Today I was fortunate enough to hunt the private yard I mentioned yesterday.  The home was built in the 1920s, and, I was told, had never been hunted.

I managed to pull 4 silvers in a 4.5 hour hunt, as well as 5 wheaties and some sort of Chinese coin.  The mercs are dated 1919 and 1920, while the wheaties are on the old side as well, 1911, 1918, 1920, 1926, 1938.  Interesting that there were not 40s and  50s wheaties.  All the coins were shallow, due to very rocky soil.  The Chinese coin was in a spill with 2 of the wheaties, (seems odd), so I guess its from the 20s as well.

On one of the forums, there was a debate as to whether the front yard, back yard, or side yard of private property was the best for finding old coins.  Sounds like a stupid debate to me — IMHO, it depends where people hung out, and that depends on solar exposure in the afternoon, and where the clothesline was (which also, of course, depends on solar exposure), and where shade trees were (which sometimes indicates where the clothesline was).  All perhaps can be figured out by careful research and observation of the site.

In this case, tho, its a fairly small yard, so I figured I’d grid the thing out, and see where things fell.  As it turned out, all 5 wheaties and the 2 mercs were in the front yard, the rosie was in the side yard, and the Q in the back yard.  That said, I only did about 5% of the back yard, while the other yards are finished.  So we’ll see if the backyard gives up anything else when I go back.

One other point, (and, as expected), 3 of the wheaties and both of the mercs were in the path from the front door to the mailbox.  Of course I focused on this the hardest.  That, of course, is usually in the front yard, but that does not make the front yard necessarily better.  The path to the mailbox is a specific and distinct paradigm that should always be focused on.