Silver Dollar

It's probably easier to find gold coins. A silver dollar is a big target, and would have been easily found with even primitive detectors. It also was heavy enough to notice if you lost it, and big enough to be easily found visibly. Plus they didn't really see much use east of the rockies. Keep in mind that Henry Ford made headlines by paying workers $5 a day (double the industry rate), so a buck was a substantial amount of money, worth looking for if lost.

If you were to track the 1,000's of detectorists and the hours they put in, you will see what a rarity they are. Most likely they were buried on purpose than lost. A fellow posted on another forum that his mother gave a quarter as a kid and it would get him into a show, plus buy a candy bar, pop and popcorn. A dollar had tremendous buying power when the silver dollar was in circulation. In the 1800's and early 1900's people didn't trust banks, didn't have much cash, bartered and did do IOU's. IOU's were even included in the probate of a will. When they are found they are usually found on private property, not parks and schools.

That's a nice find Bonedigger. I bet that got the juices flowing. Something like that would make me want to look forever at that location. Would have been hard to leave.

We found a 1923 Silver Peace dollar a couple of weeks ago. It was our first major find. Then when we started learning about it on the comp we realized there was hardly a scratch on it. We just started detecting this year and finding that really gave us the fever! I'll try to post a pic but my camera isn't that great.

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Back to the silver dollar story:

This weekend I went to my sister-in-law's house in New Jersey.


My wife and asked if I could detect the property (house was build in about 1775).

So, to make a ridiculously long story short, no wheaties, nothing great.....


but..
at the end of the driveway I finally got a decent hit, (not counting the various items parts of toy trucks, etc)
and due a darkened 1879 P Morgan $.

Only the second silver $ that I have ever dug.

My sister-in-laws husband just about grabbed it out of my hand and later I tried to claim, with you keep the other stuff and I'll 'just' take that.
His reply: "it was found on MY property and it is MINE."

My wife asked me if I'd like to go back and detect there again, I told her to get a life, or a new brother in law.
Gee, Frank, could you just spend about three hours detecting my house, and, oh, by the way, you get to keep nothing.

Yeah right. I prefer strangers any day.

That's a bummer TreasHunt. Someday your going dig some awesome coin finds that will make this memory fade almost to nothing and put a smile you can't shake on your face. Happy Hunting!