Find's I have made in the week or so.

loditom

Well been working this one spot for awhile and it has given up some goodie's,but know it is slowing down there and it need's a good scraping to move the dirt around.
Here is a group pic:there is a old pocketknife,2 chinese cache coin's,musket ball,bullet,old lipstick,shell button,glass button,20?23s buff's,silver piece to a suspender buckle.clay pipe stem and 2 older spoon's.



Then I got this,my first piece of cut silver which is unusal since it is a seated dime.I thought lawnmower cut it,but the cut is to clean for that.From what I can make out on the coin it is a variety 4 seated,which date's 1860-1873.



Thank's for looking and HH,Tom

madscientist

Cool stuff! OK, I'm going to show my ignorance here. What exactly are Chinese cache coins? Also, if you have your md set to pick up stuff like pocket knives, do you end up digging up more junk than keepers? I collect coins, but I'm fascinated with old stuff in general. I just get frustrated wasting so much time and engergy digging up junk, so I usually discriminate out all the iron stuff.

Riccar

Nice Tom.
Is that a clipped Barber or Seated?

loditom

Hey MS I usually hunt demo's and dig everything I come across in them and yes I do dig alot of trash in these area's,but I also make some really cool find's.Chinese cache coin's I believe date from around the 1400's and on,LordM should be able to help out more with this.

Ric it is a seated,had to do a little looking in my book but was able to I.D. as a variety 4.HH,Tom

Man

That is great loditom.

I understand that the coins, buttons, bullets and relics go into a collection.

But what do you do with all those ugly spoons?And why are there so few fork finds?

WillieBoyd2

I think he means Chinese CASH coins.
1000 CASH = 1 Chinese dollar
The Chinese governments made Cash coins for centuries, up to the early 20th century.

Zot

Interesting stuff!
That top cash coin looks to be in quite nice shape
You seem to be on a roll with the seated dimes, even if it's only a half one this time!

Regarding Man's comment about the spoons vs. forks - that's indeed quite interesting..
It's the same for me - I find spoons all the time, but hardly any forks at all (no knives either for that matter)

lordmarcovan

<< <i>From what I can make out on the coin it is a variety 4 seated,which date's 1860-1873. >>

Indeed. The dime is definitely post-1860 because of the wreath on the reverse (the later Seated dimes had the USA legend on the obverse instead of the stars, and the same wreath that they later used on the Barber dimes). I don't see how you can pin it down to just 1860-1873, though. It would actually be 1860-1873 or 1875-1891, since they resumed that type after the brief interruption of 1873-1874, when they put arrows at the date. Really, if the date portion of the coin is totally gone, you can't rule out 1873-1874, either. So basically it is an 1860-1891 dime. (Which somebody made into a "half dime", haha).

The Chinese coins are "cash" coins, not "cache" coins. Well, I suppose they could also be "cache" coins if you found a cache of them, like a jar or something! They are fascinating finds. "Cash" is the denomination. These are 1-cash pieces. It's probably where we get the word "cash" from, meaning "money".

I know they're very common finds for y'all on the west coast, but are fairly seldom seen over here on the east coast. I would love to find one someday. The intact one you have there looks like it has a Peking mintmark (Peking Board of Public Works or Board of Revenue?). Those Peking mints cranked a ton of these out between the 1730s and 1790s, as I recall, though of course round 1-cash coins with the square hole like those were made for more than a thousand years, from ancient times right on up into the early 1900s. I have some from the Sung Dynasty that are about a thousand years old. I have previously had some from the T'ang Dynasty that were from the seventh century (600-something AD). Show us the obverse of that one and I'll bet I can date it, with the help of the Krause catalog. Betcha it's mid- to late-1700s.

As to the spoons-versus forks discussion, it's true- one finds a LOT more spoons than forks. But it shouldn't be too surprising, since spoons are used a lot more. If you had to choose only one eating utensil, what would you pick? You could eat your dinner with a spoon if you had to, but try stirring your tea or eating your soup with a fork. In my "real" job as a room service waiter, we send out twice as as many spoons as we do forks and knives.

loditom

Hey LM what let me to the date's of the coin is that one thing I did notice is there is no reeding on the inside perimiter of the coin.After reading your post,I took another look in the book and the only variety's I see with out that are the variety one and 4.I didn't even think about the star's or the lettering.I will take another look at it and get back to you on it.

From what I have alway's seen posted for the Chinese cash coin's,people have spelled it cache.So I will now post the correct term unless I actually find a cache of them
I will get a another picture posted of the other side for you.HH,Tom