Sewer Searching

I'm going out on a big limb here, but has anyone else ever search for or found coins in a sewer? I'm guessing probably no?

I have. Let me explain. My other hobby Urban Exploration/Draining has to be the extreme opposite of coin collecting. It is definitely a challenge to find these tunnels and a thrill to walk for miles under your city. There's different types of sewers and drains and quite often they're not as smelly or nasty as you might think. If anything, it smells like laundry detergent in there.

Here are some pics of my exploits:






Full flickr collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/infini...collections/

*** Edited by the Staff to embed pictures ***

Anyway in that last pic, in that tunnel I found pic is an overflow tunnel and during normal conditions, the only flow is that 1" of ground water seeping into the tunnel. In the tunnel floor there are some recesses there the concrete was worn away or rubble piled on the floor, both of which are places where the coins can get trapped. In this tunnel I found from 1980's nickels, just because they were shiny and caught my eye/flashlight. Further downstream on a different trip a newish $5 bill was just sitting there in a collection room.

In theory, depending on the size of the tunnel, there's been coins washing into these tunnels since the 1800's. Once their color loses that shine however they're probably hard to tell as usually it's 100% dark down there.

Now that I'm into coins I'm thinking about heading back to spots where I found money -- tunnels with the most connections to street level gutter boxes to see what I can find while looking much more closely. I guess a metal detector could also help too, but I don't know what happened to the one I used to own back in the 80's.

Oh, I've heard about people checking vending machines, coin star's, give a penny/take a penny's etc. BUT, one place I bet is very untapped is your local sewage treatment plant. They screen everything and if there's a big storm it can definitely wash some coins down to the plan and into the screens. The water is extremely powerful in significant rain events. Sewers have been know to suck things like telephone poles can canoes into them making it all the way to the plant. If those can make it, so can coins. If you know any treatment plant workers get friendly with them. They might be able to snag you any 'weird' coins they find in the screens.

I'm sure the quality in sewer coins probably suffer, but at the same time there could be a good chunk of 1800's down there!

Anyway, just wanted to say hi from the underground and to check if anyone else has gone to these extremes on a coin search. Haha, I bet you guys don't get posts like these too often.