Home Metal Detecting

Sorta neat find / Play Nickel

Found this one today down at the old lodge. (YES ONCE AGAIN NO FREAKING SILVER). This is a 1961 Uncle Sam Play Nickel. I actually found two and right in a pile of dimes and pennies. I think I pulled 3 dimes and 2 pennies out of this hole also.
Todd
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Comments

  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I knew before I even opened the thread that you had found an Uncle Sam, for some reason. I got my first ones in NC, as it happens. I got an Uncle Sam Play Dime dated in the 1950s. That's what's cool about the Uncle Sam play money- they're dated. Mine didn't have a cowboy on it.

    When I dug that play dime, my heart skipped a beat, because I thought I had found a 3c silver or a half dime at first, since it was in the front yard of a circa-1800 inn.

    I count those as being about as good as a Wheat penny find. Which is to say, not quite spectacular, but worth a smile, and they're semi-keepers. I put mine in the Wheatie jar, along with the more modern tokens and foreign coins that aren't quite good enough for my good dug coin album but are too good to throw away or spend.

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  • ASUtoddASUtodd Posts: 1,312 ✭✭
    LordM, when you put your dug coins into albums (I am assuming you do a clad coin album) how are you "cleaning" your coins...or are you? I know some people, who aren't coin collectors, put their coins in rock tumblers...wow that makes me shudder... but after all I guess they are worthless clad dug from the ground. Either way I want to start some coin albums of the clad I dig to see if I can complete and album. Right now I am only using water with an acetone soak and for the good stuff, such as the Indian head, olive oil bath. Any other suggestions?
    Todd
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yes, I clean my coins, unless they don't need much except a little soap-n'-water rinse. Some of my silver didn't need cleaning, but most does. Usually I use toothpaste on the silver, but the really hard cases need baking soda. And on the copper and nickel stuff, I often use a brass wire brush, followed by retoning with sulfur-Vaseline mix for the copper.

    It sounds horrendous, as does the rock tumbler, but I have actually had some limited success with the tumbler, too.

    Just as ancient coins often require extra cleaning (after all, most of them are dug), so it is with detector finds. The cleaning is a necessary evil.

    I do things to my dug stuff that I would NEVER do to a nondug, bought coin. But I try to only do what is necessary, and go no further. (Sometimes I am very successful with this, at other times I have failed miserably, and made a coin look worse).

    Some of the silver I dug (and cleaned) ten or twelve years ago has picked up some really attractive secondary toning in the album over the intervening years.

    No, I don't do a clad coin album- I spend those. Usually in vending machines, or by mixing them into rolls. I really should tumble them to make them more presentable for spending, but who has time for that?

    Have another peek at the last Indian cent I dug recently. There are before and after pics in the thread. Brass wire brush sounds awful, doesn't it? But as you can see, that took off the dirt and revealed the coin's glossy surfaces just fine. Mind you, I didn't go at it for long with the brush. Just a tiny bit, then I backed off and rubbed it with the Vaseline.

    Some of the stuff I have done to "conserve" or "restore" my dug coins would make my serious numismatic brethren grit their teeth and shudder with horror. But the only goal is to make the coin look better. That is taboo with bought coins, since "originality" is so sought after, but "originality" in a dug coin is usually no good, anyway- originality in that case usually means "crusty and ugly".

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  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Regarding your "YES ONCE AGAIN NO FREAKING SILVER" comment, all I have to say is this- you'd better just do your best to forget about it, because the harder you obsess about it, the longer it's gonna take. image

    Funny how that works sometimes. If you just become casual about it, nearly forgetting it for a while, then suddenly, *zap!* There's gonna be a Merc dime in your hole. (I am guessing the first for you will be a Merc dime, statistically speaking. For me it was a dateless SLQ, though, so you never know).

    Just pretend you don't care, and trick Lady Luck into thinking you have forgotten all about finding any silver at all. That's when it'll show up. image

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  • That is a neat find!

    I've never seen any uncle sam play money. The fact that they are dated is really cool!
    I want one!image
    Analog Rules! Knobs and Switches are cool!
    imageimage
  • ASUtoddASUtodd Posts: 1,312 ✭✭
    I have two here. PM me your addy and I'll send one to ya.
    Todd


  • << <i>I have two here. PM me your addy and I'll send one to ya.
    Todd >>



    I appreciate the offer Todd, but I was making reference to digging one myself. image

    John
    Analog Rules! Knobs and Switches are cool!
    imageimage
  • ASUtoddASUtodd Posts: 1,312 ✭✭
    Ahh.... so sorry!! Well to be honest, I think there are probably a few more in the soccer field portion of the lodge that I was diggin in. Like I said they were all in a pile with soem dimes and pennies. I ran out of daylight, and away from wife minutes, so I had to leave. I am going back tomorrow with my cousin, who wants to get into MDing so we shall see if I can find more!
    Todd
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    You'll often find those in "kiddie caches". You can tell the kiddie caches 'cause often there'll be some marbles or a cool foreign coin and/or a toy car or two, also.

    One time I dug a small cache of Wheat pennies and a big aluminum dinosaur medallion that obviously came out of a cereal box, and then the toy cars started appearing. By the time I had finished, thirteen toy cars came to light, all from around the 1960s or so. Some were the same kind I had played with as a wee lad, and a few were just a tiny bit earlier.

    Another time I got a handful of small change from the 1970s, a Bermuda ten cent piece, and two or three marbles in the same hole. Doesn't take much imagination to figure out what age group of person was likely to have buried them.

    Yet another time I found fifty pennies that had probably once been wrapped as a roll, ranging from later-date Wheats to early Memorials. I think there was a marble or two in that hole, also.

    Yet ONE MORE time I found something like 29 Wheat cents in the same hole. All but two (a 1918-S and a 1920-something) were dated 1944, and it was plain that the 1944 coins had been new when they were lost or buried. The coins were scattered in about a three-foot square area, which was part of a sidewalk strip next to a giant oak tree.

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  • That is a cool find. I have to say also that I've never seen one of those.

    I must second what LM said about "silver obsession". It'll come and you be happily surprised. image

    G Man
    imageimageimage
  • i've dug a bunch of those, from 5-25 cent. not all play money is uncle sam either. i guess in a way they're sort of frustrating. my first was dime and i thought it was a half dime at first. the good thing is there is almost always some silvers nearby.
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
    One thing I haven't quite figured out is the little W "mintmark" on these.

    A-Googling I shall go...

    (Edit- no hits except for some scattered on eBay and places.)

    The "falsa pecunia", of course, means "fake money".

    I have seen some as early as 1953 (I think I might have personally dug a 1950, but have to check my Wheatie jar where all the lesser-but-cool tokens and coins go.)

    These might be better than I've given them credit for. The dates make them more collectible. Granted, there are probably not many collectors out there, and they might be cheap items, but I saw some priced in the $2-3 range (by optimistic sellers), so maybe that's almost as good as a silver Roosie or War nickel. Then again, I would rather have the real silver. But there are bound to be more silver coins out there than there are Uncle Sam play pieces, so these aren't an everyday find.

    Like the finder himself concluded before anybody commented, these definitely fall into the "kinda neat" category. I agree. I always smiled when digging one.

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  • ASUtoddASUtodd Posts: 1,312 ✭✭
    The "W" mintmark on US coins is for West Point.... I wonder if these were made there... Wait, was West Point mint open back in the 60's? Grr.. as LardM said, "A googling I shall go".
    Todd
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>Wait, was West Point mint open back in the 60's? >>

    No. But the Waterbury (CT) button factory has been around since the early US times. They make buttons at Scovill and places like that, and even struck coins for foreign mints, so naturally I think of Waterbury.

    But that might not be it, either.

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  • ASUtoddASUtodd Posts: 1,312 ✭✭
    Found another 1961 Play Nickel today along with a Play Cent .... 1957.... Can't wait to find a play 25 and half dollar piece. that and the play dime I'll have the whole set.
    Todd
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