Old farm house foundation, 1838 large cent

rhedden

I barely did any digging at all this year (too busy in work), but I had 2 hours this afternoon to look around an old farm house site that is probably a good half mile off in the woods from the nearest road here in central PA. I found a couple of buckles, and to my surprise, an 1838 large cent. The large cent was about 3 inches deep, and it only read out as a +72 on my White's Spectrum, which is pretty normal for a copper Lincoln cent. Also, it was on a hiking trail that passes through the site, which conviced me that it was an ordinary small cent. I was really surprised when I saw it pop out, as it is unusual to find these in this part of PA, which was not densely populated during the 1700s and 1800s. About 15 feet away off the trail, I got a real solid +89 coin signal, which is usually a large cent, quarter, or half dollar. It was two ordinary clad Washington quarters, 6 inches deep. You've got to wonder how they got there. Anyway, I did very little to clean up the large cent, except to brush the dirt off with a sponge, but you can see that most of the original green surface is crumbling or gone, and the old coppers seldom look very good after they dry out. There is another house site about 100 yards from the one I was exploring, but my batteries were dead and the sun was going down, so it's left for next time.

kevinstang

Wow, some nice finds coming this December. I think a little time soaking in olive oil will do the large cent some good. I soaked the Canadian half penny from 1844 I found this year for about 2 months in the stuff and it looks alot better (doesn't have the dried out look). Guess I will have to try and get out once more myself and see if I can get some of that December luck

goldrush00013

Excellent work!

Be sure to enter it in December's "Quality" thread.

lordmarcovan

Definitely a contender for Best US Coin this month... a STRONG contender!

Way to go! I'm jealous!

PS- y'know, I kinda like that green patina, in a funny way...

HKnJ

I need to find me one of those. Very sweet finds. Congrats. That is definitely one of the top choices for Dec. '06 Best Coin so far unless GR answers with an older silver piece tomorrow.

rhedden

That is definitely one of the top choices for Dec. '06 Best Coin so far unless GR answers with an older silver piece tomorrow.


I'm planning on hitting this site one more time tomorrow before everything freezes solid. I'm planning on digging up a canning jar full of 1815 Bust halves to lock up Dec. '06 Coin of the Month. But I plan on doing that every time I go detecting, and it never seems to happen. Wish me luck.

BentFork

Score another one for White's

DUBBA

sweet....hh

loditom

Nice going on the large cent Rhedden.HH,Tom

Zot

A great find!
I don't think the current look of your coin is too bad really - the green patina creates a bit of a cameo effect with parts of the design..

So you use a White's detector... excellent! This board is far too dominated by the Garrett-mafia (and Minelab too!) - I'm rooting for you to snag a best coin of the month award for "our" camp

coinnut86

nice!