Finally starting to get there...

[BlackX]

Last Monday I hit the ball/farm field and, after picking up 2 Mercs, including a '31, my earliest so far, and a Rosie I found my first large cent! A matron head, I think. (Found one previous large copper but it's badly corroded. Hibernian, I think.) After some more gentle methods that weren't working, I have it peroxide now trying to see if I can get a date out of it. That was my first 3-silver day.

Took a new detecting buddy to the same spot on Sat. and found another Merc and a silver ring. That's 3 silver rings out of this location in 3 weeks.

Found out a school in town is renovating their playground and field next month so I decided I'm going to start hitting it hard. That's the one that I found my first SE silver quarter (and quarter sliver) at last week. Went there yesterday and picked up 3 more silvers! Two Rosies and a Merc. Also, on preparing to depart hit an old toy gun, a Calvin Coolidge presidential medal that I'm trying to figure out more about, and the Merc. It looks like this listing at ANS is likely the presidential medal but I'm at a deadend. http://numismatics.org/collection/1964.246.29 I have an email in to the current incarnation of the company to see if they can tell me anything about it. (Date pressed, primarily.)

That large copper was pretty deep but I still think I need to have someone who really knows the Explorer mark some deepies for me so I can start to learn their sounds but I'm pretty happy that things seem to be clicking more.

Pictures coming somewhere in here.

 

[BlackX]

Just got a nice quick reply back from Osborne:

I'm afraid we don't have any way to date your coin. Osborne Register become Osborne Coinage sometime in the 40's. The dies were in existence before then and used in many promotional programs including cracker jacks prizes. My guess is that even after Osborne Register became Osborne Coinage, the original dies were still used. By...the 80's, we had remade them without the Osborne Register name. The best I can do is say that your coin is no later than 1985 but could [get] back to the 30's or earlier.

Also noted in setting up to take pics that it was another Indian Head that I found with the silver ring on Sat., not a Merc. Though I found two more silver dimes that I'd found at the school field. (The SE w/ stock coil seems to absolutely love dimes! I'm finding more dimes than pennies on some outings.) Wasn't sure if the IH was my 4th or 5th but I found one this weekend that I'd had in distilled water for a long time--a 1864--but I can't recall where I found it now.

Tried the peroxide on the LC but I think that I'm figured out that, on older coins like that that have been in the ground a long time that the green patina contains the detail and trying to get rid of the bubbling verdigris also removes that green patina that contains the details. I'm not going to clean it up any more. Guess I'll never know the date on it.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

n/t

 

[mattockman]

n/t