Johnny Ringo Silver
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A week ago, I was hunting a field where a one room school house once stood. I had pulled up 5 or 6 indians and a V-nickel along with a 1919 mercury dime. I was totally happy with what I had found because I consider finding any coins at an old one room pretty good.
Well, I got a good dime signal at about 5in or so and I dug a 6in plug and popped it out. As the full plug turned over, a piece of dirt the size of a golf ball fell off the bottom. I scanned the hole with the trusty sunray and then the full plug with neither giving me a response.
I then swung the sunray over that little clump of dirt that fell from the bottom and there she was. All of the other coins from this site were 1901 to 1920's and thats it so I figured the silver dime within the plug would be a late barber or early merc. I then had an idea.....
Our club meeting was the next weekend "This last sunday" and I have always wanted to keep a silver in a plug to take to the club meeting and have one of our members kids open it up to see what year it was. So since the silver dime was in this clump of dirt and I had a good idea what age it was going to be I figured this was as good a time as any. I posted the story on our clubs website and offered up a contest to see who could guess the closest to the correct year and the winner would recieve a walking liberty half from me.
The waiting was killing me and I am suprised that I lasted the whole week without breaking it open. You could just barely see the reeds peeking out one side of the dirt and it was teasing me. At our meeting/hunt I asked one of our youngest members "the daughter of another member" to open it up and see what it was. After sitting in my garage for a week, the dirt had dried up totally and when she put the squeeze to it the ball of dirt just crumbled to dust revealing a very worn out silver coin that was still too dirty to easily ID. Someone brought over a bottle of water and I washed the coin off revealing what we were all anxious to know. This is when it just got totally awesome!!! I was looking down at a SEATED DIME with arrows and a real faint date!!!! How about that!!!!! I finally brought in a silver to open in front of the whole club and it turns out to be a seated !!! After close inspection the dime turns out to be an 1853 variety 3 I believe. I had to go back and change the date for oldest coin found this month scratching out my 1895 indian that I had already recorded.
The closest guess was 1901 and he got his walker. Everyone was thrilled to see the seated come out of the plug.
Memories made one plug at a time!!! 8)
Well, I got a good dime signal at about 5in or so and I dug a 6in plug and popped it out. As the full plug turned over, a piece of dirt the size of a golf ball fell off the bottom. I scanned the hole with the trusty sunray and then the full plug with neither giving me a response.
I then swung the sunray over that little clump of dirt that fell from the bottom and there she was. All of the other coins from this site were 1901 to 1920's and thats it so I figured the silver dime within the plug would be a late barber or early merc. I then had an idea.....
Our club meeting was the next weekend "This last sunday" and I have always wanted to keep a silver in a plug to take to the club meeting and have one of our members kids open it up to see what year it was. So since the silver dime was in this clump of dirt and I had a good idea what age it was going to be I figured this was as good a time as any. I posted the story on our clubs website and offered up a contest to see who could guess the closest to the correct year and the winner would recieve a walking liberty half from me.
The waiting was killing me and I am suprised that I lasted the whole week without breaking it open. You could just barely see the reeds peeking out one side of the dirt and it was teasing me. At our meeting/hunt I asked one of our youngest members "the daughter of another member" to open it up and see what it was. After sitting in my garage for a week, the dirt had dried up totally and when she put the squeeze to it the ball of dirt just crumbled to dust revealing a very worn out silver coin that was still too dirty to easily ID. Someone brought over a bottle of water and I washed the coin off revealing what we were all anxious to know. This is when it just got totally awesome!!! I was looking down at a SEATED DIME with arrows and a real faint date!!!! How about that!!!!! I finally brought in a silver to open in front of the whole club and it turns out to be a seated !!! After close inspection the dime turns out to be an 1853 variety 3 I believe. I had to go back and change the date for oldest coin found this month scratching out my 1895 indian that I had already recorded.
The closest guess was 1901 and he got his walker. Everyone was thrilled to see the seated come out of the plug.
Memories made one plug at a time!!! 8)
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BIG surprise in that clump of dirt !
