pinpoint so well and deep,i would use my xp pro an x-200 with the 12 " coil run very low disc I would find deep nickles the read foill range even iron if there was iron buryed with the coin.Also to hunt deep you have to go really slow overlapping your swings a lot .

 

[Digdoggy]

Yeah, I'm thinking of getting something like the Mini Samson 18" digger so I can check deeper iffy's. I love my hand held standard lesche but my old hands are worn and hurt digging to deep with the hand diggers.
What's stopping me is just principle of cost! That mini samson or sampson would do but 55 to 65.00 dollars is ridiculous.
I may take my dremel and cut down my little home depot spade into a similar shape as the Sampsons.
Dog