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Is Depth All That Matters?


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I agree that separation/unmasking is key at many sites.  Coins around here often don't sink much -- when I've had the opportunity to hunt sites that haven't been hit before (e.g., private property), I've often found coins that must have been lost at least a 100 years ago at depths of around 3". That leads me to believe that there's still good stuff within the first 8" of hard-hit, trashy areas... it's just hidden by all the trash.

At such sites, the attitude of the detectorist matters a lot, too; maybe as much at the machine used. The IDs and tones of good targets can be dragged down by nearby junk, so if you cherry-pick too much, you'll leave some of the cherries in the ground 🙂

  -Ken

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30 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I am puzzled why coins are so shallow in some of the places you guys hunt, the depths you're finding your oldest coins I find coins from the 1990's.

There are so many ways coins (and other manmade items) are at the depths found.  Sports fields here tend to have been backfilled.  I assume yours has, too.  That's sometimes the case for schoolyards and even parks, but not always.  I found a silver dime at less then 2 inch depth in a home's side yard, although I wonder if that depth can be explained by some kind of reworked soil (e.g. landscaping).  It was old and the ground looked undisturbed, but that latter observation only applies for maybe 10+ years at most.

I've found modern coins pretty deep, too, in fact in some cases almost as deep as my deepest old coins.  Soil density, amount of biomass above (leaves from trees, grass trimmings, etc.) play a variable role.  Burrowing animals (especially moles), earthworms, tree root growth/rework, the list goes on and on.

30 minutes ago, phrunt said:

My biggest trash item is pull tabs, if someone ever found a way to get rid of those things I'd be happy.

I'm getting rid of them by digging 'em up and discarding them.  😁  This year alone (140 hours in the field) I've found ~650 (yes, I keep a count) of the older style ('ring and beavertail', either whole or in parts) and 95% of those were cherrypicked in the USA nickel 5 cent piece TID sweetspot of 12-13 on the ML Eqx.  If I dug 14-18 I'm sure I'd have a couple thousand more since most TID there.  And I'd get all the more modern square tabs (and plenty more can slaw), too.

The aluminum trash that annoys me the most are the aluminum drink can 'punchouts' -- the disk shaped pieces about the size of our USA 1 cent pieces.  I don't get that many (less than 1 per hour) but they sound and dTID like the best nickels I ever recover.  What really honks me off about them is the trouble the s___heads have to expend to even get them off the cans!!

 

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54 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I am puzzled why coins are so shallow in some of the places you guys hunt, the depths you're finding your oldest coins I find coins from the 1990's

It’s actually all over the map. It has a lot to do with the growth of the grass. It humid climates turf builds depth rather quickly, as dead grass, especially clippings, compact and add inches over time.

In my home base in Alaska and here in Reno it is different. In Alaska the place is frozen half the year. The rest of the time it’s rather dry and people don’t really take care of parks as much - the turf is often kind of threadbare. Very little build up over time.

In Reno it depends a lot on the watering. Water is expensive, and so most places go a little shy on what is needed for the heat, again leading to threadbare places, with hard pack soil base. Other places seem to have been more generous both with peat type soil fill, and watering, so there is some depth. The recent practice of laying complete new turf can add inches overnight.

Rough rule of thumb very dry climates, hot or cold, tend to have thin buildup. There are places in the desert where 100 year old coins can be found on the surface. Humid climates with lush greenery it builds much faster.

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I have no high hopes on the manufacturers now. My wish is that companies made metal detectors for ones...., professionals, beginners and hobbies.

Answer the question, it needs to fill a book. 

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39 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

In my home base in Alaska and here in Reno it is different. In Alaska the place is frozen half the year. The rest of the time it’s rather dry and people don’t really take care of parks as much - the turf is often kind of threadbare. Very little build up over time.

That would nicely explain why coins don't sink much in my area of Southern Alberta.  It's frozen for about five months of the year and prevailing dry the rest of the time, especially in summer/fall. And here I thought it was ice worms pushing the coins to the surface 🙂

   -Ken

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I'm not sure depth for me maters that much. Most of my good and bad finds are between 4'' and 9''. My MK with the 9'' concentric coil can hit a modern clad dime at a solid 11'' to 13''. I often dream about whats at the 15'' to 20'' depth but shake myself out of the delerium, when I realize how big that hole would have to be to extract said object. I'm not fond of lost permissions for digging a giant hole in someone's yard or park. There are a couple of things that matter to me most. One is unmasking, Two is tone and Three are ID number's, which I only use for rough verification. I've dug every ID number known to mankind and have been elated and disapointed. In my opinion digging by numbers will leave alot of good stuff still to be found. What I think it all comes down to, is knowing and learning your detectors and soil conditions, with the caveate being Terrain. Old camp sites and trails require some thought on where to navigate through the woods. Humans are inherently smart and lazy at the same time, if that makes sense. That being said knowing where to hunt vs not, will change some of your depth strategy. You could have a coil that goes deep in a place with with nothing there and find nothing. Hit another with the same coil and find great stuff at 5''. That large coil will not gain you depth with nothing in the ground. The tech has changed but the basics have not. I think alot of people get wrapped up in the latest and greatest new tech and forget the basics on which this hobby was started. Most of us found a fair amount of cool stuff with some ancient detectors. I think maybe we should leave a few things buried for future detectors to enjoy. I'm pretty happy with where I'm at in the hobby and still learn every time I'm out. 

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Steve this has been a great thread  reading everything here.

I can't add anything else that hasn't been said except that here in the states we have several types of soil that can be located in each and every state except for Alaska. We have our clay's that contain several types of minerals to the areas that are they are found in. The south east US has a different type of clay than the central US and so forth. Some areas a person can't find any clay until they dig down deeper than 20 inches like here in central Illinois. We have mineral rich Arkansas that even has diamonds and other precious minerals that will make detectors go bonkers. Here in the US each region is special and that is why not only is getting good clear signals required from a detector but also some depth is great.

For the most part I have only found only one item that has been 12 inches deep, so for me to dig something like that very often would not make much difference to me. Yes it was only gold plated but it was a learning experience for me.

Sorry for the rant, but I am having trouble thinking straight today.

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    You all have given a variety of opinion's on a few different threads now! And obviously, on the surface, (to, i think,  mostly newer people to the hobby), it looks like a relatively easy question to answer; like so many others that have been asked!

    But obviously there are so many variables for depth, (not to mention local restrictions,) etc.. to give a "one size fits all answer"! 

  Anyone who has put any serious time into reading books, forums, blogs, and field time, etc...  to learn; i think, understand's what a monumental question " How deep can it go?" Is! 

 I would almost compare it to that "wonderful" question!!: What can you, or what did you find with that thing??🤣😂👍👍

  

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And this will be my first comment in this Forum...

Hi everyone!

Its a pleasure to be here! Finally i took the step to create an account haha.

Steve, YOU ARE A LEGEND! 

Well, I'm from Europe, and believe me, back here most of us look for depth...

But I must admit, depth isn't everything when we hit those hot spots like  Roman,  Medieval and Ancient areas... Lots of "polluted" patches, when i say "polluted" I'm referring to iron, "slag rocks" from when Romans used to work with iron... Most of these areas have a really dark soil and its full of pottery fragments...

The problem nowadays is that there's lots of new Detectorists... And mostly don't even know alot about metal detectors, coil types, frequencies etc (after 3 years, I'm still learning). 

 

Sorry for my English 

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