Over 57 Million Dollars Waiting to Be Found with A Metal Detector

The last time I went metal detecting in my mother's backyard was over ten years ago. I was using a Garrett GTA 500 and I remember finding several coins. Today I decided to use my Minelab Explorer II. I did not expect to find too much, but I was surprised. A short search with the Explorer netted me more than 5 dollars, 14 being quarters.

Looking back on the past, it makes sense. Our yard had the swing set and the trampoline and attracted the neighbor kids. In fact, my little boy reminded me of how coins are lost. While swinging the metal detector, he decided to jump off the swing set. When I passed by where he landed, there was a shiny quarter sitting right on top of the grass.

Well, finding so many coins in a small area got me thinking about how many coins might be lost in backyards across the United States. So I did a little searching and found that the number of house in the United States is estimated to be between 114 and 130 million. From experience, metal detecting backyards typically yields a dollar or two in clad, but to be extremely conservative and compensate for newer houses, lets assume that there is ONLY fifty cents lost in each backyard. That means that in the United States alone, there is somewhere between 57 and 65 million dollars in lost coins waiting to be found with a metal detector.

That realization was quite shocking as I had not thought about it before. Happy Hunting! There is a lot left to find!