You're correct about modern Zinc Cents losing face-vale quickly once lost and exposed to the elements in a lot of different ground mineral environments. Eaten away from the edges and / or riddled with holes, those crappy coins can quickly decay.

However, if they are lost in a location that might typically be hunted frequently, they can be recovered while still intact. Such places would be an often-searched freshwater beach, popular-use picnic areas, and most notably tot-lots. Not all of those are used often enough, nor do they serve as a regular-production site to hunt often, such as once every week or two. But there are some like that, in certain areas of the country and even just certain locations within a city or metro area.

When I lived in the greater Portland Oregon metro area, and going back to the '97 to '12 period, there were many tot-lots at parks and schools I either never returned to or only made a quick-hit every 2-4 months. Low producers. But I also had a select group of locations I could depend upon to reward me with ample coins and some occasional good gold and silver jewelry. Often I would set out of a morning on a 'Bach-Chip marathon' and make the rounds, either a full day working many of them or, as health declined, break them up into a smaller number for a half-day of fun. While i preferred hunting old sites such as ghost towns, remote dance halls or picnic groves from long ago, etc., my 'Flash Money' urban places kicked out 12,479 coins in '98 and only ± 3,200 in a bad year when I had an injury and surgery that disrupted my fun-time.

Maybe I could figure out some productive routes for modern coins if I was in the over-populated Fort Worth / Dallas area, but off to the west here, Abilene isn't in a top-producer category. I figured that out from the start of my arrival a month ago which is why I have been doing more driving, note-taking and such to work on research to access private property. If all goes well, I might get onto some of the many older-dated properties here in Clyde and other locations, and that will make for better, as in older, Coin Hunting returns.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product ReviewsI'm now 'back home' in Farr West Utah monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 503-481-8147Detector Outfit: A selection of my favorite makes and models, with the best coils mounted for the tasks I'll take on.Time Ranger Pro .. F75+ .. F19 .. Apex .. Racer 2 .. EQ-800 .. FORS Relic .. Bandido II µMAX .. Silver Sabre µMAX .. XLTPinpointers: Pulse-Dive Pointer and AT Pro-Pointer .. Headphones: 'Hornet' & 'Wasp' .. MS-3 Z-Lynk*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***