End Of The Year Finds

[Sven1]

Yesterday it was raining and we stopped at a old storefront. Parked along the side store which had a gravel parking lot. When we left the store I walked along the side of it to pass the front of our parked car. I looked down about 5" from the store I spotted a round object, it was dark and wet. It looked like it could be a nickel coin. Took a couple steps past it, then backed up, something told me to pick it up. Did just that, yes it was a nickel and there was something strange about it, it wasn't Canadian I could tell that. Again, something told me "Buffalo". Took a closer look at it. By golly, it had a buffalo on it. Yup, it was an early US nickel. A Buffalo Nickel, Indian on the front and buffalo on the back. It was too dark, the car was too dark inside and had no magnifying glass to tell what the date was. It has to be 1938 or before, will take a closer look on Saturday. Strange place to find it and I did take another look around to see if there were any more coins lying about, did not see any. here's a picture of what a Buffalo Nickel looks like for those who don't know.

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Update: Dipped the nickel in Worchester Sauce for a couple minutes. Then swished it around in some Tarn-X for a few minutes. Finally, rubbed it with some Comet paste. The nickel is too warn to see the date.

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Today had to do some last minute shopping before the New Year Holiday. Upon emptying the change in my pants pocket onto my desk, spotted some coin that looked foreign amongst the Canadian clad coins. Found my first silver coin this year and it was found without a metal detector. It was a USA silver Mercury dime. Nice way to end the year. Wonder what I will find in 2023?

[F350Platinum]

Looks like people are digging into their coin collections. 🤔 Or someone else is.

Nice sight finds!

[Valens Legacy]

Very nice coins and glad that you were able to save them.

Good luck in this new year and stay safe while you are out there.

[strick]

Nice work. I once found a seated dime in my junk change...dark, discolored and in the roughest shape any seated dime deserves to be in ... you could barely make it out...how it managed to stay in circulation I’ll never know. 

Strick

[GB_Amateur]

17 hours ago, strick said:

once found a seated dime in my junk change...dark, discolored and in the roughest shape any seated dime deserves to be in ... you could barely make it out...how it managed to stay in circulation I’ll never know.

Likely out of circulation for a long time and just recently returned.  Reminds me of my early days hoping/trying to find an Indian Head Cent.  (Sorry -- you get a long winded story in response to your simple post.  😁)  And if you stick with it you'll see a connection to Sven's thread-starting post.

Back around 1959-60 I had just started collecting coins -- cents specifically -- at age 6.  I had heard my mom talk about Indian Head cents but all I'd ever seen were Lincolns.  Then in a bank roll I see something I'd never seen.  It looked like an indian warrior with a shaved head.  Kinda mean/serious look on his face.  I told my mom "I found an Indian Head penny!"  She didn't want to ruin my elation but she had to be honest, so she told me.  Well, a picture's worth a thousand words so here is what I had found:

A few years later my uncle (who had introduced me to coin collectiong) gave me a rolls of supposedly unsearched pennies for my birthday.  Within was a damaged 1883 IHC, my first ever.  There were a couple Wheatie keepers in there too, date+mm's that I didn't yet have.  I was pretty young but not so young as to swallow hook, line, and sinker.  My uncle denied salting that roll....  I wish I had asked him years later to fess up, but his heart was in the right place, regardless.

About a month ago I got a chance to ask a much senior cousin (now 87 years old) who had started coin collecting before I did if he remembered either IHC's or Barber coins in circulation.  He said he only got serious about 1955 but never saw either in bank rolls or loose change.

That same uncle who got me started collecting told me that when he was in the service during the Korean War (he never served in that conflict -- mostly stationed in Germany) that he was for a short time stationed in (or maybe just passing through on his way to Europe) Puerto Rico.  He was surprised there to discover most of the silver coinage was Barber (dimes, quarters, halves) and that they were worn quite thin.  He said a roll of those dimes was only about half as long as typical (Mercs and Roosies) in the USA.  So, yes, in the early 50's there were Barbers in circulation, but apparently only in far away locations.