Old Line Paul

Wow! The tots in the Left Coast are a lot richer than they are around here!

A few weeks ago, I found a 1926 Lincoln cent. Given the age difference between the UK and the US, I think my find is older. Just saying 😁

As long as you don’t find any gold teeth…

…over something copper? Now that Spring has arrived, the park fields I hunt are coming alive. My last few excursions, I’ve noticed that when I get a signal under a particularly luxurious weed or tuft of grass, there’s usually a penny or old clad coin tangled up in the roots. I see they sell copper fertilizers. So it makes sense. Now if there was only a weed that needed trace amounts of silver or gold to thrive, I’d be on to something!

Is/was the beach known as a hangout for bodybuilders? In the 70’s, there was a stretch of Virginia Beach where the bodybuilders would go to work out and show off.

My sister’s friend lost a valuable antique ring in a tot lot many years ago. She figured she lost it pulling her glove on and off while fishing tissues, snacks, etc. for the kids out of her bag. Never found it.

The places I detect are all relatively young. A beaver-tale pop top counts as a relic around here!

Gotta wonder how someone could lose something so big without noticing!!!

Could kids have been playing pirate in your yard during the 70’s?

$1.32? Rich tots in your neck of the woods! I’m lucky to find a couple of coins and a Hot Wheels. The only productive tot-lot I’ve found so far is a rather secluded one near a high school. I could tell by the trash that older kids hung out there, eating lunch and vaping. Still, I like detecting tot-lots in the summer. Digging wood chips is much more pleasant than chipping through rock-hard dirt in the August heat. And maybe I’ll find a Mommy’s lost ring some day.

Went coin-shooting at a local park today and dug 30 items: 1 Chuck E Cheese token, 1 Canadian cent, and $1.34 in US. Very successful hunt for me! The Canadian penny was crusty but showed hints of copper under the dirt. So, out of boredom, I started cleaning it up with my new set of André pencils. When I could read the date, I saw it was some sort of commemorative, so I looked it up online. The first image that caught my eye was someone selling a coin in similar condition to mine on Etsy for… …wait for it… $47,100!!! After a few seconds of shock/greed/horror (I should have cleaned it more gently) common sense prevailed and I read the rest of the search results. A circulated 1867-1967 cent is worth between $0.25 and $0.45. The guy on Etsy must be, as we used to say in high school, “trippin.” Still, a cool find. (These photos don’t do my find justice. I needed to exaggerate color/contrast/shadow trying to make the inscriptions legible.)

Yes, I suspect that if you wear a yellow vest and carry a clipboard, you can go just about anywhere and do just about anything!

This post brought back memories of my father showing us the mercury from a broken thermometer. He let us roll it around in our palms! Eventually, I remember him “soaking it up” with a silver dime. Yikes! But then we road around in the back of the station wagon without seatbelts, and never even imagined bicycle helmets.

As far as I can tell, it’s a heart shaped or clover looking thing 🙄 It’s pierced as if a pendant or earring. But it’s very thin and without any decoration. It broke when I dug it out, so I trapped the pieces in tape.

I only see these at the Post Office. Never expected to dig one up. Found it behind the backstop of a softball field. I guess I need to add it to my bucket list so I can cross it off. Ironically, I’ve been looking for an intact beaver-tail pop top for a long time. I want to show young people how we decorated our dorm rooms with pop top chains back in the Dark Ages.