Digger's Diary: The Mysterious Ming Medallion

[skalleewag]

thats incredible ! but whats it worth ??

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[Joe_NY_to_NC]

DIGGER'S DIARY: The Mysterious Ming Medallion

Wow! That is one fascinating story. Just imagine, if all of the facts are true & correct (which it sounds like it), history could be rewritten.
It really angers me how metal detectorists are viewed as grave robbers & thieves and how laws prevent us from detecting certain sites.
Good Job!!!

[gemee]

thats incredible ! but whats it worth ??

It is worth what someone will pay for it. In this instance $20.00.

Just wondering,...couldn't this coin be carbon dated, to find the true age?

[kuger]

Great story!Do you know if the Dr. has researched any of the Chinese coins that are periodically dug back there?Most seem to be Ming Dynasty.I have noticed that much the same as out west here,most people that dig them see them as a nuisance,and worthless.Near railroads is explainable but I am pretty sure not all found out East are the case,so why and how did they get there?

[lordmarcovan]

thats incredible ! but whats it worth ??

It is worth what someone will pay for it. In this instance $20.00.

Just wondering,...couldn't this coin be carbon dated, to find the true age?

Carbon dating only works on organic materials, to my knowledge. (Bone, wood, etc.)

[lordmarcovan]

Great story!Do you know if the Dr. has researched any of the Chinese coins that are periodically dug back there?Most seem to be Ming Dynasty.I have noticed that much the same as out west here,most people that dig them see them as a nuisance,and worthless.Near railroads is explainable but I am pretty sure not all found out East are the case,so why and how did they get there?

Thanks. I am sure Dr. Lee has done plenty of research on stuff like that, as it seems to be his passion. (I will leave the question of whether he is a crackpot or a genius up to everyone else.)

There are plenty of explanations for old Chinese coins found in this country; the railroads, like you said, being a primary one. Since the old round Chinese cash with the square hole in the middle were used as ornaments and buttons the world over, it is not difficult to imagine them turning up just about anywhere- even the older stuff from the Ming Dynasty and earlier, since there probably weren't many coin collectors in China back then, and old coins no doubt circulated for centuries or until they wore out or were lost.

I've never dug one of those, personally, though I have seen a few that people found here on the East coast. I know you Westerners are quite familiar with them, but I can't for the life of me fathom how anybody would ever consider them a nuisance- anytime I'm digging a 200- to 2,000-year-old coin, I am a happy camper, no matter how common the coin or where it is from!

Of course if Dr. Lee's hunches are right, and this medallion thing I found is some kind of diplomatic pass, that makes it a far cry from your average cash coin, and more along the line of the Indian peace medals the British and American governments issued much later. It would be pretty amazing to think that this could be the first Indian peace medal, but that's nothing but idle fancy to imagine.

[Armymusician]

He paid me a mere twenty bucks for the medallion. Somebody had already translated it for me at that point, so I knew it said something about Great Ming on it, but I didn't believe it. I thought it was a reproduction.

At the time Dr. Lee bought it, it was totally unproven (and it might still be, for that matter). I have no regrets about getting a mere twenty dollars for it. Dr. Lee did not purchase it to make money from it, and it may end up in a museum, I would imagine. I'm fine with that. I did ask him to send me one of those posters, and to give me credit for the find, since I was not mentioned by name in the initial press releases. He has complied with those wishes, so as far as I'm concerned, all is well. I don't care about the monetary value of the thing- after all, how does one put a price on historically significant things like this? The monetary value is entirely secondary.

By the way, this article is now translated... enjoy.


http://1421-china.blog.phoenixtv.com...06/346439.html

I think I saw this item end last week on China's Ebay for $375,000...Ebay ID was DrLee

[lordmarcovan]

[Oroblanco]

EDDE wrote

holy cow orablonco will be around this thread soon

Gosh I am getting lame at finding these things - four years I missed it, but finally did! Pretty amazing find, sorry I didn't notice this thread sooner but my (belated) congratulations!
Oroblanco

[deepfoot]

In respect to ancient coins ending up in America...consider this, today science can tell exactly where a piece of metal was mined regardless of where it is found.

The copper tools found in and around Egyptian tombs originated as native copper extracted from an ore deposit in southern Ontario, Canada...along the great lakes. So yes there is much of our history we know very little about.

Rather than solving a mystery they just seem to get that much more mysterious.

[burlbark]

This has got to be one of the Greatest finds of all time.

I cant believe this is not sticky'ed to the top of the forum. There should be a documentary.

The OP and finder has put himself in the history books with this one.

It is obviously not a fake or duplicate, I cant even fathom why someone would want to duplicate a round disc and mass produce them.

[Bayter]

Is this not a Banner?!

[TheRockCollector]

Nice!

[rossman85]

A very interesting piece of history...I would love to see how this find unfolds over time

[hamiddetecting]

Awesome story!

[lordmarcovan]

Wow. Look what happens when I go away for two or three years.

If I'd had any inkling this story would be read over 25,000 times, I would've taken a bit more care in writing it!

I made another historically anomalous find, here in Georgia. That happened about two years ago, during my absence from this forum.

It was an "eyeball" find on a colonial site... I didn't even have a detector or a camera with me!

Would you like to hear about it? *wink*

I suppose I'd better write it up. I wrote it up for the coin site I frequent, but the narrative is kind of disjointed, because when I found it I was still trying to pin down the exact attribution on it. (I knew what it was, but was trying to research the subtype and such. More on that later, if you're interested.)

This more recent anomaly has a few more easy explanations than the Ming Medallion mystery. It too will always remain a riddle, as so many of our finds do, but I think I can imagine a scenario as to how it got there.

Oh- and like the Ming Medallion, this find did not have a particularly high monetary value. Its true value lies in the historical mystery. (Like so much I've found, it's more of a conversation piece than a material treasure. I'm still a million bucks shy of being a millionaire, believe me!)

I have promised it to a museum near where I found it. It is verifiably much older than even the Ming Medallion supposedly is.

And that's all I'll tease you with, for now, until I can do a writeup.

I think I'll call it "The Arcadius Anomaly".

Stay tuned.

[Joshr29]

Wow. Look what happens when I go away for two or three years.

If I'd had any inkling this story would be read over 25,000 times, I would've taken a bit more care in writing it!

I made another historically anomalous find, here in Georgia. That happened about two years ago, during my absence from this forum.

It was an "eyeball" find on a colonial site... I didn't even have a detector or a camera with me!

Would you like to hear about it? *wink*

I suppose I'd better write it up. I wrote it up for the coin site I frequent, but the narrative is kind of disjointed, because when I found it I was still trying to pin down the exact attribution on it. (I knew what it was, but was trying to research the subtype and such. More on that later, if you're interested.)

This more recent anomaly has a few more easy explanations than the Ming Medallion mystery. It too will always remain a riddle, as so many of our finds do, but I think I can imagine a scenario as to how it got there.

Oh- and like the Ming Medallion, this find did not have a particularly high monetary value. Its true value lies in the historical mystery. (Like so much I've found, it's more of a conversation piece than a material treasure. I'm still a million bucks shy of being a millionaire, believe me!)

I have promised it to a museum near where I found it. It is verifiably much older than even the Ming Medallion supposedly is.

And that's all I'll tease you with, for now, until I can do a writeup.

I think I'll call it "The Arcadius Anomaly".

Stay tuned.

Are you about done with the new right up? I enjoyed this thread and am looking forward to hearing this new mystery. HH

[lordmarcovan]

Are you about done with the new right up? I enjoyed this thread and am looking forward to hearing this new mystery. HH

No, actually haven't started that writeup yet, because I've got two new dig movies in the making.

But I will. It shouldn't take too long when I finally get around to it, since there's already a preliminary draft on one of the coin forums I frequent. I kind of want to wait until I'm at that site again, so I can take pictures. (The site is an hour north of here.) Though I have pictures of the "Arcadius Anomaly" find itself, I don't have any pictures or video of the find site, as I had no camera (or even detector) with me that day.