Cache of coins found from the 1880s to 1976

[andygold]

This past October, I was hunting with my Harbor Freight 9-Function MD that the kids had bought for me as a present. It was the first time I had ever gone MD'ing. I decided to try a place with known history (War of 1812). I have access to a location that not too many other people have, due to various reasons, and decided I was going to try there first. The HF unit has no VDI display, only one tone, and little discrimination, but it goes pretty deep and seems to pick up on targets a good deal smaller than a lead .22 bullet.

I basically had to dig everything that rang ("All Holes Matter", as the Hoover Boys say). After a few hits that I could not even locate (I didn't have a pin-pointer at the time), I found a waxed paper wrapped bundle of coins about 3" down, below soil and gravel. The bundle was wrapped in successive layers of this paper, with each layer being wrapped in the opposite direction from the previous layer (if that makes sense). Inside the bundle along with the coins was a piece of dark red, felt-like, crusty, material that reminded me of the felt rings you put on your car's battery terminals. The bundle was also tied closed with a piece of red thread. A few inches away, I located another bundle and then another few. The last few bundles were found with me not even using the metal detector anymore. I just figured I'd dig down about 3" along the whole wall section

Along an attached wall, I found an ancient looking baby food jar containing 97 Mercury Dimes, also at about 3" deep. There was a piece of the crusty red fabric in this jar, just like with the waxed paper bundles.

In all, the coins were pretty much clean with only a few being tarnished. The oldest was from the 1880s(Morgan) and the newest from 1976(quarter).

Top left corner is all foreign coins, big one being Mexican, and even a Chinese coin from 1950. It has both Chinese writing and Arabic numerals on it. The 2 elongated pennies have religious printings, one is The Lord's Prayer, and the other, The Ten Commandments. The dark half dollar on the right is a Barber.

97 Mercury Dimes laid out by date (older ones on the left), at work, hoping for one on the rarities list. None found. Most were from WWII era

 

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[A2coins]

thats called getting sucker punched into the addiction bet your getting or got a too end detector great post banner find keep at it

 

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[Goldfinger450]

I LOVE The fact that the HF detector got you the Goods, Hahahaha, Learn that Equinox so it is like a part of you, I know you are hooked, Not that there is anything wrong with that, Definitely going to watch your progress on that site.

 

[andygold]

I LOVE The fact that the HF detector got you the Goods, Hahahaha, Learn that Equinox so it is like a part of you, I know you are hooked, Not that there is anything wrong with that, Definitely going to watch your progress on that site.

I was back to the site about a month ago. I can only detect there on weekends when no one is around (even though I do have permission - it's complicated). When last there, I found a baby bottle full of coins (second baby-related storage container I've found there). Again, it was sealed very well, with no water inside. This time there was no red, felt-like material inside like there was with the wax-paper wrapped bundles, but there was a packet of something which I think was silica gel or something similar. It was slimy, and whatever was inside had leaked out of the package and glued itself to one of the coin bags. Coins came out pretty much pristine though. They were wrapped in old, flip-top, sandwich bags, and inserted into the bottle, with a plastic cap with gasket.

This time around, I brought the Equinox 800 with me as the site has a lot of concrete with rebar and I wanted to notch out the ferrous, to make discrimination a bit easier. With the HF machine, even though it has some discrimination, it's guesswork, and not as exact as with the Minelab. Also, the Minelab goes a lot deeper. I've found some American Revolution & War of 1812 relics (musket, and bayonet parts) and coins at a bit over a foot deep with the Equinox (I have them posted in the "What is it" threads on this forum.

At this point in time, I think I can say the site is DONE!!!

 

[Rookster]

That is amazing. Congrats.

 

[ToddsPoint]

One of the better caches I've seen on here. You have a whole tribe of Indians! Congrats. Gary

 

[trdking]

No pictures of this coming out of the ground? The bottles and Red felt? no mention that you found a $1000 1916D merc as written on the paper?
I am not a party buster but next time proof a find like this. It makes it a lot easier to believe how a cache this size comes out of the ground looking like it came out of someones closet.
Keep on swingin

 

[andygold]

No pictures of this coming out of the ground? The bottles and Red felt? no mention that you found a $1000 1916D merc as written on the paper?
I am not a party buster but next time proof a find like this. It makes it a lot easier to believe how a cache this size comes out of the ground looking like it came out of someones closet.
Keep on swingin

trdking...please don't think I'm being snarky here... I'm just trying to explain, and I'm a long-winded kind of guy
I hadn't even thought of taking pictures of the items in the ground, as it was not my intent to have to "prove" anything to anybody. I was and still am a total novice in this hobby, and proof of finds never crossed my mind. As a matter of fact, when I made my OP for this thread, it was many, many months after finding the first batch of coins, and I did not know at the time that a thread like this even existed to post on. When I first found them, the thought to document the hole just wasn't something I had ever even considered...basically I never considered the need to "proof" the find.
As to the latest images, I found those coins almost a month and a half ago, while the last post prior to yesterday was was almost 2 months ago, on May 16th. I only posted these latest pictures as someone had resurrected this thread from the dead yesterday. If it had not been resurrected, I would not have posted.

As to the bottles, I believe I still have them in the garage, along with some of the bags and wax paper. I think I may still have the red felt and red thread, but I'm not 100% sure as these items had absolutely no real nor sentimental value to me. As to pictures coming out of the ground, what's to keep someone from throwing their "closet" finds in a hole in the ground and claiming they were dug up? I guess it all comes down to integrity and character. I have absolutely nothing to gain by faking finds. I just posted because I thought it was cool! I recently found some American Revolution and War of 1812 artifacts. I did not take pictures of them coming out of the ground either, as pictures of that are for nothing more that to attempt to "prove" that I found them in the ground. I don't need to prove anything, although I did post pics of the items themselves on another thread on this forum, in the attempt to get them identified, and because I thought them different enough to want to know what they were. Without "proof" that I dug them up, where would one suggest I got them, and of what value to me would there be to fake their find? There would be absolutely no value to me to do that. I gain nothing!

As to the the note with the "1916D" Mercury dime listed on it... I think you are misinterpreting what you are seeing. The note is not intended to show what I found, it is what I wrote down from a website as to which Mercury's are rare and valuable and to be on the lookout for. The dimes sitting on my desk calendar are arranged from left to right by year, with the oldest ones on the left, and the newest on the right. The long columns on the right are dimes from the war years. I had the list sitting there as after I had the dimes sorted by year, I was going to look for date and mint marks to see if I had anything of value. Turns out of all the coins (in all 3 trips) I've found, not a single one of them has any rarity. I cannot memorize all the dates and mint marks to be on the lookout for, so I wrote myself a list, and that is what you see. Had the list been a list of my finds, I would have found all of the rarest Mercury dimes ever minted, and I think that would definitely have thrown up red flags!!!

As to cleanliness of the coins...these are not pocket drops. These are coins that someone purposely cached away for retrieval at a later date. They were packaged in a way to keep them dry, and pretty much airtight. I believe they were buried for the long haul. The newest coin is over 40 years old (1976 US Quarter), and without better info, I can only guess that the depositor either moved away, is deceased or senile, or could not retrieve them due to the area being barb-wire protected some time after they were buried. Although dug up during three separate trips to the location, they appear to all have been buried by the same person at around the same time. I'm not lucky to have have found 3 caches, as it's all one cache, but dug up on three separate dates.

Please don't take the above as being said in anger, as that is not my intent. I realize that the written word can sometimes be misinterpreted as to its emotional meaning. The above is just written as some sort of clarification, with no malicious intent! If you'd like to see some pictures of the containers, I'll look for the jars, bags, and bottles, and post pics.

 

[63bkpkr]

andygold, Congratulations on making an awesome find and having such a great adventure and of course sharing it with us! A find like this is quite exciting as it does not happen often. You know what the site looks like and we do not however the possibility of taking one last look at the site could be worth your while. It would seem the person that buried the items had a purpose as well as a method however, they may have decided to try a second method of hiding their savings just in case one of the methods was discovered.

Your new detector has way more capabilities than the Harbor Freight unit, the HF unit tells you something is there and using it in combination with the 800 might be worthwhile as a double check. Guess on my part here but it would be a shame not find anything else that could still be there. Have fun................63bkpkr

 

[A2coins]

just so ya know that was my dresm You and Mel Fisher hijaked it. Amazing story 2nd time Ive looked I bet your hooked now

 

[andygold]

just so ya know that was my dresm You and Mel Fisher hijaked it. Amazing story 2nd time Ive looked I bet your hooked now

Hooked? Yes! But, I don't ever seem to get the time to go detecting lately. I'm either too busy at home or with the kids or with other things on my weekends, or away from home tending to things where I can't go detecting