Ok, Years ago mid 1960's my dad had placed a jug of coins in a small and old barn on our farm. The barn collapsed and dirt has slipped very slightly. In the 90's when he was pretty sick he took me to the spot and was trying to get around to show me about where they were. Mostly consisted of quarters and dimes some nickels. No pennies or halves. So he never got around to showing me approximately where to look. So now i'm somewhat of a treasure hunter(roll searcher). I wanted to find this jug thinking ok mid 60's quarters and dimes...silver!!! So I borrowed a metal detector from a friend. Its an old whites 5000d. It works great I have found the wood rotten and under about 3-4 inches of earth. Now this barn had lots of metal in it. The ground is full of metal. Any good tips on how to tell the difference between the silver or clad coin jar. ANd say chains coffee cans.. etc... ? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
That's a tough one. You pretty well have to dig everything if the coins are mixed. I don't know how good a discrimination setting the 5000 had, but you might try eliminating everything but silver and spend a day or so digging only signals above that. If that doesn't work, then you have a lot of digging ahead of you.
Thats what I'm afraid of. But I think a jug of silver would be pretty good pay off. That is if dad didn't remove and forgot he removed it. THe only thing that is pretty convincing is he was pretty sick and out there climbing around. Got my fingers crossed.
I hunted a couple of caches in the past. I was successful with one but it only contained about $50 in mixed coins. There was a lot of foreign wartime stuff that didn't have much value. But it was still neat to find. The other, I never found. Even though I had the approximate location, so many trees had grown in the area, it was hard to pinpoint the exact spot.
My dad did amusement games... pinball jukebox etc... this was a till or two from them. so shouldn't be any foreign coins but can't wait to find out.
your best hope is that the jug broke and scattered a couple of the coins so your descriminator can positively identify a coin then you can dig in that area when you find it. If they are all still essentially in a clump your detector will probably hit it as a big chunk of metal since they are all together. Good luck, let us
LOL well I could use a veteran hunter to help. But little far away. But we did just get back from indiana.Have family out that way.
I would slowly search every hit- I metal detect and often there are things stacked up in places like barns and old home sites. If however, its not easily accessible (say not right next door) to you I'd be more selective or if a tractor is handy I'd rip up the ground a bit with whatever attachments are available (box or plow).
I detected a farm field where a 100 year old house had burned down and was demolished. Eventually, the area was turned into farm land and over the years was planted. Every so often, the farmers would find coins after they plowed. They allowed me to give the area a shot with my detector. I detected all day from sunrise to sunset and didn't find a single coin. I found hundreds of nails from the house and a ton of metal fragments. It was frustrating for me because to this day, they still find the odd large cent or silver coin on the surface.
If I knew that there was definately silver in with it i would just turn the discriminator(if it has one) to just silver. It may still pick up a few other things but it should help finding the coins faster. Good luck!!
That's what I do in a new location to test the area. If I find silver, then I open up the discrimination.