ResearchCoin-Shooting an Old Town
A favorite haunt of coin-shooters is old, small, or abandoned parts of towns. This combines the eternal hope of stumbling upon a small fortune together with the fascination of history. Small, quaint towns are where you find the enigmas, the items that if they could talk, could regale you with slices of life not heard any other way.
The first word is to be sure you have permission. Wherever you're going, there might be historical preservation groups who might get upset at you traipsing through their cherished past and pocketing finds. Always be aware of private property boundaries, and who owns them. It's relatively easy to get permission in most cases, but coin-shooters don't exactly have a good legal leg to stand on. If your desire to coin-shoot an area runs up against the Daughters of the American Revolution, you'll probably loose anyway. A suggestion for making your presence more welcome: bring a trash bag and tidy up litter as you go!
School and church premises are a popular hunting ground. Generations of school and church activities reflect the soul of the town as it has lived day to day, and it's a wild card. You may come up with nothing but a few pennies, or you may make a valuable and intriguing find.
Parks and sports fields almost always offer something. Particularly searching under the bleachers at a baseball/soccer field will reap a wide array of coins and items. The ground under and around public bleachers has made the day for many a happy hunter.
Property around houses. Of course, you should only be doing this if nobody lives there! Abandoned cottages, farms, sheds, and garages may turn up a concentration of stashed coins or items that somebody stowed away, then forgot. It's good in this case to know the story behind the property. The canonical example is the typical farmer's wife who stored dollar coins in an old coffee can, or the kids who buried their treasury in a mason jar in the back yard.
Always check the local town library. This is the most likely place to find books detailing the history of the town you're in. That history can give you ideas for potential hunting ground. Was there a famous bank robbery or embezzlement? Did a bandit gang or a known pirate hang out here? Was there a well-to-do citizen who kept to themselves? An unsolved mystery? Even if you don't make any lucky finds this time around, knowing the stories that the town has to tell will make it more fun as you hunt around.
Always remember to have some respect for the locals and their concerns. You may find things that are of no interest to you, but will mean something to the local museum. You may even find it beneficial, should you turn up some important artifact or clue to a past mystery, to turn it in right there in the town, as they might pay you a finder's fee for recovering some past treasure.