What's Better Than Flying Reindeer?

jerr-man said:

Great Save, Congratulations. Still on my bucket list. Thanks for sharing.

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AirmetTango said:

Some of you may recall that it seems likely that I lost my wedding band in a farm field I was hunting a couple weeks ago. Since then, any time I've had available to detect has gone toward sweeping that field in the hopes of finding the ring. Forum member Dan B. joined me on Sunday for a couple hours on a dedicated ring search, and other than a couple railroad spikes and a few iron relics, no joy.

Christmas eve day I went out again on my own for a couple more hours to grid out another area for the ring search. This time I decided to open up the audible signal range a little wider in case I had things too narrow for the ring. Well, long story short, no Christmas miracle for the wedding band, but I did eventually get over a pretty sounding 16 signal, solid all the way around. That was a little too high to match the ring, and indicated too deep - the ring should be at or dang close to the surface. So I took a quick break from the ring search to dig, and about 4-5" down located a penny sized coin! It was coated in dirt and seemed a little toasty, but by the thickness and the VDI number I assumed it was a fatty Indian since I know the later, higher copper Indians ring up in the 19 range. "Cool!" I thought, and quickly tucked it in my pouch - then I went back to my main task of the ring search.

Once I got home I had a chance to look more closely at the coin - the front was completely caked in dirt, but on the back I could barely make out "One Cent" in the center of some of the laurel wreath...but I suddenly realized I couldn't see any sign of a shield from the reverse of a typical Indian! I immediately got excited, thinking Flying Eagle! Sure enough, an 1858 Flying Eagle Cent was revealed after cleaning using wooden toothpicks and meat skewers, light buffing with 0000 steel wool, and a coat of Renaissance Wax! It's a little toasty, but not bad for a coin with the composition of a nickel hiding in the dirt for 150 years or so! It's only my second Flying Eagle - I got a '57 in November last year, so I guess I have a complete set now

So still no ring for me, and I didn't spot any flying reindeer on Christmas Eve, but I'll take a Flying Eagle for a consolation prize

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