Bucket list

[rodarian]

I got the opportunity to hunt 90 acres of property that just happens to butt right up to the bennington batttlefield. I was unable to find anything that is rev war but i'm sure it's there. In the pic you see, look at the tree line that runs from lower left to the upper left corner, the fence to the battle field runs all along it. I was tempted to cross but i don't like prison so i stayed on this side of it. Like i said, nothing rev "yet" but i did get a first for me. It's completely toasted but it is a large cent and i was happy for the 1 and a half hours i was there. I didn't even have to dig as it was right on top of the ground. Wish i could date it but i can't. 1840-1850's i'm guessing.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[testing123]

a toasted LC is better than another bottle cap! 40s to 50s is right...at least you can get that much off of it.

 

[rodarian]

I agree. I'll take the toast over the drink every time...heh. Thanks for the confirmation on the date.

 

[coinman123]

Congrats on your first large cent, it truly feels amazing. Good luck on getting your first colonial coin, it will come, funny thing is, for me I found 2 colonial coins before I found a large cent.

Here is my nicest one I have found this year


Your large cent appears to be a "Large Letter" variety made from 1843-1857 (1857 being scarce), this is a "Braided Hair" large cent, braid hair large cents were made from 1839-1857, with small letters being made from 1839-1843, and large letters (your variety), being made from 1843-1857, with 1843 being distributed between large, and small letters.

 

[Garrett424]

Nice LC find.
I found my first and only one a few weeks back. Yours may be toasted but mine is BURNT toast. I can't even get a date off of it yet (and maybe never will). The soil in my area seems to be really hard on copper.
You can actually read yours at least so it's really not too bad

Congrats.

 

[Old Dude]

I wouldn't worry about not finding anything Revolutionary in only an hour and a half, lol. 90 acres is a lot of ground to cover. As long as you can keep permission, you should have quite a long time of hunting to go over that amount. Looks like grass is nice and short, so you should have the rest of this fall and some of the winter to search. Congrats on a nice looking spot.

 

[WheatWaffle]

Nice finds!

 

[rodarian]

Congrats on your first large cent, it truly feels amazing. Good luck on getting your first colonial coin, it will come, funny thing is, for me I found 2 colonial coins before I found a large cent.

Here is my nicest one I have found this year
View attachment 1067386

Your large cent appears to be a "Large Letter" variety made from 1843-1857 (1857 being scarce), this is a "Braided Hair" large cent, braid hair large cents were made from 1839-1857, with small letters being made from 1839-1843, and large letters (your variety), being made from 1843-1857, with 1843 being distributed between large, and small letters.

View attachment 1067404

I didn't know about the different size lettering, thank you for that piece of knowledge. I do see that it is the larger lettering. Sure wish we could make out the obverse side.

 

[rodarian]

Nice LC find.
I found my first and only one a few weeks back. Yours may be toasted but mine is BURNT toast. I can't even get a date off of it yet (and maybe never will). The soil in my area seems to be really hard on copper.
You can actually read yours at least so it's really not too bad

Congrats.

Thank you. You're right that we can read the reverse side but the obverse, that falls into your "burnt toast" category i think....heh.

 

[rodarian]

I wouldn't worry about not finding anything Revolutionary in only an hour and a half, lol. 90 acres is a lot of ground to cover. As long as you can keep permission, you should have quite a long time of hunting to go over that amount. Looks like grass is nice and short, so you should have the rest of this fall and some of the winter to search. Congrats on a nice looking spot.

Thank you. I do have an open invitation here and the owner even offered to tour me around his land this weekend to show me old roads. He says the british troops used one of these roads to get to the battle field(fingers crossed). The field is well kept and they do reenactments of the battle on that open field that you see in that pic. I will say this, it looks nice and soft but 1" into a dig and it is nothing but rocks and bigger rocks...heh. I do have this going for me, he has let no one else on there to MD in the 60+ years he has owned this land.

 

[Old Dude]

Sometimes rocks can be a blessing. They prevent anything from going very deep in some cases. Good luck. It seems the owner is very amicable.

 

[Ia.FurTrade]

It's toasty!.............but good!

 

[Garrett424]

Thank you. You're right that we can read the reverse side but the obverse, that falls into your "burnt toast" category i think....heh.

You may be able to get it clean enough to read. I was able to get mine really clean. There's just nothing there TO read.
Yours may turn out better.

Mine is definitely a classic head though. I was able to determine that much. It's at least 200 years old; making it the oldest coin I've found yet.

 

[I-DIG-IT]

Nice digs.

 

[coinman123]

Nice LC find.
I found my first and only one a few weeks back. Yours may be toasted but mine is BURNT toast. I can't even get a date off of it yet (and maybe never will). The soil in my area seems to be really hard on copper.
You can actually read yours at least so it's really not too bad

Congrats.

Lol, I know one coin I found that is burnt toast, I had to soak my 1655-1658 Louis XIV Liard in olive oil from months (it's still soaking!) before I even knew it was a coin, right now all I can see is the outline of a bust that lets me know what it is, plus the back is literally encrusted with tiny rocks from the dirt it was in.

 

[rodarian]

Garrett, coinman, do you recommend soaking it in olive oil or would white vinegar be better?

 

[toddsumm1]

I wouldn't touch it. At least now you know what it is. I have attempted to clean toasted coins of all eras and the result was worse than what it started with. I almost wasted a 1817 LC a few months ago by poring water on it in the field. Thankfully aquachigger was with me and made a veteran call. Don't touch it. Clean some of that dirt off and get as much off with a toothpick and be happy with what you got. Excellent advice.

All in all I do feel and have seen some examples of what appeared to be toasted coins come out good after a cleaning. Although I must say my soil here in Maryland will tear a coin apart and its best to leave it the way you dig it.

Awesome find nonetheless! Keep looking in that awesome looking field. It has potential.

 

[coinman123]

Garrett, coinman, do you recommend soaking it in olive oil or would white vinegar be better?

Never use vinegar, it will totally destroy the coin, it may make coins that are not corroded shiny, but on a corroded coin it will take away remaining detail on the surface of the coin, making it worse than when you found it, and leaving you with a pitted disk, the first thing you do is use a wet Q-tip, or cotton ball and rub it on the surface of the coin to get the excess hardened and compact mud off see what you think, if you want to, I recommend putting the coin in boiling hydrogen peroxide for around 1 minute, then wipe of the remaining hydrogen peroxide from the coin, see what you think of the coin at that point, to keep the coin from drying out, put the coin in oil oil for a week or two, after that you will notice huge changes.

 

[GatorBoy]

Everybody is talking about the effect of low pH on copper regardless of whether or not it's a coin vinegar is an acid with a low pH it will affect copper badly... it does not have the same effect on silver... vinegar works wonderfully for cleaning silver.
I even use a dilution of muriatic acid and water on silver shipwreck coins.
But when it comes to copper definitely do not use an acid and as far as olive oil goes... Mineral oil is actually the better choice to do the job you're asking of the olive oil

 

[rodarian]

Thank you all for the advice. I'll try a few things and see what i get and then post an after pic if all goes well. The knowledge and advice on this board is priceless and again, i thank you all.