Don Hit the nail on the head, and WildCat, Eric gave me some insight as to the history and why this coin although not valuable, is in respect to history and where it was dug. The coin did not come from an area that would be considered virgin, because it's been hunted to death by me and many other throughout the years. The problem is that a mansion stood very near where I dug the coin. It's re diddled with iron and all type of fill from both the park and the mansion. You need to go down at least 9 to 10"s to obtain the rich brown soil that once laid the landscape. On top of the soil mentioned is coal ash, rocky fill, and iron, not to mention relics from the mansion, window locks, washers, nails, square nails, copper roofing splints, shards of all kinds, and your typical cans, memorial pennies, wheats, clad... and this beauty... the 1626 Duit Dutch coin. Don has described the coin on his post... Thanks Don.
I was not going out yesterday, as I was not feeling well for the last few days, but felt better enough to go to my favorite park for a quiet hunt, so I thought. I started at almost the beginning of where the mansion stood, and as I said before, it looked like this area was used to dump the coal ashes, and iron garbage in the ground as fill. I usually shy away from this area for this known reason, but for some reason I've always had a feeling that this be the older developed area of the park, something special lied beneath the soil. I had already dug some nice buckles, and a nice condition 1831 large cent, not far from where this Dutch coin was dug... I started down the exact middle of the open field and concentrated on certain target numbers on my MineLab E-Trac Metal Detector.
As I passed the center door way which I believe is from where the wagon and carts brought the coal ashes an trash, and I began digging wheat's, which I was not finding in all the years hunting that area, as I drew closer to the lagoon, I dug two wheat's in one hole, but the next target next to iron was so sweet, because even though it had a reading of 1240 on the E-Trac, it sounded completely different. This target was supposed to be a wheat penny, a seated dime or even a half dime. Even though there was iron, I was getting a solid 1240 no matter what or how fast I swung my coil, and the tell tale sign was that it was deep, and I had to investigate, but wanted to be very careful as to not harm the coin. I pin pointed the target and dug a 10' diameter hole and left the lid on the grass, and went down all the way with my Samson Spade. it took four of them to bring out the dirt, stuck my probe and it was still reading the target, so out with the Lasche and carefully digging down and around, the coin came up with the loosen dirt, and low and behold I saw it on top of the mount of soil and could not believe what I was seeing... My first thought was, this is a re-pro or a counterfeit, but when I saw the edges and how thin the coin was I knew it was a real coin, and as I held it in my hand, I can feel being transported back in time ti that very spot when the coin was dropped, I placed it in my plastic bag separated from other stuff I had dug. But,the curiosity hit me again, and I removed it and looked at it again, being very careful not to cause any damage to the coin and again was transported back in time as I look at the date 1626... Wow, what a feeling to dig a coin almost 400 years old before this country was even a nation, and sometimes I think that perhaps even a Native Indian found this coin and just discarded, or lost it himself going down to the lagoon to buy flint from the Dutch, because the Indians did trade and buy flint to make arrow heads. I can go on and on... with all I have learned from research of the area and Robert Apuzzo, whose written a few books on colonialism. Thanks for all the feed back on this post... Please consider this coin for the Banner, after reading some more of the history, I think it merits its place there as historical coin of NY.
Philo
NICE FIND !!
