Is Liberty Dead?

Erik in NJ

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No not a political rant about Sleepy Joe potentially getting into the WH but I'm tempted :tongue3:

Only had about 45 minutes before dark detecting iffy signals at a house that I've pounded with my Explorer SE Pro. Same house I found that strange unidentified bitted key about 6" above a but old rusted piece of iron in the size and shape of a slice of pizza a couple weeks ago.

The Equinox 800 is really impressing me with the number of finds I am making that are co-located with large rusted iron nails/objects. This find was no exception.

In an area I know I've been over before I got a very strange signal with the 800. Different signals that were not repeatable in different direction. One of them hit high around 30 but seemed like some kind of strange falsing. Pinpointing was nearly impossible, but after years of experience with an Explorer I was able to kinda localize a target and b/c targets are now rare at this site decided to dig and check it out--was a bit concerned it was a pipe or something.

In the pile of dirt the Garrett carrot picked up on what I thought was aluminum junk, but I could see an oddly shaped reeded edge and on the other side the word "Dollar" but it seemed to have a strange shank, so I put it in a plastic zip-lock bag and told my partner "maybe a silver quarter turned into a button...strange this thing should have sung out REALLY clearly...there's gotta be something else strange down there." So I located another difficult signal and a few inches away was a huge rusted nail or bolt. I was astounded at the performance of the 800 in terms of the number of items I have found now co-located with iron.

So it was cold getting dark and we went to get some pizza. Still had no idea what I'd dug but thought it was something cool.

Upon getting home and running it under some cold water, turns out to be a REALLY interesting find--a Standing Liberty Quarter with a hole blown straight through it! I grab my jeweler's loupe and I see an "S" mint mark and then a clear 1918 :icon_thumright: now I'm actually praying that there is NO 7 visible below the 8! :laughing7: Doesn't appear to be. Whew! Sad though, the SLQ was in pretty nice shape when shot before its 100 year big sleep.

I've dug a handful of annoying .22 casings in the general vicinity of this find so I can only surmise that someone had fun imitating a Western and trying to hit this coin in the air with a .22 slug. A very cool and really unique piece of history. The hole is blasted right through the image of standing Liberty--will make another great display piece from this house! Hopefully not a sign of things to come for Liberty in the US.

I have found a KG up in MA that looks like it was shot by a BB gun, but it only bent the coin. This one is blasted clean through the center and I have never seen a silver coin that's been shot before--when it was done this quarter could probably have bought lunch. So what are the odds of a cleanly shot through *and* dated S mint mark SQL? :icon_scratch:
 

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Upvote 54

ToddsPoint

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I used to shoot coins. About half the time they fly away when hit and are lost. Maybe that's what happened here. Probably more of them around. Gary
 

E-Trac-Ohio

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Wow ... that's really cool and really bad at the same time !
 

pepperj

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Shot through the heart...........
Cool looking silver for sure, and a keeper. Congrats
 

brianc053

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Erik thanks for sharing. That's a very cool find, and I appreciate your discussion of your Equinox signals. I've seen similar behavior in that farm field I've been posting about recently (behavior = ability to pull good targets out from iron, like nails. BUT - I do also get some 30 signals that end up just being rusty iron....).
- Brian
 

jeff of pa

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hmmm. what a shame !

those quarters seem almost as rare as hen's teeth to find. and even more-so with dates.

I do enjoy smaller change with bullet holes though
 

CoinFetcher

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Liberty has been shoot clean through my man!

I can’t believe we live in this era of insanity. The guise of Safely has taken over freedom as the nations more precious ideal.
 

Digger RJ

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Very Nice!!! Congrats!!! Interesting!!!
 

WaterScoop

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I think something larger then .22 caliber killed that coin



PS super cool find
 

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Goldiver

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That is one cool SLQ! I would have been pretty stoked to dig it.

Steve
 

xr7ator

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Fantastic find for the display case. Good luck finding another! Thanks for sharing.
 

Centsless Detecting

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That is one sweet coin. Now arnt you glad you decided to dig it? Those half hitting targets for me have mostly been a nail for me. A few months ago I tested my sharp shooting skills on a penny. I nailed it at 30ft with my daisy. Looked for 30 minutes with my Nox and couldent find it lol.
 

Wildcat1750

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Two of the last few GW silver quarters that I've found have similar gunshot wounds. Both were from the same area of a site. More recently I found a Canadian King George Large Cent that took a bullet.
 

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Erik in NJ

Erik in NJ

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Two of the last few GW silver quarters that I've found have similar gunshot wounds. Both were from the same area of a site. More recently I found a Canadian King George Large Cent that took a bullet.

Hi feel free to post yours here....I'd like to see some other shot coins. I'm not in a super rural area so there was less gun play around here for that kind of thing though obviously there was some.
 

Calabash Digger

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eyemustdigtreasure

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cause of Death? Gunshot wound...!
1918 Silver quarter, Standing Liberty..too bad its not an 8 over the 7 ...!
 

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Erik in NJ

Erik in NJ

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I think something larger then .22 caliber killed that coin
PS super cool find

Thanks. I did find a larger live round that's still in my junk bucket. I'll have to go thru that stuff and see what it was. What caliber round do you think it might have been hit with?
 

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