Surprise silver and old? chinese coin

[oz_il]

Md'ed a house that had the grass removed for a new lawn. Of all the 60+ Y.O. properties in the hood I have to find one that was built in the late 1970's

BS'ed with the owner a bit, land just had trees on it, so no use was ever made of it back in the day. The first time I hit it, just did the parkways and found a whopping 60 cents in clad. This time the soil was tilled and well, the main property was pretty barren. I assume they brought in a lot of soil when they built the house as I was finding crushed cans 8'' down. Then I got a 50 cent hit, but alas not silver, a Sunoco Antique Car series token - circa 1968/69. Went back to the parkway and after two ZLincolns found a surprise 1943-S merc about 2'' down. That brought my hopes up but all I managed was a old (if I ID'ed it correctly) Chinese coin that was really bent badly. I managed to straighten it out a bit.

All in all not that great, just wish the property was much older. BTW, did find some tot lot gold earlier in the day, so one of my more productive ones.

The merc:

What I think is a early 15th century Chiese coin?

The one I found:

The one from http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china7.htm#s1166

 

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[DPBOB]

Cool finds OZ
Congrats on the silver...

Never found a square hole coin yet....

 

[Likely Guy]

Hey Oz, it may be early Chinese, and in fantastic condition, but beware.

But then again, that's why they're worth 'diddly'.

 

[kimsdad]

Crushed aluminum cans at 8" takes the wind out of my sails pretty darn fast. I don't know anything about Chinese coins, but it looks cool! Sounds like you hit it big with clad, and that's a good thing, too. Where's the Sunoco token?

Any day with a gorgeous merc is a good day!!!

 

[treasurefiend]

Great job!!!

 

[Lowbatts]

Great work! Not a fan of holed coins, unless they're holed by design. Sweet surprise!

 

[litefire56]

Good hunting Oz!

 

[oz_il]

Where's the Sunoco token?

Gave it to the property owner. If the Chinese coin wasn't almost completely bent in half I would have given him that and kept the token. I like to try and give homeowners at least soemthing for letting me MD their property. Usually it ended up just being tumbled clad, but usually find $3 worth of it, at least on the oder properties. At one place I found a clad dime and a memorial cent. 60+ year old property and 2 coins :P

Oh well at least I got 3 hours of detecting in, that's more than I usually do.

 

[Lowbatts]

"At one place I found a clad dime and a memorial cent. 60+ year old property and 2 coins"

I know what you mean Oz!

Hit a small-scale construction spot in a park in town here last night. Over the last 20 years I have found multiple Walkers, Barbers and SLQ's, Civil war buttons, a bed of depression era coinage and other goodies whenever they've dug any dirt at that park. Seems they could not turn the ground without revealing some sweet goodies.

This time around, a Jeffereson nickel and a mem cent, oh yeah, a pulltab or two also. ARGHH!

 

[Pocket Spill]

Super finds!

 

[oz_il]

Found an interesting tidbit about the Chinese coin. Seems 150+ years later Japan starts minting almost the same exact pattern and I guess it takes a pretty good coin guy to tell the difference. With weight variations I wonder how they can actually tell them apart.

From an eBay auction:

================
Eiraku-tsuho and Yong-le Tong-bao coins:

Japanese Eiraku-tsuho were originally based on the Chinese Yong-Le
Tong-Bao coin, Ming period (1368~1644). The characters EI-RAKU-TSU-HO
are the same on both Japanese and Chinese coins; just read
differently. The Chinese coins were issued during the reign of Emperor
Cheng Tsu (1403~1424) and then exported to Japan in large quantities.
The Japanese Eiraku-tsuho (EI-RAKU-TSU-HO) were issued in 1587; these
coins date from the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568~1600), Tensho 15
(1587) and were minted in Osaka / Settsu (present day Osaka-fu). There
are slight differences in stroke marks, size, weight and metallurgy.
It is a well-known fact that Japanese Eiraku-tsuho are very hard to
attribute, especially since they resemble the Chinese Yong-le Tong-Bao
(1408) imported coins.
================

I don't think I'll ever find out, although the Japanese one is worth some decent $$. If I didn't have to bend the thing back it may have been worth checking out.

Oh well, until we get rain I'm just going after picked over tot lots. Chicago seems to be hell bent on changing every wood chip playground to rubber matting. I see two under construction and one was where I found 4 gold items over the last 2 years