Heartbreaking find...and a question

[WessThompson]

Hey folks. Well I hit the place I've been making the military finds lately and came up with a few more keepers.

I tried a new area of the site and hit this 1853 U.S. Half Dollar!! Sadly, it's been cut. At first I thought I had some spanish silver since it was dark and I could only see a silver cut coin. The only part of the date I can see is the "18" as the rest is cut off...but fortunately, the only year with the sunrays around the eagle is the 1853....and 1853O.

My question is this...would anyone during this period (1853) have cut coins like this...in the same manner as they did Reales!? If not, I can't figure out why anyone would take a 50 cent piece (probably worth quite a bit back then) and cut it up?! Any suggestions or opinions would be appreciated.

Aside from that heartbreaking find, I found

1859 Large Cent
1907 Large Cent
Piece of a crotal bell
unknown white disc
a "royal canadian army medical corp" sterling pin
and this strange lead object, which is obviously had carved...anyone have any clue what the heck it is???

Thanks for looking...

Wess

 

[ihuntrelics!]

Man you just keep diggin' cool stuff!! I'm no cut coin expert but most examples that I have seen seemed to have been cleaner ( more precise ) cuts but I could be wrong. HH Keep on Explorering!!

 

[Joe G]

Perhaps the person gave the other half to someone else... kind of a "til we meet again thing"?

 

[MJP (IL)]

Mine has two cuts as well, almost in the same locations, but the cuts aren't as deep (I can see the full date).

I can only imagine that they did cut chunks of silver to barter / trade for goods...?

Mike

 

[WessThompson]

as it is a military site...perhaps a soldier did this with his special lady!? NEat thought. I guess the other half would have been somewhat heart shaped too interestingly enough.

Wess

 

[WessThompson]

I guess it was wishful thinking on my part *haha* Although, this coin was intentionally cut by someone...not equipment of any sort. For what reason, I guess we will never know!

Wess

 

[WessThompson]

Hey Mike, this was my thought as well...but I'm not so sure they would have done that in the 1850's?! I have never seen a coin from this period like that...not that I am an expert by and means.

Thanks for the response!

Wess

 

[WessThompson]

first off, thanks for the replies and help folks...a bit of an update on this piece...

It was pointed out to me by someone on the Friends and Finds forum that my coin might be a counterfit of the times.

It does look a little odd...off in colour...and a little light perhaps.

Anyhow, I checked it on my explorer and it rings up at 13/14...awfully damn low for silver!

 

[Anonymous]

How does it's tone sound compared to that of a real silver quarter or half.It most likely will be lower.Neat finds anyhow.Dave

 

[airbear77]

n/t

 

[Anonymous]

where in a news paper article from the 1800's they were saying that store owners and I think banks were no longer going to accept coins with holes or partial coins as legal tender. Apparenty, if I recall correctly, people would cut up the coin when the store owner or seller of some good couldn't make change. If you think about it 50 cents was a lot of money in some areas and if you purchased something for say 8 cents, the person selling the item might not have had 42 cents to give back as change. I can't remember the exact details of the article but on tuesday when I go to meetin I'll ask the pres.

 

[Anonymous]

Cut Coin - Very Long

Taken and modified from ......" Report on Excavation at the Bethabara, Forsyth County, North Carolina ......

Most of the artifacts recovered here are not reliable temporalmarkers. One exception is the cut coin. The corroded portion of the coin, roughly one-quarter of the original, was determined to be part of a United States Large Cent. It is apparent that the original coin was cut. Matching the cut coin with an illustration of a Large Cent revealed that it was a Coronet Type Large Cent, produced between1816 and 1857.

The practice of cutting coins into pieces typically is associated with the Spanish silver dollar, commonly known as "pieces of eight." Minted in Spain and the New World, the peso, as it later became known, was accepted worldwide because its supply was greater and the quality better than the coins of most other nations at the time (Massey 1968:35). Fractional currency was created by cutting the peso into as many as eight pieces, each piece being referred to as a real ("royal money"), or "bit." Half of a peso was called four bits, a quarter peso was two bits, etc. So influential was the Spanish peso in the United States that the U.S. Mint designed a silver dollar of similar size and value(Massey 1968:3. The term "bit" also was retained in popular language when referring to a quarter of a U.S. dollar (2 bits) and a half dollar (4 bits). The Spanish silver dollar remained a viable type of currency in the U.S. until 1857 when the government declared that all foreign coins could no longer be used as legal tender (Davis 1971:269).

A general view of the historical and economic climate of the period between 1816 and 1857, however, may yield some insight into the reasoning behind cutting a coin.

The production capabilities of the U.S. Mints advanced in the 1830's, yet due to historical circumstances the amount of coins circulating during this period did not increase as much as had been anticipated. In his fight against the Second Bank of the United States (BUS), President Andrew Jackson withdrew much of the federal money safeguarded in the BUS and deposited it in state banks. State banks soon proliferated across the entire nation. Unregulated by the government, they printed their own bank notes and provided loans, many for the purchase of western lands (Wiltse 1961:149). Much of the hard money produced never circulated outside the state banks since it was needed to back up their bank notes.

In 1836, Jackson signed the Specie Circular to discourage speculation in western lands, to reduce dependence on bank notesand credit (Rossiter 1971:230), and to slow down the growth of the nation. It declared that land offices could only accept gold and
silver for purchases of land, thus causing people to withdraw much of the surplus specie (coins) banks maintained to back up their
notes. However, land was still bought and sold from speculators with bank paper. The pressure to provide loans was too great and
many state banks were forced to foreclose because they could not redeem their notes in specie(coins)(Patton 1993:6). Foreclosures
invalidated any of that bank's paper still in circulation. Hoarding of coins became common since no one wanted to surrender guaranteed
money.

The Specie Circular also affected international trade and eventually led to the failure of many American brokers. Panicky depositors in New York withdrew over a million dollars in gold and silver from their banks, which forced the banks to stop payment in specie (coins)(Wiltse 1961:153). Other banks across the U.S. followed, thereby increasing the hoarding and scarcity of coins. Banks cut loan periods short, and put pressure on business people to pay their debts sooner. The Panic of 1837 began to take its toll. Coins were so scarce that "hard times" tokens were issued by private individuals. The pieces resembled cents and passed for that amount. After this period Large Cent pieces fell into public disfavor and were soon replaced with a smaller version in 1857.

It is not surprising to read that the national depression following the Panic of 1837 affected many communities. In the 1840's a "critical lack of cash and the current low prices of various provisions and essentials" made times tougher. Many businessmen, supplemented their own income through "secret trading