My First Large Cent

[OWK]

Haven't been detecting for long (at least since I was a kid). Only had my new machine for a few weeks.

Went to see my Dad on Father's Day, and enjoyed good company, and reminiscing. Remembered I had my F70 in the truck, and decided to get in a few minutes of swinging on my Dad's back yard. It was a farm field in PA in 1878 (according to the local Atlas for the time). Only spent about 20 minutes swinging. It's a pretty big property, so I started in the middle of the yard.


Absolutely loaded with square nails. (all in roughly the middle of the 2 acre back yard). Took a hard look at the yard, and noticed a difference in the area I was searching. It was a little lower depression than the rest of the yard. Sunken area... square nails.. 2+2 = old structure site. Decided I might be better off searching around the "structure" rather than in it. Moved 50 ft toward the house, casually swinging along the way. Caught the edge of a sweet high tone. Great signal.

Pretty shallow (3 to 4 inches) next to my Dad's shed I dug a US Large Cent. It's pretty toasted, but the back is good enough to make out the wreath, and "ONE CENT". Toasted or not, I was pretty thrilled. But I couldn't help but wonder how I could be so lucky as to dig a large cent in my Dad's back yard in such a short time of searching. This was supposed to have been an empty field.

So I went back to the maps. Sure enough, the 1878 Atlas shows a church about a block away from my Dad's house. But I found an earlier (1860) Atlas, and wouldn't you know it, the Church in 1860, was right smack in the middle of my Dad's back yard. And since the Atlas actually named the Church, I did a little more snooping. The earliest reference to the Church Structure in my Dad's yard was from 1820. And the local history says it was served by a circuit preacher on the same site even earlier than that.

So all in all, a pretty awesome Father's day. Got to see my Dad. Found a Large Cent in no time flat (first signal dug). And learned that my Dad's yard is gonna be an AWESOME hunting ground.

 

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[Metdet49]

Great story and excellent job with the research. Sounds like you're in the middle of a hotbed of early 19th century activity. I'm still working on getting permission to hunt an old abandoned farm site that also was the site of an early 1800's church. Congrats on your first large cent, hopefully you can pull a date off it with some careful cleaning.

 

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[The Rebel]

WTG on the find! Sounds like a virgin spot! Hit it hard & keep us posted!

 

[dirtlooter]

you guys back east and up north seem to have the corner on the really old coins, sometimes i think parts of the south was too poor to have any coins! lol nah, we have some, here and there, mostly there!

 

[coinman123]

Large cents are my favorite coins to find, great find!

 

[Ahab8]

you guys back east and up north seem to have the corner on the really old coins, sometimes i think parts of the south was too poor to have any coins! lol nah, we have some, here and there, mostly there!

It's certainly nice to know that every time out you have a chance of digging an old coin. I've dug 11 1700s coins in my first 9 months. If you can pick some good sites up here in the NE you will do well. Our weather sucks though :-) everything is a give and take

 

[toddsumm1]

Awesome! I just dug my first not too long ago! It's really neat seeing those come out of the ground. Now you need to find some more!

 

[BuckleBoy]

That's not the end of the great finds you're about to make in your Dad's yard. Don't cherry pick for coins. Dig the lower range targets too. Buttons are great finds to make, and many are worth much more than grubby coins.

-Buck

 

[OWK]

Managed to get back to my father's yard for a bit on Sunday.

Only had a few hours, and a it is a big yard (acres) ... so I tried to do what I'd call a scouting survey.

Found two spots of great interest. One is closer to my father's house, and includes more cut square nails than I'd care to mention. It is in this area that I found the large cent, and it is also in this area that early maps show a church to have existed between 1820, and 1867. The church was moved in 1867 to a site not far away, and remains there today. I assume the cut nails are from the church site.

A bit further into the yard is another heavy concentration of nails. These nails however, are much older. Crudely formed rose head nails. Heavily made, and obviously completely hand forged. Definitely pre-1800. I don't have anything to aid in identifying what this structure might have been, but I know that the first school in this Pennsylvania county was built in 1740 only a short distance away. So clearly the area was populated in the early to mid 1700's.

I've learned more about early nails in the past few days, than I ever thought I'd want to know. But it all helps.

Now I'm in the process of learning to coax the performance out of my F70, even in a forest of nails. It's nice to have a working laboratory in my Dad's yard, where I can listen, and dig, and be selective, and then not so selective in digging targets. No sense of urgency. Just learning.

I'm generally not a patient guy... but patience is called for here.

It's gonna take a while to hunt this thing. But I feel like it'll be worth it.