Finding Indian Heads

[Bill (S. CA)]

I'm going to throw this out there just for fun and at the same time I'm also sort of outing myself.  I started metal detecting in 1972.  I have hunted beaches, parks, old home sites, etc.  I've found all sorts of coins.

But I have never found an Indian head. Ever.

I've used every brand of detector.  While I may not be the greatest I generally know what I'm doing.

Currently I have a Vortex VX9, a Deus II, a Legend and a Manticore.

Right now I mainly hunt trashy parks in Los Angeles. Me and my two buddies have done really well at these parks, finding coins dating back to the late 1800's but none of us has hit an Indian. Wheaites yes but no Indians.

From what I have been told by fellow hunters Indian heads love to hide amongst zinc readings.  I have dug at my latest count 1,325,211 zincs and not a single Indian.

So I have two question:

• If you have had success digging Indians and use any of the detectors I own, what tips can you offer to identify them?
• Has anyone ever made up an "Indians only" notched program to find Indians?  I've thought of buying a couple of Indians at a coin shop and doing this myself but didn't know if it was worth it.  Andy Sabisch used to be the master of creating programs like this, say for old silver, but I'm not familiar with anyone who has done it for a specific type of coin.

If no one can help I'm open to a forum member sending me an Indian and I'll put it in my test garden, forget about it and then dig it up like I just found it.

Thanks.

Bill

 

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

I have dug at my latest count 1,325,211 zincs....

That's $13,000 in zincs alone.  With that you can buy the entire Indian Head Cent series, and throw in the Flying Eagles, maybe even including the great 1856!  😁

Here's what I can say about both Zincolns and IHC's:  (Let's just start with the non-nickel composition IHC's.)  Neither has a single VDI, and it's not close.  Freshly minted and dropped Zincolns hit ~22 on the Equinox and ~62-63 (maybe a touch higher) on the Manticore.  As Zincolns degrade in the ground their VDI's go down, and if you think about it, there is no lower limit since they can be eaten away to nothing.  I've detected 95% IHC's as high as 59 (and maybe air tested some in the low 60's) all the way down to 52 on the Manticore.  The 12% Nickel early IHC's (and all the Flying Eagles) come in in the low 40's -- about 40-42 from memory.  (This is about where a ring only beavertail hits.)

If you've ever found a Barber coin then you've been in the area where IHC's have been lost.  These pretty much go hand-in-hand.  From my research, both dropped out of circulation not long after WWII.  A cousin who started collecting coins (searching bank rolls, etc.) in 1955 told me he never found either, so that is pretty much a hard upper limit circulation date.  Liberty (aka 'V-') nickels are also contemporaries to the IHC's and Barbers.

You can chalk it up to bad luck, but if your parks are still producing old coins then I predict you will find one.

[JCR]

What @GB_Amateur said are my thoughts exactly.

[blackflag]

I find a lot of Indian head pennies. They are very seldom a good signal. Put the manticore in low conductors (no disc) set up a tone bin with the best pitch for your ears between a nickel and wheat penny. Go very slow. Then run the manticore as high of sensitivity as you can stand. The signals probably won’t be a dead lock. They’ll be a little bit jumpy and smeared maybe even one way but if it locks between a nickel and a wheat scent, you better dig it. Work the areas that have produced coins in the same years as Indians. They are there I can guarantee. The only way that they are not there is if someone else has done what I just said. Another option to get Indian heads is a F19/G2 detector they love Indians. Deus1 found me quite a few Indians too.

[Geologyhound]

I have been using Tekkna on the D2 to recover a number of IHC’s from a bed of nails at one of my sites.  For the most part, they have been reading around the upper 70s to low 80s.  With all the nails and other stuff there, up averaging and down averaging can affect the reading. I believe the lowest one I ever dug was in the upper 60s.

This site is still in use now and has modern coins scattered around. I have dug a number of zinc pennies in the same area.  However, most of the zincolns were relatively shallow, and the IHC‘s were about 6-8 inches down.  The difference in depth can give you a different signal, both for searching and pinpointing.

Now, while this may hold true for my site, it doesn’t necessarily hold true for every site.  Still, every zinc penny reading you get which appears to be deeper is worth investigating.

If you have a bed of square nails somewhere, check around it carefully. Remember the old detectors weren’t as quick as the new ones, and many detectorists cherry picked for silver and left the other signals behind - especially in an iron packed environment.

[Rick N. MI]

Indian heads are usually deeper.

[UT Dave]

I haven't dug too many with the Manticore.  But a deep signal, that sounds like a pretty fresh zinc, is a pretty good sign.  And there's almost no such thing as a deep and fresh zinc.  So I'm digging those just to see, no matter what.

I wish the dirt around here was more kind to them.  All I've dug are pretty roached.

- Dave

[UT Dave]

Oh, and I'd be happy to send you one Bill.  As long as you don't mind roached edition.

- Dave

[Bob S.]

My opinion is the Indian penny was more valuable to the owner and more time was spent in search of a loss in most locations. Are they buried deeper in a park than let's say around an old home foundation? I'd say yes because of the high traffic and constant grass mowing in a park. In my experience, Indians are more prevalent in outdoor social locations like fairgrounds and picnic groves where people were actively spending them. I researched a picnic grove that spanned 200 years and I found 40+ Indians in the first half hour alone... I literally was "walking" on my knees scanning the searchcoil. That was in the early 80's and I was using a 15 khz Garrett Groundhog. I even found Large and Half Cents there and some nice silver. If there is enough concentration of trash in the ground above the older, deeper coins in a long historied park, it's going to be tough no matter what you spend on a detector today. What I'm saying here is possibly change your hunting venue if you can, find locations other detectorists don't know about. You will be amazed at the coin types, ages and how less deep they reside often times.

I once got permission to hunt a yard behind a stone house dating back to the late 1600's. I was using my Groundhog with a 10" searchcoil thinking the best coins would be deep. Got a nice deep signal and turned out to be a Mattel Matchbox Car at 9-10" deep! 😞  If I was to reach "ground zero" with the building, I would need to go a lot deeper, because during it's history the land had been landscape filled in many times by different owners. Yet I have found Indians only 3-4" deep in parks usually where people were trying to be by themselves. If you have to "think" your locations too.

Coin patinas are another obstacle to detection. Get enough oxidation on a coin's surface and it no longer starts to look like a copper alloy to a metal detector. If your particular detector is great on high conductors, it might be not so hot on low conductivity.... Another argument for single vs multi-frequency transmission. There are many reasons why certain things evade us and they are not always the detector either!