What??? In Michigan???

[lrgoodger]

Yesterday I got my second 1883 IHP in a row. We didn't have any luck in the fields, so we stopped and got permission to do the yard of an old house. It was pretty clean already. We only got four wheaties and the one IHP. It was pretty crusty but at least the date is clear.



Today we hit the fields again and checked four or five sites before we got one that showed evidence that a house was there. We hunted it for a couple of hours and my brother got a couple of flat buttons and a 1917 wheatie. I finally got a signal that banged 92 solid both ways on the Deus II and was convinced I had a dime, but out popped a large cent. It was worn smooth and counterstamped is why it hit that low. I could see part of the word 'UNITED' on the rim and a bit of the wreath near that. When I got home, I looked up the large cent reverses and I could see that the leaves in the wreath near the letters did not match the matron or braided hair large cent wreaths, so I dug deeper and identified it as a Draped Bust Large Cent! They quit making those in 1808, so that made it my oldest US coin by far. My previous oldest was an 1828 LC. Knowing what it was now, I scrutinized the obverse and I could make out LIBE in liberty above the counterstamp D. I could also see the D was stamped on the outline of the right facing head and I could see the ponytail outline. Then I went for the date and I could make out the 96 in the 1796 date. The 17 was obscured by the counterstamp. It almost looks like you can see part of the top of the 7 as well. If you fullsize these images, you should be able to make out those details.

 

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[pepperj]

Very nice! Congrats on the old counterstamp.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Great find - amazing a Draped Bust Large Cent made it that far West !

 

[UnderMiner]

Great find - amazing a Draped Bust Large Cent made it that far West !

It likely circulated well into the later half of the 19th century. My friend's mother in Kansas collected any unusual old coins that would come through her store up until the 1950's and when she gave the jar of coins to her son he found several large cents in there. He told me the story and we concluded that large cents were still circulating, albeit extremely limited, well into the early 20th century, and we speculated maybe they entered the store during the Great Depression from someone finding a really old piggy bank their parents/grandparents saved for hard times. We have to remember that even Spanish silver was still circulating as legal tender in this nation up until the 1850's, some of those coins would have been over 150 years old by then, so a large cent from the 1790's circulating until the 1890's or even early 1900's isn't really that far fetched especially when you consider older people who would have saved them when they were young and spent them when they were really old.

 

[Gare]

You and Your brother are doing GREAT Ron

 

[Almy]

I have found it to add to the fun when going through an ID process like you did. I get two thrills when I find a rough coin, one at the time of the find and the second when I ID it and it is old or rare. The process itself is fun, too.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Very nice finds !