AirmetTango
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Winter made a sudden arrival today in my neck of the woods - it was 50° yesterday, but today (Tuesday) was about 28°, plus a good stiff wind!! There’s no doubt that time is just about expired on this year’s hunting season, but I’m determined to eek out as much time as I can before the ground freezes.
So I put aside some work I was supposed to be doing and snuck out this afternoon for about 2 hours. We had a good amount of rain yesterday, so I decided to hit a close-by park rather than mess around with a quagmire in a field. Despite the cold, the ground conditions were nearly perfect for digging!
The very first diggable signal turned out to be a Wheatie from about 6” down - not a bad start for a pounded to death park I dared to hope maybe a silver coin might be lurking, but that never happened...instead I ended up with $2.14 in clad, a second Wheat and a toasty IHP with an unreadable date.
But by far my favorite find of the day happened about halfway through the hunt. I got over a decent high tone, varying mostly between 20-22 on the VDI, but with occasional jumps as high as 23 as I circled the target. It’s a park, so bottle caps are everywhere, but I’ve also been teasing several IHPs out of the ground here lately. The tell is depth...my “trash & clad” pic at the bottom shows 3 caps that I dug on wishful thinking - the depth just wasn’t quite deep enough on those. But this signal looked spot on for depth! I cut my plug, then needed to remove some more dirt from the hole after my pointer sounded off in the bottom. A few more scoops with my digger, and I saw speckles of bright turquoise mixed with the dark brown dirt - crumbles of copper corrosion. Several of the coppers I’ve dug at this park have been badly corroded to the point that they have large nodes/concretions of turquoise colored oxidation. Once I saw those crumbles, I was excited because I knew I had a coin, but simultaneously worried because I knew the condition would probably be rough. A few moments later, I tracked down the penny sized target with my pinpointer - corroded on one side, but...what the heck?? There was something hooked to it!!
An Indian Head made into a pendant...with the clasp still attached!! The clasp is tiny, but I was amazed to see some delicate scroll work on its surface as I cleaned the item. The front of the Indian cleaned up beautifully, but unfortunately, that corrosion on the back is brutal - I cleaned as much as I could without breaking through the patina and exposing shiny bronze. It appears to be a 1907 IHP - when I first saw that “7”, I immediately thought “Oh Lord....tell me they didn’t drill through an 1877!!”
It’s curious that the maker chose to drill the pendant such that Lady Liberty would have hung upside down. I’ve found one other holed coin (also an IHP), and it was drilled directly over the top of her head, which seems a more “natural” way for a pendant to hang
Anyway, I’m thrilled with the find - a unique personal item that surely has a interesting story to tell if it could only talk!!
So I put aside some work I was supposed to be doing and snuck out this afternoon for about 2 hours. We had a good amount of rain yesterday, so I decided to hit a close-by park rather than mess around with a quagmire in a field. Despite the cold, the ground conditions were nearly perfect for digging!
The very first diggable signal turned out to be a Wheatie from about 6” down - not a bad start for a pounded to death park I dared to hope maybe a silver coin might be lurking, but that never happened...instead I ended up with $2.14 in clad, a second Wheat and a toasty IHP with an unreadable date.
But by far my favorite find of the day happened about halfway through the hunt. I got over a decent high tone, varying mostly between 20-22 on the VDI, but with occasional jumps as high as 23 as I circled the target. It’s a park, so bottle caps are everywhere, but I’ve also been teasing several IHPs out of the ground here lately. The tell is depth...my “trash & clad” pic at the bottom shows 3 caps that I dug on wishful thinking - the depth just wasn’t quite deep enough on those. But this signal looked spot on for depth! I cut my plug, then needed to remove some more dirt from the hole after my pointer sounded off in the bottom. A few more scoops with my digger, and I saw speckles of bright turquoise mixed with the dark brown dirt - crumbles of copper corrosion. Several of the coppers I’ve dug at this park have been badly corroded to the point that they have large nodes/concretions of turquoise colored oxidation. Once I saw those crumbles, I was excited because I knew I had a coin, but simultaneously worried because I knew the condition would probably be rough. A few moments later, I tracked down the penny sized target with my pinpointer - corroded on one side, but...what the heck?? There was something hooked to it!!
An Indian Head made into a pendant...with the clasp still attached!! The clasp is tiny, but I was amazed to see some delicate scroll work on its surface as I cleaned the item. The front of the Indian cleaned up beautifully, but unfortunately, that corrosion on the back is brutal - I cleaned as much as I could without breaking through the patina and exposing shiny bronze. It appears to be a 1907 IHP - when I first saw that “7”, I immediately thought “Oh Lord....tell me they didn’t drill through an 1877!!”
It’s curious that the maker chose to drill the pendant such that Lady Liberty would have hung upside down. I’ve found one other holed coin (also an IHP), and it was drilled directly over the top of her head, which seems a more “natural” way for a pendant to hang
Anyway, I’m thrilled with the find - a unique personal item that surely has a interesting story to tell if it could only talk!!
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