I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday - Updated pictures

Narthoniel

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Location
Virginia Beach
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Excal 2 and E Trac
Update: scroll down for photos after cleaning.




And I am sure she is very happy to be safe and dry. She had been in the water for a very long time, and was very worn out from the experience.

I was gridding out my favorite strip of beach, hoping to cash in on some erosion with all the strong winds we have been having lately. Turns out I found an area where LOTS of old targets were showing up. All the clad I dug was heavily corroded, green, and unreadable except for the size alone.

I was gridding into the water, then back out and up the beach into the coin line. One on line, I was going up on the wet sand, and had a good hit. Dug, and once it was in the scoop, filled my hole, and kept on gridding, planning to clean out the sand once I got back to the water. Not far away, I had another nice hit, and knowing it was close, hoped to get it in the scoop without dumping the sand in the scoop already. Well, I got lucky, and with one shallow scoop, no sound in the hole. Made it to the water without any more sounds, and cleaned out the scoop. Looked in to see a quarter, and a huge disc 3 or 4 times the size of the quarter. Thinking it was a washer, I looked at it, and was surprised to see it was solid. I could make out some small marks along the edge, but thought nothing of it, and chucked it into my pouch. Hard to see much in the early morning darkness.

Short time later, I noticed Mike come along. I walked over to him, showed him where I had been gridding, and then showed him my strange disc. He looked at it, did a double take, looked again, and his eyes lit up.

"Where the hell did you find this?!?"
I pointed a few feet down the beach.

He identified it better than I could, and it turns out it is a MORGAN DOLLAR!!! And by the looks of it, it has been in the water for decades. The back is completely smooth, and the date is unreadable, but, it is a Morgan. The outline of the face and the stars under it are visible, and it is one of my greatest finds. I always wondered if I would ever find a silver dollar, but never expected one to show up on the beach. Especially a salt water beach.

Morgan.webp

Let the lesson therefore be told - a beach is NEVER hunted out. Targets are always there, but they cannot always be found. I hunt this area often, sometimes more than once a week, and grid it out heavily. This has been under my coil before, I am sure, but until today, I could not reach it.

May you all be blessed with similarly spectacular finds!
Anthony
 
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Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

I think this is absolutely incredible! What a wonderful find. Yeah, I know it is in bad shape but... a great find anyway. WTG Narthoniel!
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

Narthoniel that is even more proof that a beach is never hunted out. I'm still waiting for my first Morgan. Congrats on the nice fine.

I noticed that a few other hunters have been finding older stuff lately. I found in the past few months 3 wheats and a silver quarter on hunted out beaches.

Good luck on your next hunts.
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

LOL the whole beginning of the story I was waiting for you to say "And out of the corner of my eye I saw an old lady floundering in the surf". WOW i'd submit that to a treasure mag or the corp of the metal detector you were using or corp or something, that has to be quite a rare find for a modern public beach!
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

nudels said:
LOL the whole beginning of the story I was waiting for you to say "And out of the corner of my eye I saw an old lady floundering in the surf". WOW i'd submit that to a treasure mag or the corp of the metal detector you were using or corp or something, that has to be quite a rare find for a modern public beach!

Wow from the looks of it that thing had been up and down the beach for a long time!
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

nice job on the old silver
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

very nice !! I'm sure that storm is churning up allot of good targets I was at the Outerbanks Saturday the waves were 6-8 footers I tried to stay in the ankle deep water but the surf was hitting me high on the thigh's so it was pretty hard detecting to say the least. I did get 14 nails and a copper door lock plate but that's it not even a bottle cap. It was a good learning curve for me with my new detector so I was very happy to get that...
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

wow you don't see many of those come out of the beach so be very proud you found her
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

That's an awesome,, unexpected find
Must have been the action of the sand over decades that scrubbed the coin flat
Possible it's from a shipwreck
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

Wow, that is awesome!!! :icon_pirat:
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

nice dig! in 40 years iv not found 1 Silver dollar !
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

That is one sweet silver dollar congrats Anthony
 
Re: I rescued a sweet old lady at the beach yesterday

I finally managed to get a good photo of this coin after cleaning. I used electrolysis, and it brought otu a lot of hidden detail. There was nothing visible on the back, but now there is some, including a mint mark! On the front, the date is slightly visible from the right angle, and appears to be 1884 more than 1894. I am very happy with the way it cleaned up given its condition.
 

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humm in 1890's thats was a days pay for many folks -- wonder if any of her friends are still thrashing about needing to be "rescued". ;D
 
She may be an Old Lady but she's still just as pretty as the day she was born!

HH

Desertfox
 
Love to hear that even searched areas can give up a treasure. Congratulations on a unique beach find.
 
ivan salis said:
humm in 1890's thats was a days pay for many folks -- wonder if any of her friends are still thrashing about needing to be "rescued". ;D

When I found this, I showed it to an old salt that has hunted here for a long time. He told me that recently a few of these have been found, and that mine was in the worst condition of them. There was one from 1857, one from the 1900's, and then one fella that hit a motherload and found 19 Morgan Dollars wrapped in a roll together. I have also heard of other silver coins being found - SLQs, Mercury Dimes, Buffalo Nickles, etc from the surf here. I love rescuing the old ones :).
 

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