Best-Kept Secrets To Finding Treasure: #2

Published by Larry on Tagged 1700's Coins, Ancient Coins, Coin shooting, Instuctional, Site Areas

There are moving targets in treasure hunting. I have never been a believer that coins, rings and other treasures in the ground have a sinking rate based on weight, shape or size. However, I am convinced that both the actions of man and natural phenomenas can cause items buried to either sink or come closer to the surface. A good example of the latter is older, deeper buried coins that are out of range of most metal detectors, are found after the thawing of a hard winter freeze. They are pushed-upwards by this natural action. Erosion of the soil will produce coins that once were out of reach. Naturally urban renewal projects will often lead to the removal of pavement and soil bringing many great targets to the surface. I found nearly 300 coins predating 1940 when a city block was lowered nearly four feet over a three month period. That lot produced my oldest coin find in the US, a Hebrew 1/2 shekel 69 A.D. pictured here.

Urban renewal projects are my second favorite land sites to find treasure. My first is another site where the action by man causes deeper coins to come closer to the surface. This is resodding of schools, ball parks, and playgrounds. I have dug-up several thousands coins from these processes and my biggest prizes are the silver dimes and smaller fractional coins like half dimes, three cent silver coins and many small foreign coins too. One school resodding produced 36 Mercury Dimes and over 200 coins in a four hour hunt. There are many more ways that natural events can cause movement of treasure. My favorite water hunts occur after a severe winter storm hits the beach areas pulling tons of sand away for short periods of time. Three friends of mine dug more than 2500 coins in a one day period. Numerous gold items, including more than 30 gold rings, also were the result of that Northeaster hitting a popular east coast Daytona Beach area. I dug three treasure coins after a storm hit my Tarpon Springs, FL area. The pictured authentic counterfiet Spanish coin, that I just sold on ebay for a good price, is one of those coins.