Time To Clean Your Coins And Cash In!

[Againstmywill]

Just added the CoinStar-counted coins to my ongoing spreadsheet. Here is a breakdown of over 22,000 coins I have dug since 2011. Makes me sad to know that the 8,813 pennies I have dug are only worth less than $88 (loss due to crusty pennies). Total value is $2,213.63.

[GB_Amateur]

13 hours ago, Againstmywill said:

Here is a breakdown of over 22,000 coins I have dug since 2011.

Excellent data you've compiled; thanks for that as it provides something for us to compare our own compilations.  Does this report include older coins (e.g. 90% silver)?  Have you wondered why these fractions occur -- e.g. almost as many quarters as dimes, and considerably fewer nickels than either of those?  Also, do you have a breakdown of the pennies into 95% copper vs. Zincolns?  (I assume 'Sacajawea' includes the same composition later dollars, e.g. Presidentials.  But no Susan B. Anthony nor the larger earlier format?)

My end-of-the-year report will now include comparisions with your baseline data.  I will post that..., at the end of the year. 

 

[Againstmywill]

7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Does this report include older coins (e.g. 90% silver)?

No. I started out counting all my coins after a hunt. Then life got busier and I would let the coins collect for a while. I would still go through and count them, but then even that ended due to time and interest in keeping that up. Now, the coins get counted if they go through the CoinStar machine. So, all the rejected coins that are shown in the pictures above are not coined toward the total. I recognize that it throws the data off, but time is money!  The silver goes into another spot that does not get counted toward the totals. I find very few silver coins, so it is not that big of deal.

[Againstmywill]

7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Have you wondered why these fractions occur -- e.g. almost as many quarters as dimes, and considerably fewer nickels than either of those?  Also, do you have a breakdown of the pennies into 95% copper vs. Zincolns?  (I assume 'Sacajawea' includes the same composition later dollars, e.g. Presidentials.  But no Susan B. Anthony nor the larger earlier format?)

I hate digging pennies! I can 95% of the time know when a penny is going to be dug. The only reason I dig them is because of the chance of a larger gold ring or gold coin. As I look at the number of times I dug pennies, and compare that to the number of rings that were in the same numbers, I have dug thousands of pennies with no rings...or gold coins. I should probably just cut my losses and bypass the pennies, possibly missing something. Years back I did not dig many nickels because I was not smart enough to know that is where the gold hung out as well. Nickel numbers are improving with time. The quarters and dimes are dug because it is easy money. All $1 coins were counted the same. The vast majority of $1 coins were found in Utah. I believe I have only found one in FL the last 2 1/2 years. I do not take into acount the difference between copper/zinc pennies.

[kac]

Reminds me when my sisters were young they had a huge box of little glass beads, I made a bet with them I could count them in just a few minutes. So I weighed 10 of them then the whole box - the box and gave them the total that came in around 13k and change. They didn't believe me so I said proove I'm wrong. Kept them pretty busy counting by hand 🙂

Could almost do that with pennies if you didn't have to sort the zincs out.

[GB_Amateur]

10 minutes ago, Againstmywill said:

Years back I did not dig many nickels because I was not smart enough to know that is where the gold hung out as well. Nickel numbers are improving with time.

Good to know.

I don't like digging Zincolns and sometimes just skip over the loud (meaning near-surface) VDI's in their region of VDI-space.  I don't mind digging copper Memorial pennies.  I keep separate counts of the two kinds in my records of recovered coins.

[kac]

For what it's worth in parks I will use a degraded zincoln as my tone break if there isn't too many ring pulls and will dig them to see depth. This can help tell me if areas had been reworked by how deep they maybe especially if mixed with older coins at scattered depth. Shallow Zincolns is a good sign there maybe deeper stuff. Condition of them also helps. If you dig a Zincoln in good shape at 6"+ then good chance the ground has been turned.

[GB_Amateur]

11 hours ago, kac said:

For what it's worth in parks I will use a degraded zincoln as my tone break if there isn't too many ring pulls and will dig them to see depth. This can help tell me if areas had been reworked by how deep they maybe....

...

If you dig a Zincoln in good shape at 6"+ then good chance the ground has been turned.

I understand that part.

11 hours ago, kac said:

This can help tell me if areas had been reworked... especially if mixed with older coins at scattered depth.

So you've found sites where Zincolns were deeper than older coins (silver and/or Wheaties) in the same patch of ground?

11 hours ago, kac said:

If you dig a Zincoln in good shape at 6"+ then good chance the ground has been turned.

I get that (exceptions possibly in areas like Florida where depth of targets increase more drastically than typical moderate climate zones).

My thinking is that finding deep modern coins is a bad thing.  In my experience that situation is usually associated with reworking/backfilling ground near relatively recent construction/improvement such as when new parking/walkways/buildings/etc. are installed.  The exception I've noticed is when backfill soil is brought in from an older site.  I've found fairly shallow to moderate depth (say < 5") old coins in sites which my research says should not have contained them.

Shallow Zincolns don't tell me if a site has been searched recently (meaning during last ~10 years) or not since they are easy to ignore when detecting.  There is risk that comes with this practice as they can be masking deeper, more desirable targets.  I usually start out my hunts by removing them but as time ticks away and I get tired/sore/annoyed from recovering so many targets I sometimes just walk over the loud (shallow) ones. 

[kac]

I have found clad lower than old coins too often. Good example was a few of the large cents I found that were just a few inches down and clad quarters, pennies etc deeper. Turned out there was a sprinkler system installed. Another where I found a rosie just couple inches deep and lots of clad in the 8+ mark. The clad there was in the 70's and turned out the field had a drainage system installed.

I tend to work small areas and agree you get to a point that there is so much junk we just walk past them but never hurts to dig a couple in that region to see.

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, kac said:

Another where I found a rosie just couple inches deep and lots of clad in the 8+ mark. The clad there was in the 70's and turned out the field had a drainage system installed.

I've had a similar experience.  This summer I dug (and posted photo here) an 1864 2 cent piece which I associated with a Civil War training encampment.  But it was less than 5" deep.  However, it was about 1 ft away from a utility pole!  So I think (as you) that when they installed the utility pole (still over 50 years ago) they likely pulled that coin from deeper down.

And the next thought was/is "what other CW coins and relics are hiding there, and are they shallow enough that one of my detectors can pick them up??"  I have another spot where I've found the ground loaded with burned charcoal.  It's right next to a creek ford.  I wonder if that is CW related, and I'm going back to that spot soon to do a more careful search.  (Minelab Eqx is pretty good with charcoal, and I have the TDI -- PI -- but the nails, etc. will drive me crazy if I use that, I'm afraid....  Even the Eqx in gold mode which is more sensitive and has good VDI will still be a strain on my ears with its VCO and limited control of volume as a function of VDI.)