waseeker
Bronze Member
- Dec 20, 2006
- 1,133
- 25
- Detector(s) used
- Whites DFX; Minelab eTrac
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Won't try to keep you in suspense. As the title says I found a 1909 S VDB today while searching a bag of cents.
Here is the rest of the story. It's kinda long but hey I don't find one of these every day.
I have 3 branch banks that sell me the bags that come off of their coin counters. Recently the big volume one got a new counter that uses a big bin rather than individual bags to store coin that is run through the machine. I was pretty bummed out about it since my volume is way down. However, a couple of weeks ago one of my favorite tellers from that branch got a promotion to another branch that I never visit because it is out of the way. Anyway, yesterday I had some extra time while running errands and pick-ups so I went by that branch to see what they had. I managed to pick up 2 cent bags and 1 dime bag. The dime bag had 4 silver roosies in it, which is about normal these days so I was pretty happy with that.
I had intended to play golf or metal detect today, but it was one of those Pacific Northwest days where it was raining at home, snowing in the higher elevations and just too darn cold and windy to play golf or detect. So I grabbed a bag on cents and started searching. It was a typical bag and I had found 7 or 8 wheats and put them in my little collection bowl. I found a very worn cent that was wheat side up and as is my practice I put it off to the side to look at when I finished the bag. Soon thereafter I found a pretty nice 1919 and into the bowl it went. Then found another one wheat side up that looked like it might be old so I sat it to the side. After finishing the bag I turned my attention to the 2 that I had set aside. The really worn one was a 1913, so I was happy. Then I picked up the other one and looked at the reverse (without a magnifying glass). I noticed what I figured was a bit of damage at the bottom and flipped the coin over. Staring at me was a gorgeous 1909S. Remembering what I thought was damage and immediately recalling that some of the S VDB reverses have a very weak S VDB, I turned the coin back over and looked at it with a magnifying glass at a slightly different angle. Sure enough there it was. I screamed and yelled to my wife that I had found the holy grail. She humored me by saying that's nice dear and went on with her work
Once I came down from the ceiling I called or texted everyone I know who would be interested in my find. Then I thought time to get this puppy on TN. Of course the battery in my camera was flat, so I posted a quick note about the find in another thread here about the oldest finds among the rare cents. I put the battery in the charger and tried to get a few other things done. After about an hour I checked the charger and the charged light still wasn't on so not wanting to rush things, I went out to run my errands and came back a couple of hours later figuring that the battery would be charged. The charged light still wasn't on, but I figured it had enough charge by now so that I could get a couple of pics taken. Turns out the battery wasn't flat it was DEAD. I tried another camera, but couldn't get a close enough focus for a good pic. So now I'm really p*ssed, so I go to the Sony website to see if they even still stock a battery for this camera. ( it is an old Mavica that uses 3.5" disks as the recording media). They did have the battery so I ordered one. At about the same time I pressed the purchase button on the Sony site I thought maybe Batteries Plus would have one. So I went to their web site and sure enough there it was. Called the local store to inquire and they had it in stock. They did so it was back in the car for a 15 mile trip to the area where I had just been running errands to pick up a battery. Of course all the way there and back I'm hoping some idiot doesn't hit me or that I don't have a heart attack or car trouble because I was so excited to get the battery and be able to post the pic.
So here is the pic. As you can see the VDB is kinda faint when looking straight at the reverse. But, one of the known reverses is referred to as the faint VDB. You can see it a bit better in the partial pic.
Here is the rest of the story. It's kinda long but hey I don't find one of these every day.
I have 3 branch banks that sell me the bags that come off of their coin counters. Recently the big volume one got a new counter that uses a big bin rather than individual bags to store coin that is run through the machine. I was pretty bummed out about it since my volume is way down. However, a couple of weeks ago one of my favorite tellers from that branch got a promotion to another branch that I never visit because it is out of the way. Anyway, yesterday I had some extra time while running errands and pick-ups so I went by that branch to see what they had. I managed to pick up 2 cent bags and 1 dime bag. The dime bag had 4 silver roosies in it, which is about normal these days so I was pretty happy with that.
I had intended to play golf or metal detect today, but it was one of those Pacific Northwest days where it was raining at home, snowing in the higher elevations and just too darn cold and windy to play golf or detect. So I grabbed a bag on cents and started searching. It was a typical bag and I had found 7 or 8 wheats and put them in my little collection bowl. I found a very worn cent that was wheat side up and as is my practice I put it off to the side to look at when I finished the bag. Soon thereafter I found a pretty nice 1919 and into the bowl it went. Then found another one wheat side up that looked like it might be old so I sat it to the side. After finishing the bag I turned my attention to the 2 that I had set aside. The really worn one was a 1913, so I was happy. Then I picked up the other one and looked at the reverse (without a magnifying glass). I noticed what I figured was a bit of damage at the bottom and flipped the coin over. Staring at me was a gorgeous 1909S. Remembering what I thought was damage and immediately recalling that some of the S VDB reverses have a very weak S VDB, I turned the coin back over and looked at it with a magnifying glass at a slightly different angle. Sure enough there it was. I screamed and yelled to my wife that I had found the holy grail. She humored me by saying that's nice dear and went on with her work
Once I came down from the ceiling I called or texted everyone I know who would be interested in my find. Then I thought time to get this puppy on TN. Of course the battery in my camera was flat, so I posted a quick note about the find in another thread here about the oldest finds among the rare cents. I put the battery in the charger and tried to get a few other things done. After about an hour I checked the charger and the charged light still wasn't on so not wanting to rush things, I went out to run my errands and came back a couple of hours later figuring that the battery would be charged. The charged light still wasn't on, but I figured it had enough charge by now so that I could get a couple of pics taken. Turns out the battery wasn't flat it was DEAD. I tried another camera, but couldn't get a close enough focus for a good pic. So now I'm really p*ssed, so I go to the Sony website to see if they even still stock a battery for this camera. ( it is an old Mavica that uses 3.5" disks as the recording media). They did have the battery so I ordered one. At about the same time I pressed the purchase button on the Sony site I thought maybe Batteries Plus would have one. So I went to their web site and sure enough there it was. Called the local store to inquire and they had it in stock. They did so it was back in the car for a 15 mile trip to the area where I had just been running errands to pick up a battery. Of course all the way there and back I'm hoping some idiot doesn't hit me or that I don't have a heart attack or car trouble because I was so excited to get the battery and be able to post the pic.
So here is the pic. As you can see the VDB is kinda faint when looking straight at the reverse. But, one of the known reverses is referred to as the faint VDB. You can see it a bit better in the partial pic.
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it only covers certaine aspects of detecting.
. Doing that, we pulled over 8500 wheaties, tons of Canadians and 1 Indian head penny (1886). I know we got some 1909 and 1909VDBs, but never an S or SVDB. We usually found enough dirty dimes in the rolls to cover the coins we took out, too! Sometimes the rolls were open ended and you could see wheats on the end; of course, these rolls were opened first 
