Unbelievable Night!

[AngelicStorm]

Well guys I just got back from one of the best metal detecting nights ever. I found four Indian Head Pennies, four V Nickels, three cufflinks, a Trade token, Buffalo Nickel, Silver Dime, Gold Earring, and quiet a few more things. I recorded over half my hunt, but not the beginning since I wasn't expecting things to take off like they did. When I am done editing and uploading my video, I will give more details on the rest of everything I found. Until then I will go ahead and tell you the best thing I found........

An 1877 Indian Head Penny in pretty good condition!

I can't wait to get it clean and get that video up! Here is the pic of the way this Indian Head Penny looks.......

As you can see, the date is clearly showing through even though there is a layer of encrustation on it.

Here you can see towards the bottom right hand side the green showing through. That is the coin and if that encrustation came off, I am willing to bet this will be a very nice looking coin. Please give me some advice on how to safely remove this encrustation. I know if I give it a hot peroxide bath it will turn black and maybe leave pitting. That is not what I want for this one.

Note: I had no idea this was a key date when I got it out the ground.

 

[GKMan]

Not bad!

 

[martygene]

olive oil bath for months and months is what I have done and sometimes the encrustation comes off nicely... and sometimes not... good luck

 

[sube]

Well you might get lucky and have minimal pitting under there but who knows take your time it's not going anywhere super coin and a nice hunt sube

 

[Digger]

Those 77 IH cents are tough to find in any condition. Nicely done. Welcome to the 1877 IH club!

HH Randy

 

[cosmic]

Use distilled or RO water only.. Soak and remove to run under faucet to rinse dirt off every few days.. Use a soft makeup brush to dab coin.. Do not brush!!
This is a slow process and may take a couple months.. After that continue soaking and use a toothpick to gently lift off as much as you can....Don't olive oil, peroxide or electrolysis this coin.. Oil will weep from the coin for months to come and continue to deteriorate even thou it was once thought to be the best way.. Peroxide or chemicals will strip that coin to nothing.. Same for electrolysis.. DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT SENDING TO NCS !!! THEY WILL DESTROY IT !!!

 

[Overvoltage]

Wow Storm, looks like you have found some good places to detect on your side of the state. Congeats on the finds.

 

[GKMan]

To me it looks like if you try to take off that encrustation in any way you could end up with a coin with less detail than you have now. Perhaps if you dug any other less valuable IH's that have the same type of corrosion you could try one method or the other of cleaning it.

 

[techtony]

Great hunt!

 

[scutney]

gurantee olive oil will fix that coin up nice.

 

[GKMan]

possibly. besides water its the least intrusive method.I've seen other coins details just fall right off before.that encrustation may be a bulk of the detail of the coin.hopefully not though

 

[harryhh]

Man oh Man!! That was one heck of a hunt! Congratulations Storm!!

 

[sube]

I would not use olive oil on that coin olive oil is a mild acid since the coin has value wait for a better method of cleaning . sube

 

[MikeO]

Thats a hard one to dig thats for sure.
I hope she restores well. Congrats

 

[AngelicStorm]

Thanks for the advice everyone and I am glad to be part of the 77 IH Club. It sounds cool. What kind of benefits do I get?

Here is what I have got so far using my fingernail with distilled water in combination......

Here I have just about got all of the encrustation off except for in the tiny grooves around the date and a few other tiny grooves.

Here I have got all the encrustation off except for mainly the middle. The reason why I am having trouble getting it from the middle is because I can't hardly get any "leverage" on the stuff.

From what I see I would say it grades at AG 3. It had to be well worn when it was dropped but I am very satisfied with how it is starting to turn out.

 

[MikeO]

Nice improvement.

 

[AngelicStorm]

Thanks. Hopefully I am able to get the rest of that stuff off.

 

[Digger]

I am glad to be part of the 77 IH Club. It sounds cool. What kind of benefits do I get?

The benefits of being part of the 77 IH club are having found a coin that very few people will ever find. Although the mint records indicate that there were 852,500 of them minted, IH cent expert Richard Snow believes the number to be far less. Some suggest only 200,000 or so. There is a story that supports that claim. But I can't tell you what it is until you pay your club dues. Seriously...great recovery! HH Randy

 

[AngelicStorm]

Thanks. Well I feel as if I have been more privileged to join the 77 IH Club than I originally thought since you put it that way.

You also mention this guy Richard Snow. I just did a little research on him and found out he has a website and since the subject at hand was 1877 Indian Head Cents, I decided to scan his site for useful information. I found this web page that was quiet useful..... http://www.indiancent.com/content/11-history

Here is a quote by Richard Snow on this web page for those of you who would rather not sift through all the reading.

"The total issuance of cents from the Mint in 1875 was over 17 million pieces, of which 13.5 million were new coins. In 1876 13 million were issued of which almost 8 million were new. In 1877 only 10 million cents were shipped out with only a little over 850,000 of them newly minted. If you were a collector in 1877 waiting for your bank to get in its new cent shipment, you had a 1 in 10 chance that you get the new issue. Most banks got the reissued coins that year.

Speaking of 1877, we all know it is the rarest date in the series, but did you know that is is evn rarer than you think! There are only two obverse dies known and one reverse die. The average die life of any Indian Cent die is 100,000 with 200,000 pieces really pushing the die life. The 1877 mintage is reported as 852,500. There is no way the dies known could strike so many coins! The proper mintage is probably around 150,000. I have not found out what happened to the remaing coins. Were they dated 1876? Possibly. Were they destroyed? Not likely, since there should be at least one survivor!"

This also makes the discrepancies a little more clear in between the PCGS Price Guide of the 1877 Indian Head Cent and the 2013 North American coins & prices (22nd edition) price guide by David C. Harper. The value of an 1877 Indian Head Cent on the PCGS website says that an AG-3 condition is worth $450 and a G-4 condition is worth $650. Here is the link to this page..... http://www.pcgs.com/Prices/PriceGuideDetail.aspx?MS=2&PR=1&SP=1&c=44&title=Indian+Cent. According to the 2013 price guide the value is $985 in G-4 condition. I assume PCGS is going off of the 852,500 mintage and the price guide is going off of the 150,000-200,000 mintage.

With all that being said, I am going to hold on to this one because I think the 1877 IH Club is awesome.

 

[Digger]

You found all that information without paying club dues?
On a serious note.....Even if yours ends up being spotless with just a slight shade of green......grading services call what we refer to as "patina", to be corrosion. When I asked Mr. Snow about that, he said that, even if they have excellent detail, grading services refer to them as being corroded because they were dug from the ground. He also suggested that copper coins not be encapsulated(as in slabbed). Based on my experiences with both PCGS and NGC, my advice would be to not spend the $$$ to have it graded. Unless things have changed over the past three years, one will likely reference it as "Genuine" and the other will say it is "guaranteed authentic". You already know it is, because you dug it up. The second 7 (dropped down) indicates to me that your's is a member of the same tribe. HH Randy