Post up your lowest mintage coins and where they were found

[Bill D. (VA)]

The two I have that come to mind are a great looking 1811 half cent (only 63,140 minted) and an 1875 Canadian dime. Haven't been able to find the mintage on the dime but I know it's very low as the coin is worth at least several hundred dollars. Both coins were found in the yards of colonial homes - the half cent at a c1790 house and the dime at a c1666 site. Here's a couple pics.

 

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[birdman]

1885 V nickle found in a church yard in North Dakota. Poor shape..

 

[DigginThePast]

Lovin the 1/2 Cent.


This source lists the Dime production as 1,000,000.
http://dewardt.net/dimebook/Canada.pdf

 

[DiggerDave in Pa.]

Lovin the 1/2 Cent.


This source lists the Dime production as 1,000,000.
http://dewardt.net/dimebook/Canada.pdf

Here's my 1802 half cent. It is one of 20,266 made that year. It was found in a corn field on the site of an old blacksmith's shop. DD.

 

[Don in SJ]

Despite the fact that many of the Colonial coins found might have very low known numbers, mintage figures are rather hard to come by. So looking at the US coins only, I have found I took only those that had a known mintage of less than 150,000 (one exception) and if a variety of a year had a known mintage I quoted that known mintage. One thing that stands out is that mintage does not always reflect a value that necessarily equals, a prime example of that is the 1916D mercury dime which is not rare by the definition of rarity scales for coins(264,000), and Bill's 1875 Canadian dime which had one million minted but yet is a valuable dime by comparison of other years with less mintage, which I do not know why that is the case for his coin.

Half Cents

Two 1793 Half Cents, attaching a photograph of just one of them, the other is a sad sack for condition. Mintage of the 1793 Half Cent is 35,334. The photographed Half Cent was found in a plowed field that produced numerous Large Cents, Spanish Silver and even a French 1 Sol copper over the years. The other 1793 came from a now heavily wooded homestead, found next to a well hole. Found my only Condor token at that site.


One 1794 Half Cent . Mintage is 81,600. It was found at a millsite that also gave up three 1796 Liberty Cap Large Cents.


Two 1795 Half Cents. Mintage 139,690. Both were found at wooded sites near an long gone homestead. Attached photo of one of them.


Four 1797 Half Cents. Mintage 127,890. Three were from wooded, long gone homesteads and one holed one was found in the adjoining field where I found the photographed 1793 Half Cent. Attached photo of the one with the hole.


One 1825 Half Cent . Surprising low mintage of 63,000. Found on a dirt road, the road was road fill and it came from a nearby old homestead!
No Photo

Large Cents

One 1793 Wreath type with Lettered Edge Large Cent. Mintage for all Wreath Cents is 63,353, but for the Lettered Edge variety it is only 11,825 and for this particular variety I found only 6500 to 7000 minted. Found at the same site I found my Union Greens button (banner find).


One "Head of 1793" type 1794 Large Cent. Mintage for this type is 11,000, but for this particular variety(Sheldon 19a) approximately 31- 45. Found at another wooded site associated with saw mills from 18th and early 19th century, found it shortly after my son found his 1595 French Douzain about 30 feet apart.


Six 1796 Liberty Cap Large Cents. Mintage 109,825. Three found at one site over a year period of hunting and the others from scattered sites I hunt. Attached photos of three of them.



There were a bunch of 1797 Large Cents minted (897,510) but one I found was a high Rarity 6 variety and only 19-24 of them are known. So I added this one to my low mintage list. Found this one along with a NJ copper at what may have been a stone mining work area, not sure if a homestead was there or not.

Surprisingly,(actually not too surprising, rather difficult to find any early American ones, yet alone a low mintage one. I have no American silver found with a mintage below 150,000.

Don

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

That's a lot of great examples Don - thanks for taking the time to post them. Many are in outstanding condition too. Are there any mintage figures available for the Mass. tree coins? I was wondering what the rarity was of that cut piece I found a while back from a pine tree shilling (NOE 11 variety I believe based on your ID).

 

[Don in SJ]

That's a lot of great examples Don - thanks for taking the time to post them. Many are in outstanding condition too. Are there any mintage figures available for the Mass. tree coins? I was wondering what the rarity was of that cut piece I found a while back from a pine tree shilling (NOE 11 variety I believe based on your ID).

Bill, I am a novice on Mass coinage knowledge but spent a bit of time this morning reading info on the Notre Dame website and wow, talk about confusing!
Anyway, I did learn a few things, especially about the time frame that Mass Silver was minted and from where the silver came from.
The 1652 dated Mass Silver coinage was minted for almost 30 years!
Here is an approximate breakdown of the years the different types were minted, rather interesting, since the Pine Tree Shillings were minted in the 1670s!

NE Shilling - minted Summer of 1652 till October 1652
Willow Tree - approx 1652-1660
Oak Tree - approx 1660-1667, possibly till 1672
Pine Tree - approx 1667-1682, but most likely started in 1671 I believe (it does state the Noe 11 was one of the earlier minted Pine Trees, nlt 1674)
So the mint officially closed in 1682. The silver came from personal silver, Spanish 8 Reales, English silver coins, it would be melted down, anaylized and then made into Mass silver.

As far as mintage numbers, wow, that is where confusion abounds, but I believe this attached chart from the ND site might give a good estimate for the Pine Tree Shillings based on when they were supposingly produced.


Hope this helped educate some of us a bit on the Mass Silver.

Don

 

[Iron Patch]

Damn! An 1875... What's the other side look like. You can get to a grand pretty quick with one of those!

I lost track and thought I was posting to a today's find post, but oh well, I'll leave it. Both good coins.

Mintage for the 1875 is a million.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Thanks for all that work Don. That's an excellent analysis. Couple of questions, though. What units are represented in the "Quantity" column? Is that weight? And is that the actual number of shillings produced (like only 1847 in the year 1674), or does that represent thousands? If that's the actual number then its an ultra low mintage. That might explain why very few are found. Thanks again for all the research, and Merry Christmas!

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Damn! An 1875... What's the other side look like. You can get to a grand pretty quick with one of those!

I lost track and thought I was posting to a today's find post, but oh well, I'll leave it. Both good coins.

Mintage for the 1875 is a million.

Its got a nice scratch on the front, but it doesn't matter as unfortunately I no longer own it. Its the only coin or relic I've ever sold, and I will never do it again. It was about 8-9 years ago, and I sold it on ebay for around $300-400. Not long after that I saw one in better shape going for several times that. Anyway, I learned my lesson. By the way, do you know what makes it so valuable since the mintage is not all that low?

 

[Iron Patch]

From Newfoundland, thought to have past as a farthing and they figure there was about 100 made.... most of which were thought to be lost in a fire in 1846.

The day I found it we were just on our way home and had one last field in mind. We ended up driving past it and Ironhorse asked if I wanted to go back. That's when I seen a field we hadn't detected in years and suggested why don't we try it to finish the day. We hunted the large patch of iron for maybe 30 minutes and I wasn't getting anything so decided to try a small slope where I had dug some targets before... by this point there wasn't much daylight and I just wanted to dig anything. My first two finds was just scrap brass, then the third was this coin/token and I figured it was just something European, like a German Pfennig. It was completely covered in crud so once I got home cleaned enough to reveal the words I was quite surprised at what I was seeing. I literally had to hold it beside the book and match it letter for letter to be sure I had actually dug one.

 

[Iron Patch]

Damn! An 1875... What's the other side look like. You can get to a grand pretty quick with one of those!

I lost track and thought I was posting to a today's find post, but oh well, I'll leave it. Both good coins.

Mintage for the 1875 is a million.

Its got a nice scratch on the front, but it doesn't matter as unfortunately I no longer own it. Its the only coin or relic I've ever sold, and I will never do it again. It was about 8-9 years ago, and I sold it on ebay for around $300-400. Not long after that I saw one in better shape going for several times that. Anyway, I learned my lesson. By the way, do you know what makes it so valuable since the mintage is not all that low?

Not sure, obviously fewer survived. Maybe a large amount were melted.

 

[gwdigger]

The 1784 is pretty scarce I am told. It was found on a homesite in eastern Maryland. Although I no longer own it I know who does. I dont know the mintage of the 1652 oak tree sixpence but surely its scarce. The 1652 was found in a farm field along the Chesapeake bay, also in eastern Maryland with some Spanish silver cobs of the same era on an alleged trading post from the mid 16th century. There is some credence to that idea since we also found there several cut pieces of silver similar to the fur trade items I see posted on this forum from time to time.

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Great looking coins, especially the silver. Mass. silver is high on my most wanted list (a whole one anyway).

 

[Iron Patch]

The 1784 is pretty scarce I am told. It was found on a homesite in eastern Maryland. Although I no longer own it I know who does. I dont know the mintage of the 1652 oak tree sixpence but surely its scarce. The 1652 was found in a farm field along the Chesapeake bay, also in eastern Maryland with some Spanish silver cobs of the same era on an alleged trading post from the mid 16th century. There is some credence to that idea since we also found there several cut pieces of silver similar to the fur trade items I see posted on this forum from time to time.

You know for copper and silver you can't really ask for anything better than that unless you have unreal expectations!

 

[gwdigger]

The 1784 is pretty scarce I am told. It was found on a homesite in eastern Maryland. Although I no longer own it I know who does. I dont know the mintage of the 1652 oak tree sixpence but surely its scarce. The 1652 was found in a farm field along the Chesapeake bay, also in eastern Maryland with some Spanish silver cobs of the same era on an alleged trading post from the mid 16th century. There is some credence to that idea since we also found there several cut pieces of silver similar to the fur trade items I see posted on this forum from time to time.

You know for copper and silver you can't really ask for anything better than that unless you have unreal expectations!

I'd take a mercury dime and an indian head at this point. So busy working I never get to hunt anymore. The 1784 was found years ago and the 1652 was found in 1996.

 

[Don in SJ]

The 1784 is pretty scarce I am told. It was found on a homesite in eastern Maryland. Although I no longer own it I know who does.

Your Vlack 14-84A aka Batty 3826 has been a very desired coin by the colonial collectors for years, two have been found by TNet members, yours and Ty's. The latest known numbers on that is in the 30+ range and still highly desired despite being debunked as a Machins mint coin and even possibly not an American made copper.

The Batty 3826B I found a few years back, which was determined to most likely been made using the same letter punches was only the second one known at the time I found mine! Since then 3 more examples have shown up bringing the total known of this variety to five! The real good news is, I have found TWO of the five known.

There is an excellent article in CNL (Colonial News Letter) August 2009, where Byron Weston talks about the mintage of the Vlack 14-84A/Batty 3826 and the Batty 3826B, which I have found. Mostly about whether the coins were minted in England, Canada, Ireland or America. All inconclusive, but he leans towards Irish or English makers.

So here is my rarest of my Colonial coppers found, a No date intentionally on all 5 known examples, but use the 1784 Vlack 14-84A as a guide for dating.(Byron thinks no date because the counterfeiter had no number punches at the time and that the Vlack 14-8A which is dated was made after mine and by than had numbered punches to use.) Both of mine are clipped planchets, which the other 3 known examples also have clipping to some degree.

I found my two at two separate sites, at least 10 miles apart, both were wooded sites, one was a 1790s sawmill site and the other just an isolated homestead in the woods, maybe associated with a iron forge or sawmill a couple miles away. The better conditioned one found in May 2007 and the 2nd one found in April 2010.

If anyone thinks they have found either a Vlack 14-84A or one like mine please post, also very interested to see if any have ever been ground found in England or Ireland, since they have so much controversy where they were minted.

Don

 

[gwdigger]

Thanks, Don, for the info. Merry christmas to everyone.

 

[kayden]

Thanks for showing all & thanks for all the info!

 

[floodlight]

Bill D. ,

Your 1875 Cdn dime looks real nice. Here is its value:

http://www.coinsandcanada.com/coins-prices.php?coin=10-cents-1875&years=10-cents-1858-1901

Nice looking coin (and $ value as well).

Floodlight