Skippy SH13
Bronze Member
- Feb 18, 2015
- 1,131
- 2,376
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
This weekend, after the fantastic hunt where my 11 year old son and I took about $30 in clad total, my son took his clad coins to the bank and cashed them in. Even though he's been spending pretty liberally on sodas and stuff, he still netted $16.52. That's a pretty nice haul for a kid who is just hanging out with his Dad. 
We then immediately went to a local Coin and Pawn to help fill out his penny collection. He picked up ~10 new Wheaties that we traded a bunch of other Wheaties for (duplicates he didn’t need), so there was no cost there. He then spent ~$14 on three coins. One was a 1863 Indian Head. This makes his first CIVIL WAR era coin! He was pretty stoked! He did a great job working with the Pawn shop, who just adored him. He looked up prices (they were actually VERY decent… slightly below catalog), and settled also on a few steel pennies to round out his collection of War Steel Pennies (he had one, but was missing a few other mint dates). One of them is a brilliant uncirculated (it’s really nice!). He picked that up for a pricey $4, but then the shop basically GAVE him the next steel penny for a quarter to complete the steel collection. It all worked out.
Sidebar: It was there that I learned that the 1944-1946 pennies were made from spent shell casings (returning to the copper content coins). The government melted the casings down and used them on pennies to replenish the supply. Since there was a glut of pennies now coming in, the years are not really valuable beyond the historical significance (in fact, you can still find them occasionally in pocket change! We’ve found at least a half-dozen in our change jars in the last couple of month!) Still fun to learn though.
We also looked at a couple of flying eagle pennies (there were 3 years of them made 1856-1858), but they all started at $33 apiece. My boy wasn’t ready to commit all his birthday money to a single coin, yet, as it was outside of his clad findings. We also looked at a few 1909 VDB pennies (first year of issue for Wheaties), at $15 they also were a bit steep for him.
I personally scored a nice find at the Coin and Pawn shop, picking up a 1921 Walking Liberty Half Dollar. It had some cracks in the finish (probably a dug coin), but all detail was there. Instead of pricing at the coin value, the shop gave it to me at silver cost charging me a multiple of 12.5 ($6.25). This was a GREAT deal for me, as every Walking Liberty I’ve seen runs $9 or more, not that I intend to sell it. I cleaned it up with a little baking soda when I got home (probably further degrading the numismatic value, but I wanted a nice looking one, LOL). It looks great and got me looking at other coins I could add to my silver collection. I REALLY wanted to get a Morgan Dollar, but they all run north of $22 for crappy ones, and commonly take $30 or better for decent circulated versions.
Since coins were on our minds all weekend, my son started checking out e-bay. My son and I discovered you could filter on “no shipping” (which can really eat up costs), and we started looking at coins for his collection.
He searched out and found the following 10 year date run from 1889 to 1898. He is missing all but one of these coins (the 1897, which was the worst of the bunch, he already had!).
He was thrilled at the chance to pick them up with his birthday money. A 10 year date run like I figured should go for at least $3 a coin, an possibly more and that's not counting the annoyance of having to find each one individually.
My Son begged for an hour to make a bid, because the starting price was $10, and really hadn't moved much from that point. I kept explaining that even though the price is currently $13, bidding goes UP... LOL I finally agreed to place the bid, but only at the very last moment (no point in driving up the prices). He told me he could spend $20 max, and laid 20 bucks on the table from his birthday money. I was excited to see the price hadn't really climbed much by the end. At the very last minute, the price had jumped to 15.01. We waited until the last 5 seconds and I figured with so few people bidding the high bidder might toss out $20 (which would have been a good deal at $2 a coin!)… So I put in $20.01.
I wasn't wrong. We sniped it a penny more than the highest bidder. I can only imagine that person’s frustration!
My son was over the moon! He was SO glad he didn’t spend all his birthday money at the coin shop. Totally stoked about his win! This pretty much fills out one of the pages in his Indian Head Penny book for him.
Inspired by my son, I started looking at what was out there for ME to spend MY clad money on.
I decided the change that I’m finding needed to be put to good use, and I realized I’m not likely to find old coins in the dirt, but there’s no reason I can’t “trade” the clad coins for old coins on ebay!
While I need to go cash them in still, I currently have $81 in change from this year, plus $18 left over from selling rings last month for a total of $99.
So... I went a-looking. And I totally scored a nice set of coins (single coins, I found, get too many bidders, because exact worth is easily calculated)…
I found a group collection that included a 1881 Morgan dollar, 2 Walking Liberties, 1 Barber Quarter, 1 Standing Liberty Quarter, 2 Silver Washington Quarters, 5 Winged Liberty Dimes, 4 silver Roosevelt dimes, a silver War Nickel, a 40% silver half-dollar (1986 Kennedy), and a flying liberty cent (1858). Pricing out just the silver coins, I put the basic value at $85. Tack on some extra for the flying nickel and it's worth at least $95, not including the the 5 V-Nickels, 10 Indian Heads, 11 Buffalo Nickels, 100 Wheaties, a steel cent, a clad half dollar, 11 clad nickels, and a bunch of foreign coins.
Well, long story short, I snagged it last second (literally) for a buck more than the top bidder for a total of $92.
Now, regardless of whether the "value" is a perfect trade for my Clad coins and the residue from ring sales, I'm totally STOKED to have something of more historical value in my collection than just a mason jar full of dirty water stained coins sitting the garage.
SO MUCH FUN!
Now, when people ask if I find anything valuable metal detecting, I can show the picture of the coins I've bought with the clad I've found and say, "Yep, I bought these with the money I've found in the dirt."
Cheers!
We then immediately went to a local Coin and Pawn to help fill out his penny collection. He picked up ~10 new Wheaties that we traded a bunch of other Wheaties for (duplicates he didn’t need), so there was no cost there. He then spent ~$14 on three coins. One was a 1863 Indian Head. This makes his first CIVIL WAR era coin! He was pretty stoked! He did a great job working with the Pawn shop, who just adored him. He looked up prices (they were actually VERY decent… slightly below catalog), and settled also on a few steel pennies to round out his collection of War Steel Pennies (he had one, but was missing a few other mint dates). One of them is a brilliant uncirculated (it’s really nice!). He picked that up for a pricey $4, but then the shop basically GAVE him the next steel penny for a quarter to complete the steel collection. It all worked out.
Sidebar: It was there that I learned that the 1944-1946 pennies were made from spent shell casings (returning to the copper content coins). The government melted the casings down and used them on pennies to replenish the supply. Since there was a glut of pennies now coming in, the years are not really valuable beyond the historical significance (in fact, you can still find them occasionally in pocket change! We’ve found at least a half-dozen in our change jars in the last couple of month!) Still fun to learn though.
We also looked at a couple of flying eagle pennies (there were 3 years of them made 1856-1858), but they all started at $33 apiece. My boy wasn’t ready to commit all his birthday money to a single coin, yet, as it was outside of his clad findings. We also looked at a few 1909 VDB pennies (first year of issue for Wheaties), at $15 they also were a bit steep for him.
I personally scored a nice find at the Coin and Pawn shop, picking up a 1921 Walking Liberty Half Dollar. It had some cracks in the finish (probably a dug coin), but all detail was there. Instead of pricing at the coin value, the shop gave it to me at silver cost charging me a multiple of 12.5 ($6.25). This was a GREAT deal for me, as every Walking Liberty I’ve seen runs $9 or more, not that I intend to sell it. I cleaned it up with a little baking soda when I got home (probably further degrading the numismatic value, but I wanted a nice looking one, LOL). It looks great and got me looking at other coins I could add to my silver collection. I REALLY wanted to get a Morgan Dollar, but they all run north of $22 for crappy ones, and commonly take $30 or better for decent circulated versions.
Since coins were on our minds all weekend, my son started checking out e-bay. My son and I discovered you could filter on “no shipping” (which can really eat up costs), and we started looking at coins for his collection.
He searched out and found the following 10 year date run from 1889 to 1898. He is missing all but one of these coins (the 1897, which was the worst of the bunch, he already had!).
He was thrilled at the chance to pick them up with his birthday money. A 10 year date run like I figured should go for at least $3 a coin, an possibly more and that's not counting the annoyance of having to find each one individually.
My Son begged for an hour to make a bid, because the starting price was $10, and really hadn't moved much from that point. I kept explaining that even though the price is currently $13, bidding goes UP... LOL I finally agreed to place the bid, but only at the very last moment (no point in driving up the prices). He told me he could spend $20 max, and laid 20 bucks on the table from his birthday money. I was excited to see the price hadn't really climbed much by the end. At the very last minute, the price had jumped to 15.01. We waited until the last 5 seconds and I figured with so few people bidding the high bidder might toss out $20 (which would have been a good deal at $2 a coin!)… So I put in $20.01.
I wasn't wrong. We sniped it a penny more than the highest bidder. I can only imagine that person’s frustration!
My son was over the moon! He was SO glad he didn’t spend all his birthday money at the coin shop. Totally stoked about his win! This pretty much fills out one of the pages in his Indian Head Penny book for him.
Inspired by my son, I started looking at what was out there for ME to spend MY clad money on.
I decided the change that I’m finding needed to be put to good use, and I realized I’m not likely to find old coins in the dirt, but there’s no reason I can’t “trade” the clad coins for old coins on ebay!While I need to go cash them in still, I currently have $81 in change from this year, plus $18 left over from selling rings last month for a total of $99.
So... I went a-looking. And I totally scored a nice set of coins (single coins, I found, get too many bidders, because exact worth is easily calculated)…
I found a group collection that included a 1881 Morgan dollar, 2 Walking Liberties, 1 Barber Quarter, 1 Standing Liberty Quarter, 2 Silver Washington Quarters, 5 Winged Liberty Dimes, 4 silver Roosevelt dimes, a silver War Nickel, a 40% silver half-dollar (1986 Kennedy), and a flying liberty cent (1858). Pricing out just the silver coins, I put the basic value at $85. Tack on some extra for the flying nickel and it's worth at least $95, not including the the 5 V-Nickels, 10 Indian Heads, 11 Buffalo Nickels, 100 Wheaties, a steel cent, a clad half dollar, 11 clad nickels, and a bunch of foreign coins.
Well, long story short, I snagged it last second (literally) for a buck more than the top bidder for a total of $92.
Now, regardless of whether the "value" is a perfect trade for my Clad coins and the residue from ring sales, I'm totally STOKED to have something of more historical value in my collection than just a mason jar full of dirty water stained coins sitting the garage.
SO MUCH FUN!
Now, when people ask if I find anything valuable metal detecting, I can show the picture of the coins I've bought with the clad I've found and say, "Yep, I bought these with the money I've found in the dirt."
Cheers!
Amazon Forum Fav đź‘Ť
Last edited:
Upvote
0
