Large cent find from 10/27 probably my nicest condition wise

kevinstang · October 29, 2010 12:11AM

Not much to report lately, weather in upstate NY since labor day has pretty much been a washout and 10/27 was probably only my second or third outing since labor day. Earlier in the day while out for a walk I spotted a road crew digging up about a 30 foot section of sidewalk in front of a vacant lot- a lot however that at one was the site of an old general store. I decided to try and make it back to the area while I had a window of opportunity- around 5pm when the crews were done working and it was still light enough out to hunt. First couple of targets turned out to be modern twist off bottle caps, then finally a small coin- an Indian cent perhaps?- nope a 1980 or so Lincoln memorial- all the targets I seemed to be finding where near the edge of where the sidewalk would have been to the grass. My hopes were down as there were few if any good signals coming and then near the middle of the area right about where I can remember the entrance to the general store was (there had been a large step up into the doorway) I got a solid signal in the cent to dime range on my Garrett Ace- I wasn't expecting a large cent to pop out, but this is what came out from about 1 inch down:

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This is what it looked like pretty much right out of the ground- I just gave it a rinse under the faucet with some water, it will be off to the oil for a while now. The rest of hunt only produced one more memorial cent, some type of latch catch for a cabinet I think a few more bottle caps. The condition of the coin looks like it was pretty much Mint state when it went into the ground and I have speculated that maybe it was placed there intentional when the step to the front of the store building was set- will have to look up the local history and see when that building was built- it was definately in the 1800's sometime. I do know that the village also had wooden sidewalks for a time as well, so perhaps it was one of those coins that fell through the cracks at one time and the stone/cement sidewalk got placed over it and helped it stay in such good shape.Just thought I'd share this find and hopefully I will be able to add more before the snow flies again.HH