Where is the strangest place that you have ever found a coin?

Scavenger

Last year I found a coin purse on top of a pay telephone, it had about 30 pennies and a Euro cent inside.
That's not really a strange place, but finding a Euro cent is kind of different.

anablep

The toilet. It fell, I found it, I retrieved it. 'Nuff said...

SmallSizedGuy

Found a 1919 Mercury dime in a creek in the early 1970s.

MrHalfDime

This did not happen to me, but to a good friend, but since it is certainly a strange place, I hope it qualifies. Anablep nearly stole my thunder on this one, though. A friend was asked to help another friend who was remodelling his bathroom. One of the tasks that required some help was to unbolt and remove the toilet from the floor. Once it was freed, it was discovered that there was a coin under the toilet. Upon inspection, it turned out to be an 1885 Liberty Nickel! A fair remuneration for a plumber's assistant.

ecos

Found a 1945 Jefferson nickel in the filled in hole that Willie Sutton and a handful of other inmates used to escape from the Eastern States Penitentiary in that same year.

Found an 1817 German states coin about 15 ft from a 1787 New Jersey Copper about 1 foot down in the muck on the side of a highway in New Jersey.

Found an 1827 Large Cent sitting pretty on the surface in a powerline clearing in the woods.

Found a 1916 Merc 2 feet deep in the backyard of one of Philadelphias oldest houses.

Found an 1857 3 cent silver in the middle of a plowed field.

and I got paid to do most of this; i'm an archaeologist.

OldTimeHunter

When we bought our first home i had to re-do the heating ducts in the house, they had the old style in the floors with grates over them. In an upstairs bedroom duct i found a small cigar box with about 25 Indian cents in. Nothing major as far as dates go but they all looked brand new. At that time i didn't collect coins so i gave them to my wifes brother, smack me in the head, Live & learn!

Edited: I have to add that i remember them having some nice toning and when my
brother in law saw them he told me he had just started collecting coins for his son. This was
back in 1971 and i never saw the coins again.

DRUNNER

Alaska Inland Passage cruise . . . my only vacation in 20 years . . . one of the smallish ports partway up the coast. Had about 2 hours to walk the only street of town. Saw a small sign leading upstairs on a boardwalk that said "COINS". Went up a narrow hallway to a small shop that had one case and was 6 to 7 feet wide. Asked for toned stuff . . . he pulled out an AU 1922 Peace and said that was it. Talked for a minute or two then started out the door when he stopped me, came out of a catacomb in the back and showed me a 1950-D Jefferson. Wildest iridescent rainbows . . . most who have seen it regard it as one of the finest in the series in eye appeal. Sent it in . . . PCGS MS66FS . . . at the time it was finest known. Cost me $5.00.

Drunner

AgMe

all very interesting stories.

~g

TorinoCobra71

I found an 1890 IHC in a Mason Jar in the basement of the house we just moved into in 1975.....Wish I had kept it!!

TorinoCobra71

Nysoto

At the Tenino, Washington Museum, home of the first wooden depression script, is a display of some coins, tokens and other artifacts that were excavated at an old outhouse location. The people who found the relics have made it their hobby to dig through abandoned privies.

13PacesEast

well, this one time in band camp...

BBN

My wife's great uncle, while doing some work helping to remodel the old "Rose Hotel" in Elizabethtown, IL a few years ago, happen to glance at a pile of dirt that had been dug up near the foundation saw something shiney sticking out. He pulled it out of the dirt and it was an 1892 Morgan in AU condition.

MikeInFL

I found this coin, along with a few others, under the stairs in the basement in a cigar box in my grandparent's row-home in Philadelphia. I found this after my grandfather's death, and my grandmother thought that he found it somewhere:

Man

In the middle of the subway platform in NYC during rush hour a 500 yen coin from Japan shiny and new. I did wash it good because it's off the subway floor.
I guess most people saw it and thought it ain't American and left it.

sellsatan

Found an 1875 CC Seated Half in the basement of my house. Right after I bought the house I was installing some foundation jacks and happened to see a small tin on top of a joist. The coin was the only thing in it. The coin is now in ANACS plastic at VF30.

BlindedByEgo

That would have to be the butt, Bob.

pursuitofliberty

I guess some of the change must have fallen onto the bed, because I found one stuck to her ...













ohh, nevermind

BOOK

I found a 1964 mint set clock cleaning out my grandmothers estate. As a true packrat I still have it

TitusFlavius

In the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. It was a 1953 S wheatie in (at best) FR-2. I bought a Red Book soon after and have been collecting ever since.

topstuf

German 2 Pfennig in a locket lost at the Cliff House in SF. LONG long ago. Musta bin a keepsake.

topstuf

Oh, and a 1933 big gold coin of some sort. I turned it in.

Dave99B

I found an 1881 VG+ Seated Dime under an oven in an apartment, while I was in college. I still have it today. In the early 80's, I rented a divey apt for $100/month (which, by the way, included utilities!). Not a very nice place. I decided to clean the kitchen before moving in, since it was pretty disgusting, and I had seen several mice running around. Anyway, I moved the oven over, and was scrubbing away the muck on the floor underneath it. There she was, hiding under 1/8 inch of black gunk. I nice, original well-worn dime.

I started to wonder immediately if that the place had not been cleaned in 100 years!

Dave

Deadhorse

Back in the late 80's I was managing a construction company and we had the contract to remodel all the Sears stores in Houston.

I happened to be at their local corporate offices and while tearing out the bathroom of the division president, I gave the guys a hand.

Inside the wall, behind the commode was a newspaper and an envelope from the day they sealed up the wall. October of 1949, I didn't keep the paper, but in the envelope was 91 cents, all bright shiny new coins, one of each denomination, along with a note signed by the guy who put it there. I did keep the coins. All "D" mint but for the penny.

From what I understand, such "time capsules" were commonly left by tradesmen in the past.

As it turned out, no one in management even knew when the building had been built. I guess even a big company like Sears was back then didn't keep old records all that long. The people who worked there thought the place was a lot older, most everybody said, "I dunno, it seems like it's always been here".

I'd imagine there are a whole lot of nice coins sealed up in 19th century buildings in the Northeast.

supertooth

A few years ago, my wife's mother passed away. Barb was going through some papers of her moms. She handed me a coin that was inside a note. It had come from a friend of her moms at the time my wife was born in Sept. 1946. The coin was a 1916 Merc----boy did I wish for the D when I turned it over. But no luck there. However the dime was sent as a baby gift at the time of her birth. Sure goes to show how the value of money has changed in 59 years!! Bob [supertooth]

OldTimeHunter

Heres a continuance of my post above.
My Father started doing sub contracting of floor covering back in 1948. I was born in November of 1952. I started to go with him in 1961 and many of our jobs were putting new floor covering in businesses such as taverns & restaurants. I started on my own as a sub-contractor in 1974 but we would always help each other out if it was a large job. To make a long story short I'll never forget the tavern we did in Milwaukee at 7th & National in 1978. We had to tear up the old flooring before we laid down the new. In these old taverns they had hot water registers to heat plus we had to clean under them before the new flooring was put down including behind the bar and under coolers & cabinets, I always had the job of crawling to get at the under parts of them. Before this job we've found coins but not to this degree. On this ca. 1900 tavern job i started to pull out coins dating into the 1800's to the 1920's which included walking halves, Morgan dollars, barber coins, buffalo nickels, peace dollars, V nickels, Indian & wheat cents plus many other type coins. At the end of the day i had approximately 15 pounds (yes, 15 pounds) of coins, This is the honest to gods truth! Needless to say when i started to find the coins my dad joined in and that day we never got to start on the flooring, all we did was dig for coins. My dad passed away about 4 year ago and to this day i believe this is the most fun we ever had together and something I'll never forget. I sold most of the coins when the price for silver was so high in about 1980. Many times i still wish i had never sold the coins but the memories with my dad will last forever.

Lloyd

clw54

When I was a kid, my grandmother dug out a purse from way back in a closet under the stairs and there was a 1927-S quarter in it. It's now in an NGC F15 holder.

Hoot

When I was a kkid, I found a 1953 quarter (XF-AU) under a shrub that I dug up. I was simply thrilled!

I almost forgot: In about 1969, I found a 1964 dime while scrambling down a creek bank in the back country of Crater Lake National Park. Very, very odd place for a dime.

Hoot

DrPete

About three years ago I was raking up leaves in the front yard and dislodged an 1868 shield nickel. It was terribly corroded and barely recognizable. I don't think it is a coin that I ever had and lost so I have no idea where it came from. We have the oldest house in the neighborhood built in 1965, so that makes this find even more puzzling.

Weiss

It's fun to read these found coin stories from people who aren't metal detectorists.

We find thousands and thousands of coins every year. If your house was built before say 1950, there is about a 75% chance there are wheats and silver coins in your yard. Think of it this way: If you lose only one coin a year in your yard, pulling out your keys along the front walk, getting out of your car, etc., and your house was built in the 1930s, your yard has 70+ coins in it.

Strangest place I've found a coin was one of my first: A coin from the netherlands under a coke machine in the basement of my mom's old workplace. That's one of the coins that started me on this path 30 years ago.

Found a 10 cent Euro coin under the counter of our favorite coffee shop at lunch a couple weeks back. The journey continues...

razorface1027

Between the walls (plaster & white washed walls -w- slats) of our row home in Philadelphia I found a SLQ in shabby condition back in the early 1970's.



Tom

jayboxx

Not really a coin, but I did find $3400 stashed behind a sink drawer in a house I was renting a long time ago, that was an exceptional find.

cape

i am a builder and i was remodeling a nightclub , there was a hump in the floor where i had to put a new dance floor down, to my surprise i opened the floor thinking they had a bad subfloor under the hump and i found an au 1935 buffalo nickel and a wood chisel . boy that sure was a surprise! to any of you that have ever been on cape cod the nightclub was called THE VELVET HAMMER . this i beleive happened in 1979

redlines

About 20 years ago, I cleaned out my garage and headed for our local landfill out here in the county of San Diego, as I was unloading a guy pulled up next to me, I spotted a Queen Victoria chair on the top of his load, he pitched it out, I retrieved it.

A bit later, I heard the recognizable sound of coins hitting the ground, this guy threw out what looked like a very tatty pillow case that had 300 (or so) coins in it( circa the 20s to the 40s), with about 150 being pennies, nickles and dimes in small albums.

To this day, I still ask myself "why".
Steve

CharlieB

I am telling the truth as God is my witness. About 5 years ago I was walking around the neighborhood
and there was a huge pile of everything tossed out because someone had sold and vacated their house.
Old furniture, junk, cardboard boxes, just piles of them, a refrigerator turned over and many steaks never
opened spilled on the ground. I rummaged as usual and thought I saw a blue coin book. I removed the
trash on top and pulled out a cardboard box which was a coin collection. Contents? Several coin albums with many, many coins, Lincolns, nickels, buff album, Jeffs, quarters, halves and dollars. I am not kidding about this. On top of this was a small bag of silver dollars and silver coins, 1960 small date cents MS, a proof set, some silver certificates, two full sheets of unused Presidential stamps, Eisenhower dollars about 8 of them as I remember. I still have the entire box as it was just to show people.

As best I could figure out, the owners moved back to Asia and just chucked everything. There was one
other interesting coin, very unique included in a plastic holder. I am not saying what that was. Honestly
as hard as it may be to believe it is all true. The people in my office couldn't believe it so I took the whole
box in and showed them what I found.

As I was leaving the trash truck was coming up the street.

I was just at the right place at the right time.

- Charlie B -

librtyhead

After my granparents moved out of thier house in 1978 me and my dad was cleaning out the closets and picking up the last of thier stuff I found about 6 rolls of bankrolled franklins that were very colorful at each end ,my dad came up behind me and said "gimme those" thats the last I saw of them he collected coins.

bonkrood

It was about 30 years ago I remember it like it was yesterday, I found a 1979 dime in my sons diaper........I didn't even know he was a collector!

Hoot

"There was one other interesting coin, very unique included in a plastic holder. I am not saying what that was."

CharlieB - Why not say?

Hoot

Elcontador

I was in Madrid, España, in the summer of 1973. I was flying back home the next day and wanted to get my parents something for their wedding anniversary, and someone suggested that I visit El Rastro (a huge flea market). Biggest market of its type I've ever seen. You name it, if it was legal, they had it.

Next to the place where I got my parents' gifts, there were some coins. I was curious. Most were old WW II stuff, 30 lire coins with Mussolini on them and some Nazi money. However, something looked familiar. I saw a 1920 P Wheatie that seemed to be a BN Unc. Paid a $ or two for it.

Michigan

My story is of a coin finding me rather than other way around.

Back in the 1960s in Junior High (what is called Middle School these
days) we had a staggered lunch hour because the lunch room was
overcrowded (baby boomer kids, we were a population explosion).
Half the kids went to the auditorium to watch a movie for 30
minutes or so while the other half of the kids ate lunch and then
they would switch positions (the movie would extend over a week
or so until all of it was seen).

Anyway, when the lights were turned out a few trouble makers
had some fun throwing money around (usually Lincoln cents) and watching kids scramble for it (the monitors were always looking for the ones doing this but were rarely successful in catching them). I was sitting in my seat watching the movie when I felt something land in my hand, I looked at it and it was a 1942-P Jefferson nickel (a war nickel).

I had been collecting for a few years then and needed that one
for my Jefferson nickel Whitman folder. When I got home it
went in there.

I still have that coin after all these years.

rmoss

I was helping a friend move out of an apartment years ago and she asked if I would carry a box of trash out. On top was a 1961 proof set in a birth year frame. I asked if she meant to throw it away and she said if I wanted it I could have it, some guy she had been dating had given it to her for her birthday. No the half was not a DD.

AJ2525

With my grandfather looking through a trash holler in central Missouri in the early 80's. It was after a rain and he looked down and found a 1942 Canadian dime.

He also found and gave me a badly corroded 1900 barber dime.

He was a plumber by trade. I wonder how many other coins he found over the years and probably spent every one of them.

NumisOxide

When my mother's aunt passed away, my mother recieved some things from her. One day I was looking through some things and I found a small case that held a holy picture in one pocket and in the other pocket was a 1912-D Barber dime and a 1890 IHC. Both coins were in about G-4 condition. When I found them I was shocked because that was the last thing I would expect to be in there. I still have those coins in my collection.

Struntz

Back in the mid-1960s, I found a slick 1757 two reales coin on the floor in my parents' laundry room. One of my older brothers must have gotten it as a quarter and left it in a pair of pants.