Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO
Member
I finally got around to taking pictures of my better finds from the past year. Those of you who remember me from a few years back know that I always had a lot of posts each week about my finds from the local parks and road trips all over the country. I've slowed up on my detecting activities considerably since then, but my interest in the hobby never waned. I enjoyed keeping up with these forums to see all the cool stuff you guys have been digging up, even if I had no finds to post. I didn't have the time this year to post my finds on a daily basis, and my computer and digital camera were always acting up when I wanted to make a post, but I finally got the time for this one.
You guys might remember my "road trips" from years past, and the great times and neat finds I made on them... I kind of missed doing that, but this past summer I made a couple of weekend trips into Iowa to sort of recapture some of that past magic. Those 2 trips netted me about 1/2 of my finds for the year and gave me enough good stuff to make a year-end post worthwhile. Well here goes:
My year end totals were:
2 Large Cents
112 Indian Cents ( 1 Fattie )
629 Wheaties
10 Shield Nickels
12 V Nickels
10 Buffalo Nickels
6 War Nickels
1 Seated Half Dime
11 Seated Dimes
29 Barber Dimes
63 Mercury Dimes
19 Roosy Dimes
1 Seated Quarter
2 Standing Quarters
4 Washington Quarters
1 Morgan Silver Dollar
3 Foreign Silver Coins
1 Gold Ring
3 Silver Rings
140 Total Silver Coins
Not bad for the limited time I had to hunt, but I didn't get any silver halves and, for the first time in 18 years of land hunting, no Barber Quarters. Here's the pics of the better finds:
[attachment 45052 2006silver.JPG]
This first picture is of the better silver coins. The quality isn't great, but I had trouble getting a decent picture. First off is my 2nd Silver Dollar ever, a 1902 Morgan. The Seated Dimes have the following dates: 1854, 1856, 1857, 1876S, 1877, 1886, 1888, 1890S, (2)1891, and a dateless "O" mint one. a couple of them are beat to pieces, but the rest are in nice shape. The last one at the lower right is razor-thin, completely smooth, and broke in half when I dug it up... It might be a Spanish real.
[attachment 45055 2006barbers.JPG]
These are the Barber Dimes for the year: 1893S, 1897, (2)1898, 1899S, 1900O, (4)1901, (3)1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, (2)1905S, 1906, 1906S, 1907, 1907D, 1907O, 1909, 1910D, 1912, (2)1914D, 1916. This pic doesn't do them any justice. The 1898 on top looks like it was fresh from the mint. These are in better average condition than I normally find - 60% of them have full "LIBERTY".
[attachment 45056 2006coins.JPG]
These are some other coins... a couple of nasty looking 1851 Large Cents, a sliver of an 1883 Mexican 25 C., 1914 Denmark 10 Ore silver coin that looks like it was part of a coin bracelet, 1850 Swiss 20 Rappen billon silver coin, and an Austrian 1885 1 Kreuzer.
[attachment 45058 2006indian1908s.JPG]
This was my best Indian Cent for the year a key date 1908S in Super condition!
It is brown-red and looks like it never spent a day in the ground. Again, the picture doesn't do it any justice. It came out of a courthouse that gave up 25 other indians, 5 seated dimes, a seated half dime love token, 6 barber dimes, only 1 merc, 18 wheats, and the 1 gold ring. Talk about a great place to hunt where the majority of finds were old.
[attachment 45059 2006lovetoken.JPG]
Here is that love token I mentioned... It's one of the more intriguing ones I've seen. It started out as an "O" mint Seated Half Dime with the initials "FLD" in the front. Then some one took a Silver 3 Cent Piece and made it into a Love Token with a violin and the initials "LD" carved in it and soldered it on the front of the Half Dime... so I guess I got a 2 in 1 deal there. Too bad they snipped the date off the edge of the 3-Center...
[attachment 45057 2006finds.JPG]
Here is the better non-coin finds: an Indian Head cut out from an Indian Cent... it has a solder trace on back and might have been a pin or something, this is the second "decapitated" Indian I've found, silver heart locket, a brass token or something that shows a clock face at 7 o'clock and nothing on the back, an old Ford key, Skeleton Key, 14K gold band, silver band, 2 Methodist Sunday School pins - 1 silver, the other Gold-Filled... found at the same site (I guess even in Sunday School way back then you made a social statement about yourself with how fancy your pin was), a 25 cent play coin that I found 1/2 hour after I dug my only Seated Quarter of the year - it had me going for a second..., and a silver religious medal that I found with the chain 11" deep in rock hard clay at the local park. I spent over a half hour chiseling into the hard brick-clay in the 98 degree full sun trying to keep the chain undamaged because it looked delicate and silver, it was 28" long and looped all over the place under ground... (it was just a cheapie nickel bead chain, I later found out)
.
Well, I have a couple more pics, but I have to make a separate post under this one to get them in. Hope you enjoyed them... to be continued:
You guys might remember my "road trips" from years past, and the great times and neat finds I made on them... I kind of missed doing that, but this past summer I made a couple of weekend trips into Iowa to sort of recapture some of that past magic. Those 2 trips netted me about 1/2 of my finds for the year and gave me enough good stuff to make a year-end post worthwhile. Well here goes:
My year end totals were:
2 Large Cents
112 Indian Cents ( 1 Fattie )
629 Wheaties
10 Shield Nickels
12 V Nickels
10 Buffalo Nickels
6 War Nickels
1 Seated Half Dime
11 Seated Dimes
29 Barber Dimes
63 Mercury Dimes
19 Roosy Dimes
1 Seated Quarter
2 Standing Quarters
4 Washington Quarters
1 Morgan Silver Dollar
3 Foreign Silver Coins
1 Gold Ring
3 Silver Rings
140 Total Silver Coins
Not bad for the limited time I had to hunt, but I didn't get any silver halves and, for the first time in 18 years of land hunting, no Barber Quarters. Here's the pics of the better finds:
[attachment 45052 2006silver.JPG]
This first picture is of the better silver coins. The quality isn't great, but I had trouble getting a decent picture. First off is my 2nd Silver Dollar ever, a 1902 Morgan. The Seated Dimes have the following dates: 1854, 1856, 1857, 1876S, 1877, 1886, 1888, 1890S, (2)1891, and a dateless "O" mint one. a couple of them are beat to pieces, but the rest are in nice shape. The last one at the lower right is razor-thin, completely smooth, and broke in half when I dug it up... It might be a Spanish real.
[attachment 45055 2006barbers.JPG]
These are the Barber Dimes for the year: 1893S, 1897, (2)1898, 1899S, 1900O, (4)1901, (3)1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, (2)1905S, 1906, 1906S, 1907, 1907D, 1907O, 1909, 1910D, 1912, (2)1914D, 1916. This pic doesn't do them any justice. The 1898 on top looks like it was fresh from the mint. These are in better average condition than I normally find - 60% of them have full "LIBERTY".
[attachment 45056 2006coins.JPG]
These are some other coins... a couple of nasty looking 1851 Large Cents, a sliver of an 1883 Mexican 25 C., 1914 Denmark 10 Ore silver coin that looks like it was part of a coin bracelet, 1850 Swiss 20 Rappen billon silver coin, and an Austrian 1885 1 Kreuzer.
[attachment 45058 2006indian1908s.JPG]
This was my best Indian Cent for the year a key date 1908S in Super condition!
It is brown-red and looks like it never spent a day in the ground. Again, the picture doesn't do it any justice. It came out of a courthouse that gave up 25 other indians, 5 seated dimes, a seated half dime love token, 6 barber dimes, only 1 merc, 18 wheats, and the 1 gold ring. Talk about a great place to hunt where the majority of finds were old.[attachment 45059 2006lovetoken.JPG]
Here is that love token I mentioned... It's one of the more intriguing ones I've seen. It started out as an "O" mint Seated Half Dime with the initials "FLD" in the front. Then some one took a Silver 3 Cent Piece and made it into a Love Token with a violin and the initials "LD" carved in it and soldered it on the front of the Half Dime... so I guess I got a 2 in 1 deal there. Too bad they snipped the date off the edge of the 3-Center...
[attachment 45057 2006finds.JPG]
Here is the better non-coin finds: an Indian Head cut out from an Indian Cent... it has a solder trace on back and might have been a pin or something, this is the second "decapitated" Indian I've found, silver heart locket, a brass token or something that shows a clock face at 7 o'clock and nothing on the back, an old Ford key, Skeleton Key, 14K gold band, silver band, 2 Methodist Sunday School pins - 1 silver, the other Gold-Filled... found at the same site (I guess even in Sunday School way back then you made a social statement about yourself with how fancy your pin was), a 25 cent play coin that I found 1/2 hour after I dug my only Seated Quarter of the year - it had me going for a second..., and a silver religious medal that I found with the chain 11" deep in rock hard clay at the local park. I spent over a half hour chiseling into the hard brick-clay in the 98 degree full sun trying to keep the chain undamaged because it looked delicate and silver, it was 28" long and looped all over the place under ground... (it was just a cheapie nickel bead chain, I later found out)
. Well, I have a couple more pics, but I have to make a separate post under this one to get them in. Hope you enjoyed them... to be continued:
