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Swimming In Silver


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Ahaa!  You were holding out on me, just letting me hunt the dregs while saving the garden spot for your buddy....  :laugh:

Five silvers in a day with one being the beautiful Walking Liberty half -- my favorite coin design of all time.  When I was detecting with you a couple days earlier I was thinking "now I know what it was like back in the 1980's when high performing detectors were just starting to hit these unsearched, frequented spots."  You proved that to the 9's.  I thought you said the Silver umax was brand new?  Didn't take you long to get it looking grungy.  BTW, what's the date on the clad Kennedy half?

Well done!

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Mh, the silver depths were under 5 inches, mostly 3'' to 4''. The walker was at 3 1/2''. Oddly I haven't dug a silver over 6 in a couple of years.

GB, I sure wish you could have managed another day, We would have had a hell of a time. Where we found the silver oddly was an area that I would have walked past, but the heat dragged me to the little bit of shade. Have NO idea why those coins were dropped in that 50'x100' spot. The walker is the third from that place. I do have a question on this. All the walkers I have ever dug were from 1940,1941 and 1942 nothing above or below these dates. my buddy has the same experience oddly. Just wondering why, maybe just my area.  The Kennedy 1/2 is a 1980p. Not sure if you have time in the late fall, but sure would like to take you there again before the bulldozers level it.

 

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Dogodog

  I’m sorry to report to you that half dollar is not old ! Due to the fact that’s when I was born.

 So I hope you understand that when you call that coin old that cuts deep in a pain I can’t express.

 That’s some great finds you made.

 Chuck 

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25 minutes ago, dogodog said:

All the walkers I have ever dug were from 1940,1941 and 1942 nothing above or below these dates. my buddy has the same experience oddly. Just wondering why, maybe just my area.

Sometimes there are reasons for that and sometimes it's just randomness trying to trick us.  I know I've found what seems to be (note "seems to be", not to be confused with "surely is...") an inordinate fraction of early 40's Wheat pennies.  In one homesite I think it might have the explanation that children, probably in the late 40's, were playing in the yard with pennies and carelessly dropping them.  But even ignoring those, at other sites I get a lot of the early 40's and not very many late 40's or even what might seem more likely -- the 50's.

Certainly the Walkers from the 40's were minted in greater quantity than those from earlier years (and pointing out to those not so familiar with the WL series, they were last minted in 1947):  ~330 million in the 40's compared to ~150 million in all prior years (1916 to 1939), so a bit more than twice as many.  In general, the first half of the 1940's (most of which we were involved in WWII) saw the mints producing a prodigious amount of coinage of all denominations compared to earlier times.

Find several more Walkers and we'll be able to refine our hypotheses.  :biggrin:

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On 8/28/2021 at 10:37 AM, dogodog said:

Mh, the silver depths were under 5 inches, mostly 3'' to 4''. The walker was at 3 1/2''. Oddly I haven't dug a silver over 6 in a couple of years.

There are some parks around me that aren't heavily hunted (or hunted at all), and I think they're similar to the kind of place you just hunted. But they're fairly new, probably having been established in the past 20 years or so.

I hate digging and hate it even more when in a public park. So when I get a possible coin target at 8+ inches, I'm generally inclined NOT to dig it...unless I think there's a good chance it's silver.

But if you're finding silver that shallow, that is very reassuring to me. Of course, I know a lot goes into how deep an old coin might be and our variables are going to be very different. But at least I know it's possible to find silver in a public park that's shallower than 6 inches.

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Mh, I think everyone has there own idea of how coins sink into the ground, but from my records/experience, I find older silver coins shallow. For instance I'll dig a 1984 dime at 8'' and a few feet away I'll dig a 1919 merc. I for the life of me can not figure out why all of my silvers come up shallow, but they do. I can count on one hand how many were over 6+ inches. If your hunting parks that are only 20 years old, I would set up your machine to run shallow first and not bother trying to hit max depth. See if your scores improve and adjust accordingly. Sometimes running a little to hot can blow past your intended target, especially in foil/ aluminum rich areas. Most of all do not rely on vdi, Pay attention to the tones your machine is giving you. These tones do not lie. It takes a lot of practice to not just glance at the screen for help. I fall into that trap every now and then, It's OK. After time your brain will tell you what a good signal is even if the vdi # are not what you expect.  Good Luck and hope you will post your next silver find.

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4 hours ago, dogodog said:

Mh, I think everyone has there own idea of how coins sink into the ground, but from my records/experience, I find older silver coins shallow. For instance I'll dig a 1984 dime at 8'' and a few feet away I'll dig a 1919 merc. I for the life of me can not figure out why all of my silvers come up shallow, but they do. I can count on one hand how many were over 6+ inches. If your hunting parks that are only 20 years old, I would set up your machine to run shallow first and not bother trying to hit max depth. See if your scores improve and adjust accordingly. Sometimes running a little to hot can blow past your intended target, especially in foil/ aluminum rich areas. Most of all do not rely on vdi, Pay attention to the tones your machine is giving you. These tones do not lie. It takes a lot of practice to not just glance at the screen for help. I fall into that trap every now and then, It's OK. After time your brain will tell you what a good signal is even if the vdi # are not what you expect.  Good Luck and hope you will post your next silver find.

I did a little more digging (research) and of the parks I hunt, some areas are somewhat new (past 20 or so years) and some are much older...perhaps 40+ years old. I may have time to go back to one of the parks tomorrow before the hurricane arrives and I'll try to focus on the older areas.

My typical approach to is start shallow in public parks: I'll set my AT Max at a 1, 2 or 3 sensitivity (out of eight), then go from there. I do this to go for the "low hanging fruit," ie targets that don't require much digging to get and will likely provide solid signals. One reason this works out is b/c these parks are pretty coin heavy - think about 10-15 coins (clad) per hour using this hunting method.

I also go by sound. I set my AT Max in either Coins mode or Custom. If the latter, it'll only register (for the most part) signals that are Zincolns or higher. But because I set my sensitivity so low, often I'll get a high tone, but no VDI. Only when I hear a high tone, then bump the sensitivity to 5 or more, that I get a VDI. If necessary, I'll go into All Metal mode to get more information about my target. So yeah, no looking at my screen for help.

I enjoy silent hunting, then only when I find something do I want to hear something. I know I'm missing some potential targets like this, especially deep silvers, I reckon. But since I try to avoid digging deep in public parks, it works out. I also wonder if I might enjoy the Tesoros a bit more in that regard. I do miss my Vanquish 540 sometimes (although I still have the 340). But each of these machines have their benefits and tradeoffs...

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