Obtainable Coin Types (In your area)

Westernlegend1

Moved On
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Ever wonder what is possible to find in the area where you hunt? I am talking about older coin types that you have not as of yet found. The age of occupation in the United States is of course much older in the East than most of the land West of the Mississippi River. Exceptions in coin finds do occur from time to time. A friend in Minnesota that I know of had found a Conn. Copper, that as far as I know of, is his oldest coin find. It was most likely dropped by a fur trapper long ago. My oldest U.S. coin had pre-dated the founding of the city I had once lived in and was older than the forming of that particular state. The oldest coin I had found was from 1821-1840, but the actual date was worn off, but enough detail was there to determine what the coin was from France.
I had at one time formed a list of coin types that I figured were still in the ground in the area where I lived. I found some of them, but others still remained on that list. So what is on your list of obtainable coins type finds? An example would be if your home town was founded in the 1850?s, do you have the twenty cent piece and silver 3 center on your list?
 
Colonial coppers and old english coins. Have found a 1694 here....my dream is a New England shilling and a Pine Tree shilling....
 
I am from Indiana in a county formed in the 1850's. I found a Carolus IV coin from Mexico City dating 1801 or 1807, can't tell for sure. I was pretty surpised because the location i was detecting was from the 1860's. I think it might have passed as a dollar coin in those days.
 
My oldest coin here in Arizona is an 1838 seated dime from a CW fort. Arizona was taken as a US property about 1850, becoming a state in 1912. Coins from the turn of the century are considered old here. A friend dug an old reale - so one never knows whats down there, steve in so az
 
i live in Rochester NY and hope to find something before the 1940's sometime :cool:
 
Half Dime Digs

The city I had lived in before the move to Montana had some good potential coin types to find. One of the coin types I should have found were the ?Bust? coins. I never did unearth one of those, but I did dig two worn out half dimes. One had no date and was flatten and had a small hole in it. I never realized it was a half dime for several months. One winter day I was looking over some of those what?s its, and noticed it had a reeded edge with my ten-power loop. I tilted the coin to the light and noticed a faint ?HAL D?. Closer examination showed traces of the wreath. I thought it might be a ?Bust?, but others help determine it was a well used ?Seated? type. The second was also worn and very dark with a small square nail hole also. I never had the chance to dig a good readable half dime before our family made the big move. I figure getting those two there had to be some better shape ones around the location. Someday we plan a trip back to visit and then I plan to take my machine, maybe lady luck will smile on that day.
 
Dodge City Kansas is fairly young compared to many American cities being founded in 1871, but the location has had a very long history.

In Dodge City my oldest coin is a 1855 large cent. I've also found many coins in the 1860-1870's including a 1865 III cent nickle. Now due to the location right on the Santa Fe Trail, this area was a hot spot as far as activity. Midway between the upper and lower crossings of the Arkansas River it was the spot where many Indian attacks took place. For this reason this areas has had 3 forts before Dodge City to protect travelers on the Santa Fe.

Fort Mann(1845-1848) Fort Atkinson(1850-1857) and Fort Dodge(1864-1880) all within a 7 mile radius of dodge. Dodge City also happens to be situated where the oldest crossing of the Santa Fe was. Its oldest reference was being used in 1821 by William Becknell led by native Indians who told him it was an old trail used by their forefathers for many years.

Of course even before this time Coronado made his famous journey in search of the fabled seven city's of gold through Kansas, and his crossing of the Arkansas was just 5 miles from dodge. That was in 1541. Spanish Armor was reported found just east of town back in the 40's.

So I suppose there is the possibility of finding coins clear back to the 1500's My oldest coin so far that has a date is a 1839 silver half dime found at Fort Atkinson.
 
Thanks Detector

For sharing about your oldest half dime. Also for including some of the local history which helps fire the imagination of what some of those wonderful discoveries could be that await anyone in this hobby. I hope to read about more members coin types first finds.
 
When i get time, i will track down some pictures of some of the other coin types that i had found in the past and tell a little something about how i came to find them. One of the interesting ones involved finding my first 2 cent piece. Prior to finding that coin type, I was reading a local history book on a small town that no longer exists, in the book the author told of playing on the swing set and dragging her feet and discovering odd looking coins. She had took them inside to be told they were real money, two cent pieces. That little story had opened my eyes to some of the coin types i should be able to find, after all she was just kicking the dirt and I had the metal detector.
 
After reading the story about the little girl finding the old two cent pieces by the swing set. I started to check the R.S. Yoman Red Book and figured what all coin types were being used in the town I then lived in. The town was formed in the mid 1800's. Besides the mercury dimes and indian head cents, there were seated coins and two and three cent coins. The Flying Eagle cents, large cents maybe even a twenty cent piece that could of been dropped.
 
The search for older coins was begun. Some how I luck out and found some sites to hunt that I would of and probably did past by without giving them a second look. There was a old house torn down to make way for a new store, it was in what was once a business/residential section of the town back then. Those older run down houses that have those condemned signs on them are prime hunting areas. At one time they were in much better shape and the folks that lived there were well to do to have been able to build such a large house in the first place. So it stood to reason that they had some money, course back then folks did not drop or toss as much as they do today. But accidents did happen, a coin here, a token there and the ground over time would hold those little treasures that we seek today.
 
An Experimental Venture

The first time I ventured to hunt one of these locations where an old house was being torn down to make way for a new building happened to be also a location where I had hunted in the past. In the first hunts while the grass was still present, all I found was modern coins lost over the past 40 or so years. There were none of the older coins, not even a silver rosie.
When I noticed the building was torn down and most of the top soil was stripped off I returned to hunt the site. This was just on a whim after all at that time I thought I had hunted it out and recovered most anything that could have been there. I found a few suprises, 3 Indian Head cents, one of which was my oldest coin up to that point (1874) for me in the hobby. There were some other intesting finds too. One was a coin from Germany dated 1862 and a octagon token that was too worn to make out all the detail. There was enough detail on the token to confirm that it was an unlisted variety from the towns early days. To sum up what I had learned from this location was that there were older, desirable items to be found deeper than my machine could otherwise detect.
 
After this series of nicer older finds, I checked out any of these locations were the top soil was removed. Seeing as how there was no grass to damage or destroy getting permission was easy. Another simple mis-conception of the general public that helped was, most folks were questionable as to the usefulness of a metal detector. Simply put, they figured anyone that spent their time in such a pursuit was wasting their time or some sort of weird character. Often times passers-by would yell comments from the safety of their moving vechicle. Little things like this did not discourage me, and I am sure this has happened to many others who are reading this. Over time the number of older collectable coins added up. Of course there was the growing numbers of other valuable collectible items too.
 
One day over the phone I was told about a certain house that was torn down. I drove by the location to check it out and was very happy to see that the old brick structure was already cleaned up and the whole corner lot was shaved down six to eight inches. I went home to pickup my metal detector and returned to the sight. I hunted for a couple of hours in the dark and recovered several older coins. The interesting thing about night hunting is one never really knows what one has found. There was enough light to have a general idea as to what the coin could be according to the icon display, but one still needed to get the coin in some good light to make out the date. I remember digging a good dime signal and holding the coin in my hand. The distance street light provided enough light to see that I did have a silver dime. Rather than lose it in the dark I placed it in my vehicle and returned to hunting. Later I kept thinking about the coin and return to shine a flash light on it. I was surprised to see that I had found a 1880?s seated dime. This was the first seated coin that I had found metal detecting. I also had found 3 Indian Heads from the 1870?s in this one hunt. This spot also produced my first two-cent piece but that was in a later hunt. This site was the primary focus of my hunting for about a week. I was lucky to be the first one in the location. Later when I arrived I was to discover several folks detecting the spot all at the same time. It appears other folks scout for new locations and if you see one jump on it as soon as you can, otherwise you end up hearing about what was found there.
 
the town i live in was settled in 1812 so lots of coins that could be found here. so far on my list that i have found are 1857 flying eagle cent
1879 morgan dollar
1901 morgan dollar
1851 3 cent piece
1839 seated half dime
1857 seated dime
1894 barber dime
1898 barber quarter
my oldest coin is a 1803 large cent

high on my list of "to finds" would be a capped bust half,seated dollar and of course a nice gold double eagle :tumble: :D :shock:
 
You can find any coin anywhere in the US. Think about it, people move everywhere and carry coins and antiques, roads are washed away and graded and dirt moved from all over the counties. So you can find anything anywhere which makes all of us have hope!:yes:
 
Hey folks, please take the time to post about some of those special coin type finds that you have made. I think it would make some interesting reading for us all.
 
You can find any coin anywhere in the US. Think about it, people move everywhere and carry coins and antiques, roads are washed away and graded and dirt moved from all over the counties. So you can find anything anywhere which makes all of us have hope!:yes:
Snowy wanted more metaldetecting type stuff from me. So I'll adress this any coin can be found anywhere statement. This in my view is partially true. A rare pine tree shilling was found in 1976 in Alabama under a flat rock. A rare California Octagon gold piece was found in Oregon at a long disserted horse racing track. The only Dahlonega gold coin ever found metal detecting was found in a city in Wisconsin along the Mississippi River. All of these coins types have only been found metal detecting once. Each coin was as noted found far from it's place of minting. There is hope, yes in deed. :spin:
 
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