1865 2 center in a condition that is hard to believe!

[digger27]

My first, my oldest coin so far and a thrill to dig...especially for a mostly jewelry hunter like me.
Our club treasurer got us into an historical estate for a 2 hour hunt and I wanted to make it count.
It went well.

 

[detroitdigger]

That 2cent piece is sweet!

 

[DocBeav]

Beautiful coin!

 

[terpfan]

A very nice find indeed. I've always been puzzled that most of the 2-centers posted are in excellent condition. Maybe it is my imagination, but they do not seem to corrode as much as copper indian heads of a similar age. It is also interesting to me that we do not see worn 2-centers. They weren't minted for a long period of time (1864-1873), and it makes me wonder if people took them out of circulation very quickly after the mints stopped making them.

 

[{Sentinel}]

Nice one esp. for your first, good job.

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[redelf12]

what did it ring on your machine ?

 

[HCW]

I don't know why but almost everyone of those Iv'e seen dug come out of the ground looking great.
I have found three myself and they all look beautiful.
Congrats!

 

[digger27]

I don't know why but almost everyone of those Iv'e seen dug come out of the ground looking great.
I have found three myself and they all look beautiful.
Congrats!

Yes, I noticed a few other posts with some in way better condition then mine, but a few members of my club told me they found a few in pretty good condition but mine is a little sharper in the details.

 

[digger27]

what did it ring on your machine ?

I was using my Vaquero with a 5.75 concentric coil.
I started hunting in all metal and found and dug some big iron because we were supposed to give back anything to the historical society that had significance in relationship to this site and I wanted to contribute something.
After digging a horseshoe and maybe a part of an oxen shoe and a few other pieces of large iron I gave up on that because they were deep and took too long to carefully extract without wrecking up the grass plus there was that 2 hour time limit so I changed my plan of attack
I put my Vaq in disc with the knob set at just below the F in foil because there was much iron here in all sizes and some foil and can slaw too, modern and older and this way I could avoid the smaller stuff.
I hunted with my thumb on the pinpoint button so I was in all metal to go the deepest and could hear the really big iron metal pieces and avoid them too.
I listened for the zip-zip sound and when I got one I took my finger off the button and checked to see if the signal was still there in disc.
If it wasn't I continued on, if it was I thumbed that knob past the fade out point and listened to how the signal came in as I slowly thumbed the knob back down...a method I use when I hunt with both my Tesoros.
I dug a few pieces of trash doing this that stayed solid as it came in when I thumbed back down but avoided others that didn't and were noisy, and then I came across this signal that didn't disc out, (a high tone because it is 95% copper), and stayed solid from 2 directions.
I was hoping to dig a silver coin but this dark thing came up instead.
It was round so I hoped it was something cool and not just a copper penny but I had no idea what it was as I pulled it out of the ground.
Bigger than a penny and I rubbed off a little dirt on one side and saw part of the shield, then flipped it over to rub some dirt off of that side and saw the 2 cents.
That is when the yelling began.
We had about 40 people from my club hunting all over this estate that dates back to before the civil war for 2 hours with all kinds of detectors and coils of all sizes and many with a great amount of experience finding old coins..
We suspect there might have been a lot of dirt moved around here in the past because only one other person was lucky enough to find a coin of any kind, a wrecked Large cent with no date.
Both of our coins were found at the 4-5" depth mark.

Considering how many people were hunting here with all that equipment and experience and only 2 coins were found I consider myself very lucky especially rolling over this thing hunting such a large area with that small coil.

This was a one shot deal on a totally historical site that our treasurer sweet talked the historical society and parks department into letting us hunt for 2 hours only and probably will never let anyone hunt again.
The club president is going to make a nice display with some of the cooler bits of iron pieces and other odd and end stuff that might have some historical significance tying it to this site and present it to the historical society so maybe we might get a chance to do this again but we are not holding our breaths and all are grateful we had this one chance.

Me especially!