An 1838 Stiver

Almy · Sep 29, 2014

Found yesterday at an 1800s house site I have been detecting for several years. First heard of a stiver when a friend I was detecting with found one last year. Does not seem to be a lot of info about these stivers. What I found was that they were minted by a merchant in British Guiana and have been found on the Atlantic coast.
I also found a 1902 King Edward VI cent there yesterday. Had only a short hunt.
Four years ago I found an 1828 Nova Scotia penny and an 1814 RH token at the same site.

Iron Patch · Sep 29, 2014

Great condition. Yeah they do turn up, I've found several. Only one that was fairly decent.

Argentium · Sep 29, 2014

Nice find ! Your King Edward is VII -if 1902 is the date (rather than VI)

Almy · Oct 1, 2014

Argentium: You are correct - I missed typing the second I.

park pirate · Oct 1, 2014

Nice one..

The Patriot · Oct 1, 2014

got a few also but not in that shape, great save...

Almy · Oct 3, 2014

Good to know that others have been found. There must have been a severe shortage of coins for everyday commerce considering the many different types we find. But a little hard to understand why we find so many in the soil if they were scarce and valuable. The yards would not have been mowed and manicured as they are today and that may have contributed to loss. A dropped one would be very hard to find then, I expect.

Iron Patch · Oct 4, 2014

AcadienLoyalistMarco said:
Good to know that others have been found. There must have been a severe shortage of coins for everyday commerce considering the many different types we find. But a little hard to understand why we find so many in the soil if they were scarce and valuable. The yards would not have been mowed and manicured as they are today and that may have contributed to loss. A dropped one would be very hard to find then, I expect.

You have to remember an active site you can pound pretty good with a detector in 2-3 days could have 50 years of losses you are collecting. Just one old coin lost per year on average is 50 coins! ....and out of 50 coins chances are there would be something that likely would have been quite a loss back then. You also have to remember at certain points some coins were worth far less, so was not really that big a deal to lose... but as detecting people we tend to only look at what the coin is, and not so much when it was lost.