My Best House Yard Ever

by Ron Goodger

I've hunted hundreds of old house yards over the years and the only old coin that turned up with any regularity was the Indian Head Cent (after the Decatur dig, I was only missing 6 dates from the set). Other coins came along with rarity. I found an occasional Barber dime, one Barber quarter, and one Barber half in house yards. I got four large cents from yards, getting two from the same one. I even got a couple of two cent pieces and one shield nickel from yards, but I never got a seated coin from a house yard. Until last night, that is.

I had been working in Perry, Ohio for a couple of months and getting out to hunt coins occasionally after work. It had been raining steadily for two days, causing flooding of local tributaries and grief for the people living along them. When I got off work on Monday, June 2nd 1997 at 4 PM, the rain had finally slacked off and I was ready to find a new site.

The old house norteast of Madison, Ohio looked like a prime spot. It had a large yard, but only one large maple tree in the corner near the driveway. After securing permission to hunt from the owner who had lived there only three years, I started hunting near the front step. My first good signal came about two feet from the center of the bottom step. I dug about four inches for the Indian Head. It was well worn, grading only Good, but the date was a nice surprise. After twenty plus years of hunting, I was able to fill the 1871 slot! One discouraging sign was that the hole was all gravel below the sod. The coin had apparently been moved by digging. I had encountered this fairly frequently near front steps, so it didn't bother me at first.

I kept scanning, getting no other good signals and few junk signals until I got about 20 feet into the yard. It was another Indian, 1889, about six inches deep. Again, the soil was all gravel beneath the sod. 'That's not good', I thought. I was lucky again. Hopefully the whole yard wouldn't be that way. Well, it was. I dug several junk signals and a few surface Memorials. The gravel was everywhere underneath the sod. I usually give up quickly when I find this situation because I know the ground is not natural, undisturbed soil, but the two Indians kept me hanging in there. I searched for another 30 minutes or so before I hit a nickel signal near the driveway. It was loud, so I expected a Jefferson Nickel. Surprise, surprise. It was a 1911 nickel in good shape only two inches deep. And the soil was normal this time. I worked along the driveway toward the big maple, getting a couple more surface pennies. Then, between the drive and the tree, I got another loud signal that read 180. It was even louder than the other surface coins. I dug another two inch deep coin in normal soil again. It was an 1876-CC Seated Liberty quarter! It was only VG, but still hard to believe!

I had hunted up to the tree on the main yard side earlier and found the gravel went right up to the tree, but it wasn't there on the driveway side. Maybe my luck would keep up. It did. The next signal was a deeper one closer to the tree and reading 180 on the meter. I thought maybe I would get a dime this time. I cut a four inch deep plug from the black topsoil and removed it. Lying in the bottom of the hole was a soil coated quarter with a Seated Liberty eagle looking up at me. I couldn't believe it. I just stuck it in my pocket without even looking at the front. I guess I was hoping if I waited until I got home with it, it would turn out to be a Capped Bust quarter. I wanted to carefully wash it anyway to prevent scratching it by rubbing off the dirt. I mentally noted that a hundred years ago, that maple tree would have been just the right size for tethering a horse.

I covered the rest of the yard, gravel or no gravel, getting only one more coin. It was a 1920 wheatie. I also made sure I went back and dug the few loud signals I had passed over thinking they were surface Memorials. Most of them were. The rain had started again just as I finished the yard up. When I got home, I washed the other quarter and found it to be an 1858 in Fine condition. Too bad so much of the yard had been disturbed. I wondered if the huge old house had been a boarding house in the 40's or 50's and the whole thing gravelled for parking. The conspicuous lack of wheaties makes this unlikely. I actually think the yard had been hunted before. The 6000-D I used to use would have missed the two indian heads in the gravel and the nickel. The first quarter was probably passed over as a surface coin and the second missed because it gave such a deep signal. The loop would have had to go directly over it to hit. I have a feeling it will be a long, long time before I equal that yard again, if ever! It's days like that one that keep us going.

Addendum:

The next Monday, exactly one week later, I returned to that house after work and went over the yard again. I dug every signal that could even remotely have been a coin and got two more Indian heads. And guess what? One of them was another 1871! It was in no better condition than the first, but imagine that! I got not only two seated quarters from that yard, but TWO 1871 Indian heads!

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