How Deep To Dig?

[GB_Amateur]

11 hours ago, 1515Art said:

i was 8 years old in school lunch line one day and we had been collecting for a couple of years now so I knew even then the key dates I had asked the lunch lady if I could check the dates of the coins in the till box and spotted an 1893s Morgan in the till. With the innocence of an 8 year old I explained this was a key coin we were missing and asked if I could use my lunch money for the coin instead of lunch that day, she declined my request.

Oh, 1515Art, I feel your pain!  Your knowledge/skill made her a whole bunch of money, if she believed you.  And all you got was this lousy story.  An 1893-S Morgan I could only dream about and you almost had one in your collection, at the age of 8.  Sometimes the stories are worth more than object, but I don't see that being the case here.

[sjmpainter]

Eklawok, I picked up a Gold Racer this week. Been testing it in the parks after work. I found a penny that might be interesting to see.

No great value but the date is encouraging.

[GB_Amateur]

7 hours ago, Eklawok said:

Wow....so much good information here. When I posted this thread I didn't realized how much good "searching" information that I would receive. It really is inspiring to me to go and really look in the older areas where I live. I just pawned my kiddo off on the grandparents tonight for the weekend and may have to do as such tomorrow. In the spirit of this thread,  I have snapped a few pictures of a dime that I had found a few years ago in some pocket change. It is a 1940 something. The last number of the year has rubbed off. It appears to be a 1946. I have actually kept it separated in one of my gold pans. I think that it would be cool to find a buffalo nickel or another older coin just because it would be older than what I am (being born in 77). Kinda funny too now that I think of it, I haven't seen a bicentennial 1976 quarter in a while either. I m8gbt have to check my change jar for one. I remember them as being quite common at one point when I was a kid.

 

Nice.  Note the mintmark (looks like an 'S' for San Francisco) on the reverse down by the base of the torch.  Very likely a '46 since that was the first year and that last digit doesn't look much like a 7, 8, or 9.  Yep, finding one like this would make my day.

If I haven't bored everyone (and of course you can just quit reading), I think I shortchanged the Lincoln Cent a bit.  For starters the Wheat reverse ran from 1909-58, not 57 as I stated erroneously.  This should be easy to remember if you realize that 1809 was the year of Lincoln's birth and/or 1909 was the first Lincoln Cent (commemorating the centennial of his birth) and they changed the reverse exactly 50 years later, adding Washington DC's Lincoln Memorial to replace the wheat.  (I haven't kept up but I'm guessing 2009 is when they replaced the Memorial.)

I never minded the Memorial -- kind of attractive, IMO -- but what happened in 1982 burned me.  Prior to that year all Lincoln Cents (with the exception of the 1943 Steel issues) were 3.11 grams total weight of which 95% was copper.  The other 5% apparently varied over the years as some combination of tin and zinc (but not necessarily both).  So 146 pennies weigh a pound and ~153 pennies contain a pound of copper.  The high price of copper in 1982 (many of you recall the high price of precious metals at that time) was such that the penny cost way more to make than its face value.  So they switched to a core of zinc (mostly) alloyed with a smidge of copper and then plated that with pure copper.  Both compositions (old and new) were used in 1982.  The new penny was lighter (2.5 grams).  Worst was what all detectorists in this country know -- if one came in contact with damp soil it started to deteriorate due to galvanic action.  In other words the mint was making batteries!

Ironically the price of zinc went up to where the new pennies weren't cost effective to make either, but they kept doing it anyway.  Now zinc is down to $0.86/lb but copper (much lower than its of $4.62/lb on Valentine's Day 2011) is still at a reasonable(?) $2.28/lb.  I once asked a metals salvage dealer if he was bothered by the fact that it is illegal in the US to melt circulation coinage.  "Only if I get caught." 

[1515Art]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Oh, 1515Art, I feel your pain!  Your knowledge/skill made her a whole bunch of money, if she believed you.  And all you got was this lousy story.  An 1893-S Morgan I could only dream about and you almost had one in your collection, at the age of 8.  Sometimes the stories are worth more than object, but I don't see that being the case here.

Ya, they were mine like they would be for any 8 year old... I did trade two rolls of the uncirculated matching date peace dollars to my best friends older brother for his new bike! Both our dads were PO and the deal was reversed in a few days with a couple of (we got yelled at) along the way for good measure...

[argyle]

Being a depth of sliver thread that Eklawok started, and seeing already a couple of coins that have been found by detecting have been posted up, (geez they didn't leave much room on the Liberty Dime for the full date) it would be nice to see a few more pics and explanation of type of coin, depth found and with what type of signal initially made you dig, the rarity of it ect.

Just a thought, but it would be good to see more coins on the thread.

I can't join in, as all my pics of American, Australian and British silver coins found, taken after I bought my first digital camera, got wiped off a computer...

[Eklawok]

6 hours ago, sjmpainter said:

Eklawok, I picked up a Gold Racer this week. Been testing it in the parks after work. I found a penny that might be interesting to see.

No great value but the date is encouraging.

 

Just found a 1959 penny at at spenard beach park here in Anchorage about an hour ago. It was only an inch or two down under a tree. When I get somewhere where the lighting is better, I'll post a pic. Sitting down for a afternoon beer and snack before I venture elsewhere. No silver as of yet though. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Almost all the coins I have ever dug were 8" or less. 8" - 10" would be crazy deep for me unless I was using a PI.

[auminesweeper]

Steve,I told you that Go find was not a Big Boys detector.

[Eklawok]

1 hour ago, auminesweeper said:

Steve,I told you that Go find was not a Big Boys detector.

Lol

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Almost all the coins I have ever dug were 8" or less. 8" - 10" would be crazy deep for me unless I was using a PI.

Yeah, at that particular park (spenard beach park that is) it seems to have a hardpan layer about 6 to 8 inches down under the topsoil. Even though i found a few junk items in it (right on the top of it), I would think that anything of value would be on top of it. But, I can't  say that with certainty. I am not experienced enough to make a call like that nor do I know how many loads of fill may have been dumped there over the years. But here are a few pics of the older penny that I found. Like I said before, it was only an inch or two down next to a spruce tree. I also found my first quarter for this machine (I had found a few with my old one) so that was pretty cool. But no silver. 

Again, I would like to thank everybody's input on my original question. Lots of good information and entertaining stories have come about on this thread so far. 

 

[Eklawok]

5 hours ago, argyle said:

Being a depth of sliver thread that Eklawok started, and seeing already a couple of coins that have been found by detecting have been posted up, (geez they didn't leave much room on the Liberty Dime for the full date) it would be nice to see a few more pics and explanation of type of coin, depth found and with what type of signal initially made you dig, the rarity of it ect.

Just a thought, but it would be good to see more coins on the thread.

I can't join in, as all my pics of American, Australian and British silver coins found, taken after I bought my first digital camera, got wiped off a computer...

I like that idea. It might help out some noobs like me. The penny that I just posted a pic of came up as just that, a penny. And the tree that it was under just look like a good place for stuff to get dropped under. I found a few other pennies, a quater, and some bottle caps as well. In fact, the bottle caps that I found were right next to that 59 penny.