Yeah I know...it's the nastiest large cent you will probably ever see...but it's all mine! I've been hunting 30 years and this is my first one.
How I found this and the circumstances surrounding it are almost too much to believe...but it's all true.
Met up with a buddy again and we hit a pounded to death park that he's beat to death over the last few years with his explorer...and before that with his red baron. Heck I didn't expect to find ANYTHING...let alone this amazing beauty...whatcha' think...MS60 or better... ha ha! If you look just to the left of the scratch (it was already on this beauty)...you can see the outline of the chin, mouth, nose. etc.
Anyway honest to God...we were both talking before we hunted of how we both would love to find our first large cent. He told me he bought one at an auction just to run it under his coil so he could see where it hit at. I was telling him of how I had emailed Mike Moutray a few weeks ago and asked him where they hit at because it was one coin that had eluded me in all my 30 years of hunting. Seriously now...this whole conversation took place right before we started to hunt because we were still talking about the merc I found under the big chunk of iron just the day before at this same little area.
Anyway...we started to hunt and I passed over a lot of clad stuff at 3" to 4"...reason being is that I dug 8 clad dimes that were all in that range and they are an easy read on the SE. I hadn't even found a wheatie ....and was tooling along when I see my buddy diggin' to china. About 10 minutes later I pass him again...and he's STILL diggin' to China. I went over to him and ran the probe deep in the bottom of the hole...and bang...high flutey music. I said that's deep silver buddy. Well needless to say he plopped out a very very nice old silver coin (I'll let him tell and post when he gets around to it).
It was now about time to call it a day so I decided to try and get one last dig...even if it was clad before I quit. I ran the 6" coil over the same area as I had been and was getting the same clad hits at about 3" to 4". I then got another clad hit but it was just slightly deeper...maybe 4" to 5" so I thought what the heck...I'll dig it. Again...I was expecting nothing because yesterday I had dug at least 3 clad dimes that were 6" deep. Well I get down about 5" and out pops this ugly corroded disc. Honest to God I said to myself "here's my freakin large cent...a stupid Chucky Cheese Pizza token or something" I then go walking over to my buddy and laughingly say "hey buddy...check out my large cent...it's a freakin' chewed up pizza token or something". We both just laughed and I started rubbing it to see what kind of token it was. Well as I began to rub I noticed a greenish indian head color on parts of it but really didn't think much of it.
We got back to his house and he said go over to the sink and rinse it so we can see what kind of token it is. Well as I rinsed it I saw more green spots and then I thought I caught a glimpse of a star along the top. I yelled "hey..holy sh#$...I think this might be a coin". I then spotted a rim and another star..and we both just freaked when we realized it was a coin. He then snatched it and looked at it closer as my eyes are getting bad and was excited as I was. He said "that's a large cent"!!
Well now you get the picture. This coin had been in that ground for almost 200 years and was sitting there at 5" deep. It had been walked over a million times for some unknown reason. I had personally walked right over it about 20 minutes earlier but dismissed it as clad...but went back to dig it just because it was an inch or so deeper than the other clad hits. I'm glad I had someone there with me or I wouldn't have believed it myself.
The next day we both went back to that area...heck I blew off work as we just knew all those walked over clad hits were going to be nice coins. Wrong...back down to earth as each and every one was a clad dime just like I thought they were. However...just that ONE clad hit at 5" turned out to be my very first large cent and I'll never forget it. Thanks for reading and happy hunting.
How I found this and the circumstances surrounding it are almost too much to believe...but it's all true.
Met up with a buddy again and we hit a pounded to death park that he's beat to death over the last few years with his explorer...and before that with his red baron. Heck I didn't expect to find ANYTHING...let alone this amazing beauty...whatcha' think...MS60 or better... ha ha! If you look just to the left of the scratch (it was already on this beauty)...you can see the outline of the chin, mouth, nose. etc.
Anyway honest to God...we were both talking before we hunted of how we both would love to find our first large cent. He told me he bought one at an auction just to run it under his coil so he could see where it hit at. I was telling him of how I had emailed Mike Moutray a few weeks ago and asked him where they hit at because it was one coin that had eluded me in all my 30 years of hunting. Seriously now...this whole conversation took place right before we started to hunt because we were still talking about the merc I found under the big chunk of iron just the day before at this same little area.
Anyway...we started to hunt and I passed over a lot of clad stuff at 3" to 4"...reason being is that I dug 8 clad dimes that were all in that range and they are an easy read on the SE. I hadn't even found a wheatie ....and was tooling along when I see my buddy diggin' to china. About 10 minutes later I pass him again...and he's STILL diggin' to China. I went over to him and ran the probe deep in the bottom of the hole...and bang...high flutey music. I said that's deep silver buddy. Well needless to say he plopped out a very very nice old silver coin (I'll let him tell and post when he gets around to it).
It was now about time to call it a day so I decided to try and get one last dig...even if it was clad before I quit. I ran the 6" coil over the same area as I had been and was getting the same clad hits at about 3" to 4". I then got another clad hit but it was just slightly deeper...maybe 4" to 5" so I thought what the heck...I'll dig it. Again...I was expecting nothing because yesterday I had dug at least 3 clad dimes that were 6" deep. Well I get down about 5" and out pops this ugly corroded disc. Honest to God I said to myself "here's my freakin large cent...a stupid Chucky Cheese Pizza token or something" I then go walking over to my buddy and laughingly say "hey buddy...check out my large cent...it's a freakin' chewed up pizza token or something". We both just laughed and I started rubbing it to see what kind of token it was. Well as I began to rub I noticed a greenish indian head color on parts of it but really didn't think much of it.
We got back to his house and he said go over to the sink and rinse it so we can see what kind of token it is. Well as I rinsed it I saw more green spots and then I thought I caught a glimpse of a star along the top. I yelled "hey..holy sh#$...I think this might be a coin". I then spotted a rim and another star..and we both just freaked when we realized it was a coin. He then snatched it and looked at it closer as my eyes are getting bad and was excited as I was. He said "that's a large cent"!!
Well now you get the picture. This coin had been in that ground for almost 200 years and was sitting there at 5" deep. It had been walked over a million times for some unknown reason. I had personally walked right over it about 20 minutes earlier but dismissed it as clad...but went back to dig it just because it was an inch or so deeper than the other clad hits. I'm glad I had someone there with me or I wouldn't have believed it myself.
The next day we both went back to that area...heck I blew off work as we just knew all those walked over clad hits were going to be nice coins. Wrong...back down to earth as each and every one was a clad dime just like I thought they were. However...just that ONE clad hit at 5" turned out to be my very first large cent and I'll never forget it. Thanks for reading and happy hunting.
Great find! Congrats, Wahooooo!!!