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Boom! First Silver! 1853 Seated Liberty Half Dollar


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Great find and hope you find many more unless you live near me.

Good luck on your next hunt.

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Congratulations

Well done.  A great coin is good to find.  They are my weakness as I hunt few areas that have anything other than clad.

You described the area of the find well.  It is like finding gold nuggets under the bushes or in other hard to get to spots.

Mitchel

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Your first ever silver coin is a Seated half dollar??  You are so hooked now!  Well done and nice writeup.  Makes me wonder what others were thinking.  At 4 inches deep this had to just scream.  Did no one bother to hunt there, or were they 'convinced' it was a large chunk of metal dropped by the power pole techs?  Your lesson is their loss, obviously.

I've always thought that fairgrounds (with carnival areas) have to be one of the best places to find coins -- people with coins just burning holes in their pockets.  Most around here are off-limits except during events.  I've never asked for permission but you've got me thinking....

The most difficult coins to recover without scratching are those in hardpack, especially when in gravel or stone such as parking lots.  I've been pretty lucky but unfortunately late in a hunt when I'm tired I get sloppy.  Thanks for the reminder.  (I can't even see the damage in your photos so apparently not too bad of a scratch.)

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10 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Your first ever silver coin is a Seated half dollar??  You are so hooked now!  Well done and nice writeup.  Makes me wonder what others were thinking.  At 4 inches deep this had to just scream.  Did no one bother to hunt there, or were they 'convinced' it was a large chunk of metal dropped by the power pole techs?  Your lesson is their loss, obviously.

I've always thought that fairgrounds (with carnival areas) have to be one of the best places to find coins -- people with coins just burning holes in their pockets.  Most around here are off-limits except during events.  I've never asked for permission but you've got me thinking....

The most difficult coins to recover without scratching are those in hardpack, especially when in gravel or stone such as parking lots.  I've been pretty lucky but unfortunately late in a hunt when I'm tired I get sloppy.  Thanks for the reminder.  (I can't even see the damage in your photos so apparently not too bad of a scratch.)

It was right under a power line, and surrounded by other electrical buried in the ground to supply the vendor booths and tents during the fair, so maybe interference was a problem for somebody else.  There are electrical sub-panels here and there, and you can see where the trenches were dug to bury the lines.  I had my sensitivity way down (3 bars out of 8) to knock out most of the chatter.  It was also tucked next to a walking/bike path and may have been overlooked because it was on the fringe of that particular chunk of grass.  On an average summer day I bet seventy-five people passed within feet or yards of this coin for all these years and never knew it was there, not to mention the thousands of people during the fair.

I didn't know it until I started detecting there, but all sorts of people use this fairgrounds for walking and biking, and people seem to randomly drive through there.  It seems to be open to public use all the time.  I don't think they even close the gates at night.  I'd imagine the lawmen drive through at night to make sure no hooligans are messing it up.  I did find a completely smashed glass booze bottle that some drunken yutz threw at the concrete floor of the big picnic shelter.  Glass everywhere.  Picked up as many pieces as I could find without crawling around on hands and knees.

To get permission I looked up the management on the fair's website, emailed the head honcho, or in this case a honchette, and she said no problem, have fun.  The groundskeeper stopping by right after finding this coin was the only person who's spoken to me the whole time I've been there.  I think this was my fifth time detecting there.

Tons of junk in the ground, constant signals with all metal turned on, less with discrimination, but still nearly continuous sound.  It's slow going because of that, but it's just a matter of time until I find something else exciting.

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6 minutes ago, CmonNow said:

I did find a completely smashed glass booze bottle that some drunken yutz threw at the concrete floor of the big picnic shelter.  Glass everywhere.  Picked up as many pieces as I could find without crawling around on hands and knees

Good for you.  That's the kind of actions that will make us welcome and at least partly offset the idiots who don't fill their holes.  Unfortunately, just like detecting, it's the small minority who abuse the parks by leaving trash and (worse) breaking glass bottles for people to step on, but the results of their irresponsibility affects so many.

8 minutes ago, CmonNow said:

Tons of junk in the ground, constant signals with all metal turned on, less with discrimination, but still nearly continuous sound.  It's slow going because of that, but it's just a matter of time until I find something else exciting.

Yep, where people dropped coins they also dropped trash.  But as you've discovered, if it were easy there wouldn't have been that beauty waiting over a century for you to find it.  I like your attitude.  You're a positive addition to detectorprospector.com.

 

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I enjoyed your write up, CmonNow.   Nice coin for a first silver, too.    

Since you personalized it with the nick you might as well put it in a bezel and wear it.    A metal detector brand t-shirt and that coin around your neck may well get you some good private property permissions.

HH
Mike

 

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flat out awesome!  I have yet to get a half older than 1917.  perfect way for you to break into 1800s.

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