Very Old silver coin damaged need is help

Eastcoasthunter21 · Aug 23, 2015

Hello I've been hunting a very old place with a fellow tnet member

The funds are few but good today I pulled an 1864 ihp early buffalo
And four early wheats and this coin it has been scraped by a machine but the bottom half could be identified by someone thanks for looking and any guesses

Eastcoasthunter21 · Aug 23, 2015

It is silver

romeo-1 · Aug 23, 2015

Looks like a love token...

OWK · Aug 23, 2015

Strikes me as Ottoman (Arabic) for some reason

Scrappy · Aug 23, 2015

I'm not sure what that is but r-1's guess may be correct. It looks hand etched possibly. What makes you sure it's very old?

Eastcoasthunter21 · Aug 23, 2015

The place I found it was settled in the 1600s was a busy port abandoned for over a century

BigWaveDave · Aug 23, 2015

you gonna eat that M?

My first thought was a damaged love token...

against the wind · Aug 23, 2015

Yep,, I'm feeling the love

Erik in NJ · Aug 23, 2015

I think it's a mid to later 19th C love token that unfortunately got trashed...perhaps on purpose. I don't have an M&M handy...can you tell us the diameter? Is it the same as a dime? Half dime?

OWK · Aug 23, 2015

Smaller than a half-dime

Erik in NJ · Aug 23, 2015

OWK said:
Smaller than a half-dime

You must have an M&M handy! :laughing7:

Funny that he used a piece of candy for a size ref! Anyway OWK is an expert on hand engraved silver so I bow to his MUCH greater insight!

OWK · Aug 23, 2015

Erik in NJ said:
You must have an M&M handy! Funny that he used a piece of candy for a size ref! Anyway OWK is an expert on hand engraved silver so I bow to his MUCH greater insight!

Hard to offer a real opinion here... It's pretty beat up.

But it does look smaller than any North American coin to me.

And I spent a couple years in Turkey many years ago, and I may or may not have had a White's 5000D with me at the time... and I may or may not have dug dozens of Ottoman coins up in the hills of North Central Turkey. (I'll tell you some interesting stories some time).

I can't find anything definitive, but I've seen an awful lot of hammered Ottoman coins that have a patterned border, and Arabic script in the center. This coin makes me think of those coins.

BTW... an M&M is 1.04 cm in diameter.