Rare 1787 Copper - DAMAGED! - Learn from my mistake

[Silver Fox]

I didn't really find this coin today, I found it many years ago in NYC's Central Park. It was obviously in dirt that had been transferred to the particular part of the park when they built the park in the late 1800s. Or, it could have been prior to when I found the coin.

I bring this to your attention because yesterday I received the APRIL 2008 issue of WESTERN & EASTERN TREASURES, the ANNUAL "BEST FINDS" issue. On page 30 it shows a 1787 "HERCULES HEAD" CONNECTICUT COPPER with a value of $2,500+ found by Brett Card. The coin looks pretty clean.

I looked in my goodies bag as I also had found a 1787 copper. I compared them and they're identical. When I found it and checked for value it wasn't worth $2,500 then. My coin doesn't have the clean detail Brett's does. It may have had the detail but I screwed up.

We all have the habit of wiping our found coins with our fingers or gloved fingers to see what we've found. This is not necessary as much with silver but any corroded item gets the wiping treatment. In actuality, one should just put whatever one finds in our goodies bag and, later at home, gently run the item(s) under water or let it soak or whatever but don't do it in the field!

When I found my copper it was just a round brown thing encased in hardened dirt. I gave it the rubbing treatment but that wasn't enough. When I got it home I scraped the hell out of it. You can see what I have left of a possible $2,500+ coin which would have possibly cleaned better than Brett's as you can still see the date on mine clearer than Brett's.

Every time I handle the coin and realize how stupid I was I want to kick myself in the butt. I have no idea how much my mutilated rare 1787 Connecticut Copper is worth or if it has any value.

Guys, gals, resist temptation and just put that coin away and just return to detecting with the thoughts that when you get home the satisfaction will be worth the wait.

Silver (oh, woe is me) Fox

 

[ModernMiner]

Great story SF.
Sorry to hear the bad news, but I'd be happy as a clam with your coin. Great story.
I'm guilty of wanting to know what I dug out in the field too.
I ruined my 1st and only LC with over-cleaning it too.
-MM-

 

[madmacabre]

YOU went metal detecting in Central park?!

 

[djabend]

I ruined my 1st and only LC with over-cleaning it too.
-MM-

Same here over cleaned my first large cent.
Most of my coppers get boiled in peroxide now.
HH,
Donny

 

[mamabear]

thanx for sharing your lesson. Hope I learn from it. sorry for your boo-boo

 

[shanegalang]

Great advise! But I out of habit always wait to see what I have found once I get home, but just because I want to save the surprises. Now I have a good reason not to mess with them out in the field!! Thanks for the pointer! 8)

 

[olas13]

Well now that is exactly my feelings. Some of you saw my 1787 fugio cent found on Thanksgiving.the first pic uncleaned looked unbelievable. Hard to believe it came out of the ground.So I set off to clean it(dummy that I was)It had obvious dirt clinging to it. As soon as I removed the dirt so did I remove the detail to some extent. Every time I looked at the coin after that I was so diappointed that I SOLD IT!!
I now just look at the great pics of it before cleaning that I saved.

 

[Silver Fox]

YOU went metal detecting in Central park?!

You got it! I started detecting in L.A. in the early '80s and made 1 trip back to NYC in the 10 years I lived in L.A. I kept up the leases on my NYC apartment and when my apartment building went co-op my wife and I bought my old apartment. We moved back in 1987 and I detected in Central Park, illegally, until the Rangers got too much for me in the early 2000s. I pulled thousands of clad coins, old coins, hundreds of silver coins, error coins, barbers, 2 cents, 3 cents, V nickels, some gold, medals, tokens, etc.

And that 1787 Connecticut Copper.

Because I used homemade probes made from solid fiberglass fishing rods I never scratched a coin. Just scraped the hell out of them!

If there's any interest I'll be glad to post photos of my finds.

 

[Colonial Copper Zeus]

I don't think it would have made much of a difference. I would try tumbling it alittle though.
Chris

 

[birdman]

Still an amazing find! I think most of us have destroyed a good find trying to make it better.

 

[hollowpointred]

YOU went metal detecting in Central park?!

You got it! I started detecting in L.A. in the early '80s and made 1 trip back to NYC in the 10 years I lived in L.A. I kept up the leases on my NYC apartment and when my apartment building went co-op my wife and I bought my old apartment. We moved back in 1987 and I detected in Central Park, illegally, until the Rangers got too much for me in the early 2000s. I pulled thousands of clad coins, old coins, hundreds of silver coins, error coins, barbers, 2 cents, 3 cents, V nickels, some gold, medals, tokens, etc.

And that 1787 Connecticut Copper.

Because I used homemade probes made from solid fiberglass fishing rods I never scratched a coin. Just scraped the hell out of them!

If there's any interest I'll be glad to post photos of my finds.

well i for one am interested in seeing your finds. please post them.

 

[ashleysflyr]

INTERESTED.

~Tom

 

[Magic Fingers]

Thanks for stressing to this newbie about how important "after" hunting care is. I have so much to learn.

 

[jimmatt_43]

A hard lesson learned by most of us.My first nice find was a 1910 wheat.I gently scrubbed it with metal cleaner and a soft scratch pad.I ended up with a plain copper disc.Hope others can learn from my mistake.
Many great cleaning tips in ''cleaning and preservation'' section.
Jim

 

[Montana Jim]

Man... bummer.

I wanted to see what a good one looked like so I did some searching and found out there were 241 varieties of 1787 Connecticut coppers that year with only one being the "Hercules Head" with only 22 known to exist.

Have you had your coin professionaly attributed?




I'm dissapointed that you are so eager to advertise your illegal hunting practices. Potentially makes it tougher on the rest of us.

 

[MUD(S.W.A.T)]

Been there done that, overcleaned 1854 large cent, Indian head penny, and some buffalo's. I dug a 1916 merc but never cleaned it or checked for the D on the field. Waited till I got home, no D Oh well...

Keep @ it and HH!!

 

[Silver Fox]

Man... bummer.

I wanted to see what a good one looked like so I did some searching and found out there were 241 varieties of 1787 Connecticut coppers that year with only one being the "Hercules Head" with only 22 known to exist.

Have you had your coin professionaly attributed?




I'm dissapointed that you are so eager to advertise your illegal hunting practices. Potentially makes it tougher on the rest of us.

You are using present-day thinking to criticize past activities. I stopped detecting illegally in Central Park years ago but I'm not sorry of when I did so. Put yourself in my shoes for a few minutes. Central Park is approximatelly 843 acres big. It's man-made, little of it is natural. The following activities take place in Central Park even as we speak: dogs are allowed to do whatever they want to do with no enforcement of regulations. Even though dogs/pets are supposed to be leashed quite a few hundreds or thousands are not leashed. The leashes are rarely of the legal length, 6 feet. Dogs run after wildlife. Owners throw sticks in the lake for their pets to jump in and bring back. Dogs will dig deep holes. I've never seen any of these illegal activities punished by the PEP (Park Enforcement Patrol).

News vehicles, movie companies, park vehicles are allowed onto the grass sometimes leaving deep ruts. Mounted police go on sometimes wet ground their horses leaving deep hoof holes. The park maintenance crews use machines that dig and spit out clumps of grass/soil for aerating purposes. All of the above and other just as damaging activities are allowed with no response from the PEP. While some activities such as the aerating are part of the park's maintenance the others are obviously not.

I saw many metal detectorists, alone and in groups, leave areas looking like a war field. Not visible holes but visible bad stomping of where they removed the items. I was not like that and you'd have a hard time finding any of my dug areas because I didn't have to dig a hole to retrieve a damn clad cent. Rarely used my trowel and when I had to I was careful to make a coin-wide hole. There's a guy on TNET who's proud of his video showing some "new" ridiculous detecting technique and then makes a hole about 8" wide to retrieve a wheat when he could have simply used a probe to find the coin and retrieve it.

It never bothered me to retrieve the many coins and artifacts that I did find because of my careful method of never "hurting" the park, compared to the others who seemed to have never learned to retrieve properly. In the woods it's okay to be sloppy but not in a city park.

It took me many years to find out metal detecting was illegal and that came about because I found a Ranger's pocketbook manual where it was specified. After that I made sure that I had a permit with me whenever I went to the allowed parks and stopped "sneaking" in to Central Park.

I didn't take photos of everything I found individually, I took photos of accumulated coins.

Everyone is proud of their finds.

I once again am taking up metal detecting and I've secured a Park's Permit and I'm detecting only in the allowed park. The past is done with and one cannot change it.

 

[kieser sousa/rip]

[/quote]
You are using present-day thinking to criticize past activities. I stopped detecting illegally in Central Park years but I'm not sorry of when I did so. Put yourself in my shoes for a few minutes. Central Park is approximatelly 843 acres big. It's man-made, little of it is natural. The following activities take place in Central Park even as we speak: dogs are allowed to do whatever they want to do with no enforcement of regulations. Even though dogs/pets are supposed to be leashed quite a few hundreds or thousands are not leashed. The leashes are rarely of the legal length, 6 feet. Dogs run after wildlife. Owners throw sticks in the lake for their pets to jump in and bring back. Dogs will dig deep holes. I've never seen any of these illegal activities punished by the PEP (Park Enforcement Patrol).

News vehicles, movie companies, park vehicles drive are allowed onto the grass sometimes leaving deep ruts. Mounted police go on sometimes wet ground leaving deep hoof holes. The park maintenance crews use machines that dig and spit out clumps of grass/soil for aerating purposes. All of the above and other just as damaging activities are allowed with no response from the PEP. While some activities such as the aerating are part of the park's maintenance the others are obviously not.

I saw many metal detectorists, alone and in groups, leave areas looking like a war field. Not visible holes but visible bad stomping of where they removed the items. I was not like that and you'd have a hard time finding any of my dug areas because I didn't have to dig a hole to retrieve a damn clad coin. Rarely used my trowel and when I had to I was careful to make a coin-wide hole. There's a guy on TNET who's proud of his video showing some "new" ridiculous detecting technique and then makes a hole about 8" wide to retrieve a wheat when he could have simply used a probe to find the coin and retrieve it.

It never bothered me to retrieve the many coins and artifacts that I did find because of my careful method of never "hurting" the park, compared to the others who seemed to have never learned to retrieve properly. In the woods it's okay to be sloppy but not in a city park.

It took me many years to find out metal detecting was illegal and that came about because I found a Ranger's pocketbook manual where it was specified. After that I made sure that I had a permit with me whenever I went to the allowed parks and stopped "sneaking" in to Central Park.

I didn't take photos of everything I found individually, I took photos of accumulated coins.

Everyone is proud of their finds.

I once again am taking up metal detecting and I've secured a Park's Permit and I'm detecting only in the allowed park. The past is done with and one cannot change it.



[/quote]

I lived in NYC back in the 80's and used to detect central park all the time.Didn't know it was illegal until now to do so and I never had anyone tell me anything different.I know what your saying about the park being trashed in more and worse ways than someone detecting and following proper and courteous procedures.You also forgot to mention another common occurrence in the park,religious rituals with animal sacrifice.I remember finding dead animals mostly chickens lying around and yet you never heard of anything being done about that.

PS ..Nice find by the way !

 

[ivan salis]

you live you learn --hopefully that is --

 

[crocop]

Been there done that, overcleaned 1854 large cent, Indian head penny, and some buffalo's. I dug a 1916 merc but never cleaned it or checked for the D on the field. Waited till I got home, no D Oh well...

Keep @ it and HH!!

Mud, you've come a long way from digging "asspalt", "hot rocks" and "pull tabs" glad to see you've improved.