Ohio Metal Detecting

I find coin spills or pocket spills to be fascinating.  Especially older ones that show the mix of coins that were in circulation together. Indian head and wheat cents, Barber coins mixed with Mercury dimes or even Washington quarters.  Today's spill seemed to really capture a pivotal moment in our nation's coinage.  Circa 1965, I'm sure, it consisted of a clad 1965 quarter, a 1964 nickel and a silver 1964 dime. Neat to discover an example of the clad coins and silver coins circulating together, frozen in time.

Last week I picked up this quite nice 1926-S wheat cent from one of my local parks.  It is a scarce, low mintage date, and is in pretty good shape for a dug coin.  I thought this was my best wheat cent find for the year. I thought getting one semi-key date out of the almost 1,200 wheats I have dug this year was a great accomplishment.

But then I was going through some coins I had put in the rock tumbler for cleaning, and this 1914 wheat cent caught my eye.  I looked, I looked again, and darn if I can't see a really faint D mint mark on it.  Well, a 1914-D is one of the rarest wheat cents there is.  I check photos on the internet, and darn if that mint mark doesn't look like it's in the exact right position too.  It's a shame it's so worn and that I put it through the tumbler.  I doubt it is good enough to send out for authentication by one of the coin grading services, but it might be worth a $20 gamble to see if they see what I see.

I have been amazed that my two oldest coins have come from "hunted out" public parks.  These are parks where I regularly see other detectorists.  There was even another person's plug a few feet away from when I dug this coin.  And this is an area of the park I had been over many, many times over the years.  This 1820 large cent is now the oldest coin I have found while metal detecting.  It is in poor condition, but the date is clear.  This is also surprisingly, the first large cent I have found.