1904 Indian Head Cent

[timwied]

[attachment 343118 Heads.jpg][attachment 343119 Tails.jpg]
Ok, here is a strange thing that happened to me last weekend. I was hunting at an old church site, church is long gone now. I hit a very strong 59 on my Fisher F4, switched to pinpoint and it said 0 inches. Well I thought it was a piece of can slaw, but I looked and on top of the grass was laying a 1904 Indian Head Cent!!! Now how did that Indian get on top of the grass? I would have thought it would have been at least a couple inches deep. It wasn't even down to the roots? This grass hasn't been turned or tilled as long as I can remember, and I'm 56 years old!?! Any ideas? 2017 has been good to me so far, I've found 12 Indian Heads, including an 1863 Fatty, A Buffalo Nickel, and 2 Silver Rosie's and a Merc!

 

[sddavid]

Congrats on the Indian Head Cent. I recall when I detected in Missouri a few years back, that some detectorist believed coins "rise" back to the surface after time. I think I will pass on promoting that idea though

 

[timwied]

Yeah, me too! LOL

Congrats on the Indian Head Cent. I recall when I detected in Missouri a few years back, that some detectorist believed coins "rise" back to the surface after time. I think I will pass on promoting that idea though

 

[Goldstrike]

It's possible that another detectorist was there before you, he/she dug it up and then accidently dropped the coin/ fell from his pouch maybe?

 

[407floyd]

I can imagine a gopher, armadillo, or dog inadvertently digging up a coin from the depths.

 

[Explorer.se]

Way to go that is the coin I dream of finding. If I find one knowing me i'll turn it into jewelry where I can wear it!

Enjoy guy!

 

[Sataro]

Congrats on that Indian Head cent!

 

[timwied]

It continues to amaze me how many coins, artifacts with rich history, are buried out there! Almost every time I go hunting now, I find something 100 years old or more! I never would have guessed that in my entire life! It's all in where you dig! Especially Indian Heads, they are everywhere! My first year, 2014, I found 4. 2015, I found 15. 2016, I found 26! So far this year, 12. I spend a lot of time on each property, usually I come up with an idea, research it online, get address of owner, go meet in person with them, all together I probably spend about 4 hours on each property, before I step foot on it! Always have permission! Even on some public property, I emailed one privately owned public property that used to be an old fairgrounds, he was pleased that I asked to go metal detecting, and told me to "be my guest, and good luck!" PR, that's the name of the game!!! Do you Dig?

 

[Explorer.se]

It continues to amaze me how many coins, artifacts with rich history, are buried out there! Almost every time I go hunting now, I find something 100 years old or more! I never would have guessed that in my entire life! It's all in where you dig! Especially Indian Heads, they are everywhere! My first year, 2014, I found 4. 2015, I found 15. 2016, I found 26! So far this year, 12. I spend a lot of time on each property, usually I come up with an idea, research it online, get address of owner, go meet in person with them, all together I probably spend about 4 hours on each property, before I step foot on it! Always have permission! Even on some public property, I emailed one privately owned public property that used to be an old fairgrounds, he was pleased that I asked to go metal detecting, and told me to "be my guest, and good luck!" PR, that's the name of the game!!! Do you Dig?

That is awesome, thanks Timweid, I think I will give it a try! Great going! hanks for sharing.Can you share what you mean you spend about 4 hours on a property before you even set foot up on it!

 

[timwied]

Sure, I first get an idea what I want to look for in a site, then I google the county and get the old plat maps. Usually you can get several back in the 1800's. I save it as a JPEG on my computer. Go into Google Earth and save my old map as an overlay on Google Earth, resize it, making sure each section lines up pretty close. Then with a click of a button you can overlay with Old plat maps to see what was there, say in 1878! I have all the old plat's of 5 counties saved on my computer and linked to Google Earth, just don't move your map location on your computer, or Earth can't bring it up again. See anything interesting, Fairgrounds, Depots, homesteads, etc., Click away your plat map and presto, you see what's there now! Sometimes you find where the buildings were by seeing the remains of foundations, sometimes you can see where the outhouses used to set. You can even see the boundaries on some of these properties. I choose the ones that are just farm ground now, not something that is or has been lived in recently, then you can usually get away from BC, PT, trash. When you hit a dime number on your VDI, you can be more confident it will be old! If you want to, you can look up the history on each site, if there is any info online? Sometimes you get lucky. Once I researched an old ghost town that existed between the 1850's and disappeared about 1870, just a field now, got permission, walked out across a large field trying to find anything that would give me where it was precisely. Suddenly I hit an 83 on my Fisher F4!!!!! OMG, an old Quarter??? I was so excited, because it was miles from anything!!! Dug it up, and it was a 1983 Washington Quarter, OH, HELL, I mean Oh Well, you win some you lose some, LOL. Probably dropped by a hunter reaching for a shell.
I usually will drive by to look at a property also, sometimes the grass or brush is too high to hunt, if it looks good, I pursue it further. I use HuntStand to look who owns a parcel of land that I'm interested in, then I google that owner to get an address and usually go visit in person to get permission. I do pretty good by focusing on good properties, old maps, staying away from too much recent public activity. I don't find much clad these days. I find a lot more coins and relics over 100 years old, than clad and bottle caps! Find out what you are interested in and check it out really good, and DIG IT!

 

[calabash digger]

congrats on the find! strange things happen like that sometimes.

 

[Explorer.se]

Sure, I first get an idea what I want to look for in a site, then I google the county and get the old plat maps. Usually you can get several back in the 1800's. I save it as a JPEG on my computer. Go into Google Earth and save my old map as an overlay on Google Earth, resize it, making sure each section lines up pretty close. Then with a click of a button you can overlay with Old plat maps to see what was there, say in 1878! I have all the old plat's of 5 counties saved on my computer and linked to Google Earth, just don't move your map location on your computer, or Earth can't bring it up again. See anything interesting, Fairgrounds, Depots, homesteads, etc., Click away your plat map and presto, you see what's there now! Sometimes you find where the buildings were by seeing the remains of foundations, sometimes you can see where the outhouses used to set. You can even see the boundaries on some of these properties. I choose the ones that are just farm ground now, not something that is or has been lived in recently, then you can usually get away from BC, PT, trash. When you hit a dime number on your VDI, you can be more confident it will be old! If you want to, you can look up the history on each site, if there is any info online? Sometimes you get lucky. Once I researched an old ghost town that existed between the 1850's and disappeared about 1870, just a field now, got permission, walked out across a large field trying to find anything that would give me where it was precisely. Suddenly I hit an 83 on my Fisher F4!!!!! OMG, an old Quarter??? I was so excited, because it was miles from anything!!! Dug it up, and it was a 1983 Washington Quarter, OH, HELL, I mean Oh Well, you win some you lose some, LOL. Probably dropped by a hunter reaching for a shell.
I usually will drive by to look at a property also, sometimes the grass or brush is too high to hunt, if it looks good, I pursue it further. I use HuntStand to look who owns a parcel of land that I'm interested in, then I google that owner to get an address and usually go visit in person to get permission. I do pretty good by focusing on good properties, old maps, staying away from too much recent public activity. I don't find much clad these days. I find a lot more coins and relics over 100 years old, than clad and bottle caps! Find out what you are interested in and check it out really good, and DIG IT!

Thank you so much for this information, wow that's pretty cool! I will take a look at it and see what I can come up with. Thanks once again Timwied! Good luck out there and HH! Ill keep you posted!

 

[Explorer.se]

"Sure, I first get an idea what I want to look for in a site, then I google the county and get the old plat maps"

Hi Timwied, So you go on Google to get the old plat maps? Do I go to the county of interest and call them up or is everything online.

thank you so much!

 

[timwied]

"Sure, I first get an idea what I want to look for in a site, then I google the county and get the old plat maps"

Hi Timwied, So you go on Google to get the old plat maps? Do I go to the county of interest and call them up or is everything online.

thank you so much!

I do it all online. Sometimes it takes some searching to find a free map that you can save as JPEG.

 

[Explorer.se]

"Sure, I first get an idea what I want to look for in a site, then I google the county and get the old plat maps"

Hi Timwied, So you go on Google to get the old plat maps? Do I go to the county of interest and call them up or is everything online.

thank you so much!

I do it all online. Sometimes it takes some searching to find a free map that you can save as JPEG.

Oh ok, gotcha thanks!

 

[Bigtom123]

When the winter freezes the ground and thaws it actually pushes the dirt out of the ground in places,if you look close at the pic you can see hundreds of little piles of dirt in the grass,and if there's a coin there it'll push it out too.Nice find,I'd say that's how it got there.Ive found a few old coins right on the surface too.

 

[kschae4]

Nice save on the lone brave. Agreeing with GS, thinking it's a recent drop. With historicaerials changing to membership required now, I may try your plats/google maps method...thanks for the info ! HH