Mike Bearden
Member
Your recent dig brings back some memories that I thought I'd share ... nice finds by the way 
I've dug many Barbers and Seated coins over the years and I never get tired of seeing them pop up but for some reason the large cents always get my adrenaline pumping way more.
I guess I can't help thinking about a the possibility of a large cent being a chain cent when I see it come up.
After reading this post you'll know why I feel this way.
I was hunting with a guy and his wife a few years ago, about 20 minutes into the hunt she dug a 1793 chain cent in very fine condition maybe 15 feet in front of me.
She didn't know what it was and thought it might be a tavern token. They had just started detecting a month earlier and didn't even own a finds pouch yet.
I put the chain cent in a pill bottle between cotton balls inside my pouch for the rest of the hunt.
It was found in some wet black mulchy material where a large tree once stood about 7" deep with a wonderful chocolate patina, no soil build up or pitting whatsoever ... just a freaking beautiful well preserved coin.
Knowing that if I told her and the husband of the coins probable worth .... the hunt would probably end right then and there so naturally I wanted to see if anymore would surface because we started digging quite a few large cents, way more than I expected .... so I didn't want it to end.
I later dug a very nice antique gold & diamond broach that she wanted real bad and she offered to trade me the chain cent and 5 large cents for the diamond broach.
These people were gracious host that owned a HUGE partial of land outside of Salem Massachusetts, I had worked with their son who died on a job-site while working in Pensacola, Florida.
A few weeks after the funeral I had some vacation time and they asked me to drive his truck up to Salem and offered to buy my plane ticket back home. Before all this happened I had gotten him interested in detecting and became his mentor so to speak, he would email pictures of our hunts to his parents so they all quickly fell into the hobby and became like family to me.
Anyway, I managed to hold my composure some how until after the hunt was over and we got back to their home.
I got on their computer and pulled up a coin grading site and gave them the good news. They sent it off to be graded and slabbed before I left.
About 2 weeks later they called me and said it had been authenticated ... their excitement & joy was beyond belief as was mine for them.
It turned out to be a Sheldon NC-1 edition.
As far as I know they still have the 1793 chain cent, hopefully one day in the near future I will visit them again and continue the pursuit.
Now you know WHY large cents get my adrenaline going
Good Hunting
Mike
I've dug many Barbers and Seated coins over the years and I never get tired of seeing them pop up but for some reason the large cents always get my adrenaline pumping way more.
I guess I can't help thinking about a the possibility of a large cent being a chain cent when I see it come up.
After reading this post you'll know why I feel this way.
I was hunting with a guy and his wife a few years ago, about 20 minutes into the hunt she dug a 1793 chain cent in very fine condition maybe 15 feet in front of me.
She didn't know what it was and thought it might be a tavern token. They had just started detecting a month earlier and didn't even own a finds pouch yet.
I put the chain cent in a pill bottle between cotton balls inside my pouch for the rest of the hunt.
It was found in some wet black mulchy material where a large tree once stood about 7" deep with a wonderful chocolate patina, no soil build up or pitting whatsoever ... just a freaking beautiful well preserved coin.
Knowing that if I told her and the husband of the coins probable worth .... the hunt would probably end right then and there so naturally I wanted to see if anymore would surface because we started digging quite a few large cents, way more than I expected .... so I didn't want it to end.
I later dug a very nice antique gold & diamond broach that she wanted real bad and she offered to trade me the chain cent and 5 large cents for the diamond broach.
These people were gracious host that owned a HUGE partial of land outside of Salem Massachusetts, I had worked with their son who died on a job-site while working in Pensacola, Florida.
A few weeks after the funeral I had some vacation time and they asked me to drive his truck up to Salem and offered to buy my plane ticket back home. Before all this happened I had gotten him interested in detecting and became his mentor so to speak, he would email pictures of our hunts to his parents so they all quickly fell into the hobby and became like family to me.
Anyway, I managed to hold my composure some how until after the hunt was over and we got back to their home.
I got on their computer and pulled up a coin grading site and gave them the good news. They sent it off to be graded and slabbed before I left.
About 2 weeks later they called me and said it had been authenticated ... their excitement & joy was beyond belief as was mine for them.
It turned out to be a Sheldon NC-1 edition.
As far as I know they still have the 1793 chain cent, hopefully one day in the near future I will visit them again and continue the pursuit.
Now you know WHY large cents get my adrenaline going
Good Hunting
Mike
