Which Is Better - Surface Silver or CC Seated?

AirmetTango

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I'll take both, thank you very much!!

Great weather here on Thursday, so I went out to a farm field permission to hunt for a few hours and enjoy the day. The site has great history, but it's otherwise rife with problems: high tension power lines run directly overhead (EMI), a major gas pipeline runs directly underneath (previous excavation), and the property owner says her cousin used to detect the property regularly until a few years ago (ugh). Still, I've gotten a few interesting finds there on previous visits, including a Civil War era New Hampshire Volunteer Militia cuff button, so I wanted to try the site again.

The first hour was decidedly slow, and I was honestly about to pack up and go somewhere else, when I see this:

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Thanks to the dirt and distance, and the history of the site, I assumed it was a V nickel! I would have swore that the bits of crud visible on the upper edge (the arrows in the pic) were actually the stars on the front of a V! Something didn't look quite right with Lady Liberty's profile, but no matter - I was giddy with excitement and started taking pictures, partly because of the neat find and partly because I've been on fire lately with surface coin finds (my 3rd in about a week). But as I got closer and my aging eyes focused on more detail, my excitement vaporized - "that's Monticello, not Lady Liberty...good grief, I just got all worked up over a Jefferson!", I thought. But then I noticed the big "P" over top of Monticello, and my smile returned! A 1945 P war Nickel - my first surface silver! :cool: Must have been a farmer's drop since the history of the site I was hunting is definitely mid- to late-1800s:

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Encouraged by that oddball find, I kept going and got over a couple of Indians, 1878 and 1880. I also found more old shotshell headstamps than I've dug in a long time, and the business end of a fork with the sharpest tines I've ever felt - it's far deadlier than the one's I've got sitting in my kitchen drawer, which is pretty impressive considering it's been sitting underground for the last century or more! I also got one or two cool surface iron finds that I'm clueless on - will post those in the ID section.

But the best find came late in the hunt, with a somewhat junky sounding high tone, 22-24 on the EQ800 in Park 2, 50 tone. As I circled the target, it varied a little more, as low as 20 and as high as 28 or 29. It was an obvious digger, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. No sooner did I turn the plug, and a shiny coin rolled out!! At first I was thinking Barber, but then I remembered almost all of the Indians I’ve gotten from the site have been 1880 and earlier, and I dared to hope....

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I was thrilled to recognize Liberty sitting down through the dirt!! Clean up at home under running water and a little dish soap revealed 1876, and then CC on the back!! Northwest Ohio must've been the first stop from the Carson City mint, because I've only found 4 Seated dimes since I've started detecting, and 3 of them are CC mint marks! :shock:

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Glad I persevered despite the very slow start - if I had packed up when I was originally thinking about it, I would have missed out on my first double silver day in a long time, not to mention a Seated!! The pics below show the better finds both before and after cleaning, and the full hunt. This site has a ton of those leather fasteners! I placed a couple of shotshell headstamps in the iron/trash pic for scale.
 

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Congrats on the nice hunt and finds.

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk
 
The funny thing is close to half of the seated items I have found have an S mint mark on the back. I have also found a couple with an O mint mark. The CC is a big dream of mine (and everybody else) because of the history behind it. Great job nice saves!!! I am pretty sure that they will be planting their little heart outs this weekend in the fields.

I am also curious to find out what the long metal dagger looking thing is in the bottom pic. I will follow the ID section.
 
I also would except them both Ben. It may have started slow but it ended with I'm sure a huge smile. Congrats on the Seated CC Dime, the Indian's the Relics and of course the eyeball Nickel. Trapper
 
Beautiful seated and great IHPs (and the war nickel is always nice)! The CC mintmark'ed coins you are finding/have found are just awesome BIG congrats!
 
Yeah... those sure are sharp fork tines there. Ouch ! Oh, and nice job on the coins and relics too. :lol: Fun day I bet.
Nice photos and story. Keep ‘em coming.
 
You have been doing well in the eyeball dept. lately. Congrats on another fine hunt. The seated was a sweet way to top it all off. Attaboy Ben. I would be happy to dig any seated coin as they continue to elude me. Good luck Mark
 
Big congrats... Love that dime. I just found my first seated a couple of days ago. 1887 no mint mark... thanks for posting the pictures..they are a treat to view.
 
Thanks for the great write up. I'll take a CC over a surface war nickel anyday! Seated coins are really hard to come by in my parts. (At least they are hard for me to find) Cool post AT!
 
Congrats on the nice hunt and finds.

Thanks HDMontana!

The funny thing is close to half of the seated items I have found have an S mint mark on the back. I have also found a couple with an O mint mark. The CC is a big dream of mine (and everybody else) because of the history behind it. Great job nice saves!!! I am pretty sure that they will be planting their little heart outs this weekend in the fields.

I am also curious to find out what the long metal dagger looking thing is in the bottom pic. I will follow the ID section.

Sick sick sick :sissyfight:

I've sure been ecstatic each time I've seen that little CC on the back of each during clean up - I suppose I could really annoy Tom_In_CA and say " **yawn**, gee another CC Seated to throw in the pile - they sure are getting annoying! I wish I could find a plain old Rosie for a change!" :lol::lol:

Yep, planting should come fast and furious pretty soon, but it's gotta stop raining first. The field behind my house has had two extremely large ponds since February that have never dried up - the neighborhood has actually given them names now! Either way, I'm amazed I'm still field hunting in late May - I'll keep milking it for all it's worth!

Finally got the dagger thingy posted in the ID section, so hopefully some ideas will start coming in :yes:
 
I also would except them both Ben. It may have started slow but it ended with I'm sure a huge smile. Congrats on the Seated CC Dime, the Indian's the Relics and of course the eyeball Nickel. Trapper

Thanks Trapper! That's sure one of the many joys of the hobby - a slow hunt can turn around in an instant!

Beautiful seated and great IHPs (and the war nickel is always nice)! The CC mintmark'ed coins you are finding/have found are just awesome BIG congrats!

Thanks Buellride - I've been extremely fortunate to be turning up those CC marks! Seated coins are hard enough to come across by themselves!
 
Yeah... those sure are sharp fork tines there. Ouch ! Oh, and nice job on the coins and relics too. :lol: Fun day I bet.
Nice photos and story. Keep ‘em coming.

:lol: Thanks jimther! Those 19th century forks were no joke! Food was maybe more of a precious commodity, so once it was on your plate, you didn't want it getting away :lol:

Glad you enjoyed the pics and the share!

You have been doing well in the eyeball dept. lately. Congrats on another fine hunt. The seated was a sweet way to top it all off. Attaboy Ben. I would be happy to dig any seated coin as they continue to elude me. Good luck Mark

Thanks Mark! Would you believe I got another eyeball find the very next day?? Another IHP in a different field! Makes 4 old coins on the surface in about a week! Keep swinging - you'll get over a seated, just a matter of time :yes:
 
Big congrats... Love that dime. I just found my first seated a couple of days ago. 1887 no mint mark... thanks for posting the pictures..they are a treat to view.

Fantastic, Charlie! Congrats on your seated dime!! They really are special coins, and not easily encountered!

Thanks for the great write up. I'll take a CC over a surface war nickel anyday! Seated coins are really hard to come by in my parts. (At least they are hard for me to find) Cool post AT!

Thanks SW, I'm glad you enjoyed the write up! Yep, a CC is always gonna win that deal :yes: True, the further west you go, the harder it is to get the old silver - less population, so fewer drops, etc. Silver is relatively infrequent for me just for lack of hunt time if nothing else (only 6 fty so far), so I got pretty jazzed up over the war nickel, too - especially since I was originally afraid is was gonna end up being a 1989 Jeff once I saw Monticello :lol:
 
... gee another CC Seated to throw in the pile...:


Strangely, very few CC's get found in CA (at least where I'm at). Despite us being close to Carson City. Not sure which direction all those CC coins went to :?: But we definitely get lots of S mint coins. In fact, when you pull up a barber or seated, you can almost count on it being an "S". Which usually have lower mintages and higher values that P mints (ahem cough cough).
 
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