Has anyone ever found (with a metal detector or otherwise) any old coins on their own property or on

SanctionII

their parent's property?

I have not found any at any of the properties that I have owned. However, my parents' house was built in Denver, Colo. in the early 1900's (before 1920, I think) and my mom found a 1913S Lincoln cent in Fine condition in a vegable garden in the back yard.

My dad still lives in the home. The property has a big back yard, side yards, a front yard and a grass area between the street and the sidewalk. The back yard has clothes lines and the former vegatable garden. People have lived, walked and worked in the area as it is currently configured for over 80 years.

The interior of the house itself has various nooks and crannys, including wood floors (long covered by carpet) and baseboards with possible gaps between them and the wood floors. The basement originally had bare walls, however a portion of same has been improved with drywall hung on studs. When I was a kid, I hid a few rolls of silver dimes in the basement as "my treasure stash" (I do not recall leaving the rolls hidden, but who knows).

I can not help but think that on my dad's property and possibly in his house there are coins of all kinds that people have dropped and/or hid over the past 80+ years.

When I get a chance, I am going to have to get a good metal detector and scope out my dad's property and home. Wouldn't it be great if I found a buried jar containing some 1927D Saints?

kiyote

I went into my parent's basement and found a 1941 wheat penny at the landing at the bottom of the stairs-- mind boggling to think it might have sat there for over 60 years!

The farmhouse was built in 1849 and has been in my family the better part of 50 years-- never searched for any coins or anything on the property. It's mostly farmland, I can't imagine there would be much. There are a couple of rooms that were boarded up in the 70s that havent been opened since, including a full length attic.

BigD5

Many members of my family have discovered miscellaneous coins on my parents property. Large cents, merc dimes, lib nicks, buff. nicks, IHC's. No Dollars or halves and most are very beat up or corroded. Can't beat a dirt cellar in a house built in the 1700's.

slipgate

1856 cent in DC - barely legible

Musky1011

good barber dime

that is until i hit it with the screwdriver trying to locate it

AU58WALKERS

1907 Indian head penny

Bikingnut

Not me, but my father has found numerous old coins and trinkets in many of the houses he owns. Many have sections of the house that were built in the 1830's to early 1900's. In one house that had a fire, while replacing a window frame he found two 1864 two cents and an 1864 Indian wedged in the old window frame.

Recently while tearing out an old mantle, he found an extremely worn SLQ. The only way you can tell it's an SLQ is you can just see the top of Miss Liberty's head, no other discernable marks.

Many wheaties, a few buffalo's, Washingtons, mercury's. Nothing of any significant value.

The most interesting item foung in a basement, is an old campaign pin from Teddy Roosevelts election. Very cool.

Dennis

Keyrock

Our house was built in 1896 and I always thought somewere on the property there may be something. Possibly in the old out house locations or a buried jar of coins when the market crashed.

While renovating the couse I found a few cents in the gaps on the baseboards and a few mercury dimes and wheat cents under the legs of the radiators. Over time with the heat of the iron, the wood warped and the coins were used to level them.

In the attic I found several parchments of old land deeds dated from 1847, very cool items. Numerous stamps from the 40's 50's and 60's both new and canceled. Other items are things like Life magazine from 1969 when we landed on the moon. A real treasure trove of items hidden in the nooks and cranies.

Rich

BigE2

When I was a kid I found a glass mason jar full of silver coins with my tRUSTY Radio Shack detector. (tRUSTY 'cuz if it was RUSTY I found it!!) This was on side of the road on my folks property.
Silver was way up then. Can't recall how much there was or how much I got when Dad sold it for me. Man, was that forever ago!

Crap. I'm going to be 40 this year.

WaterSport

Found a 1945 Merc when tilling my garden.

WS

Artist

I found an old, 1960s, glass "Harrah's - Reno / Lake Tahoe" ash tray while installing some shelves in the crawl space of my house. According to neighborhood legend, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson lived in my house in the 60s when they were making Easy Rider. I'll bet there is an interesting story to that ash tray...

RegistryCoin

I went over a 1/3 acre rental property built in 1900 in Portland, Oregon last summer with a metal detector and only found a square head nail. Now that's an old house by Oregon standards. It was the original cemetary's caretaker's home. It didn't even have a toilet. (There was a hole in the deck, however.)
The next day, practically on top of the ground at the front gate I found a 1916 Barber dime.

DeputyPud

My house wasn't built until '64', so nothing but memorial cents and clad stuff. But in grandma's yard I found 137 coins. The house was built in 1875. I went there one fall, did the yard and got 99 coins. After the winter freeze and spring thaw, I went back and got the other 38 coins. Lots of silver dimes and earlier Jeffersons (strangely no Buffs), lots of early wheats, and 4 Indian cents.
The house is only a block from the downtown (tiny town), and has a steep bank about 12 feet high from the sidewalk to the front yard. Most of the coins came from that bank, probably from kids playing on it and rolling down the hill over the years.
I have found that in this part of the state, if I stick to homes in town that were built a hundred years ago, I can usually get almost one coin per each year of the house's existance.
The best find was an XF/AU 35-S Peace dollar under a huge maple tree right by the sidewalk in front of an older home. Again, this house is in town and the tree is a fantastic 'climber'.
I've also done quite well in old churchyards where Sunday socials used to be held.
Around here, farm houses are the worst. Even though many of the old farmers had the most stashed away, they seldom have a need for carrying change in their pockets when working during the day, and so the yards are pretty much bare. A buddy of mine did get a strong hit when he went through an entrance door to a garage at a farmhouse. He removed the threshold, and in an old canning jar was $300 face of blanket notes. They were very brittle, and so he just put the jar with his other findings, leaving the notes inside.

DeputyPud

Oh yeah,in case you're wondering, the silver dollar was about 11 inches deep, and standing up almost perfectly vertical. It was the middle of summer, but the ground was damp so the detector was really working well. If it hadn't been pegged on 'silver half or dollar' so strongly, I may have assumed it was a pop can or something.

cladking

I never found a coin but did find (with a metal detector) what appears to be a natural
nugget on my parents property many years ago. I don't know what it is but it's very
heavy and not radioactive.

I really should get a spectroscope on it.

The land is such that it seems most improbable that it came to be on it naturally. The land
was probably never farmed and has clay very close to the surface.

mgoodm3

I bet if I went out looking in my yard, I may find something old, like from the 1980's.

Coindexter

I've related this story here probably three times before, but I like telling it so here it is again:

I bought a really nasty fixer upper of a house in late 2001 and moved in. I was overzealous to say the least. The house could not be described by even the most charitable of people as livable. I lived in it anyway and worked on it until I got a lucky break in early 2002. My neighbors (an 80 something mother and 60 something son) decided they were going to sell their house and move due to the local ambulance service informing the four residents of my road that they would no longer service us. As soon as I heard they were selling I walked over and had a chat with the son. I asked the price. He said $1000. I asked "Cash or check?"

Three months later I was in the basement of the $1K house (which I currently live in) attempting to set foundation jacks to level the place out a bit (it rolls like a carnival fun house). Just when I was about to call it quits for the day I noticed a small tin on top of one of the joists. I noticed it because in normal houses you couldn't put anything on top of a joist. The tin wasn't very old looking (it's an altoids tin). It contained an 1875 CC seated half dollar.

Within a month of finding that coin I was a coin collector. I started reading a lot and buying even more. I stumbled across this forum in March of 2005 at which point I became a serious collector. The seated half now resides in an ANACS VF30 slab and will never be sold. That coin will likely be buried with me.

Edited to add:

Incase anyone thinks I'm a horrible person that took advantage of a feeble old guy I'd like to explain that his reasoning for selling the house so cheap was that they bought it for $500 and it needs a lot of work. Plus, we're technically related.

pontiacinf

found at perspective old properties around CT:

ms70

Found about 5' from my front door:

curly

Not metal detecting, but a friend of mine ordered a load of topsoil and as he was spreading it out, he found a gold watch dated 1911. It was in good shape too.

carl

There is a street in Chicago's downtown area called Wacker Drive. It is a multiple layered road, at locations runs along the Chicago River, and recently was completely redone. All layers were ripped out and replaced. By layers I mean you can drive on the top, drive on the lower level and park on the lowest level in places. Although I didn't find anything but during the reconstruction some of the construction workers showed me items they found such as numerous old glass bottles, old wooden forms and one worker showed me a bag of old coins. The coins were found a few at a time mostly by luck. Two of them were gold coins. With so much construction going on I found it amazing that anything wasn't smashed beyond the ability to know what it was but as the dirt was tuned over many items just poped out of the ground. The original Wacker Drive was built in the 1920's. There were foundations down there that no one knew what they were for. At one location there was a wooden vault that was empty, however, all the wood was hauled away by someone. Every night people would roam the area looking for anything valueable. Anything metal was hauled away. Naturally all tools were well locked up. Amazingly it was noted that back in the old days not to many great records were kept as to where things were so hitting power lines, gas pipes, water piping and telephone lines happened often. When hit, construction would stop and there would be a while where the ground could be inspected and that was when coins, bottles, etc where usually found. Unfortunately my possition there didn't allow me to roam around with a metal detector or maybe I'd have found a fortune in coins.

Dockwalliper

Found a 1904 Indian head cent nailed to the door sill of my house when we remodeled.