JASONSPAZ1
New member
This story is the truth. This all came back to me today after looking thru the 2009 Red book for info on my Massachusetts 1/2 cent I found today.
Around 1997 a local lake dried in N.H dried up that borders an old amusement park. It was some sort of natural event that makes the lake dry up about every 100 years. Anyway, people where finding petrified canoes that Indians used. Piles of solid silver candlestick holders, dishes, glass bottles. Indian pottery, etc etc. And that was the stuff that was laying on the surface. Well I heard about the lake being dried up after reading an article in the local paper on metal detectorists scoring big. I went there an hour later. When I got there I saw a few other detectorist and one nut who had a radio shack detector, and a backpack full of every silver coin you could think of. He was just going around to all the other guys detecting showing off the finds he made before anyone else figured out the lake was dried up. That day I found a small Spanish reale, and another odd coin. I knew it was copper and the size of a large cent, and the only thing I could see was a faint image of a harp. I very much remember that the coin was rich in copper, and it was thick. Anyway, I lost the reale in a apartment complex washer machine. I was 18 careless and living in a few different places. That large copper coin, well maybe the girl I was seeing threw it out when we broke up? or maybe my mom threw it away while it was sitting on a paper towel? Either way I was young then and not organized and no proper safe place to put my finds.
Today while looking thru the state coinage section of the Red Book. I turned to page 55 and fixated and stared at the coin on that page. I felt like Richard Dreyfus in the movie Close Encounters. Not sure of what I was seeing, but knowing it is important. BLAM! it hit me. I lost a NH state coin!
according to Red Book it was so rare that their is no price to compare it to. It is listed as N/A and it says only a few where made. At first I tried to convince myself that I must be wrong. But I remember the very copperish feel to the coin, I remember the Harp closer to the edge of the coin.
Finally it is where I found it that made me ralize the possibility.I found it abot ten feet out from the shoreline directly across from the main area of the amusement park. Maybe some one who was in the numismatic trade was their at the fair, showing the find off. Many local and national politicians visited fairs back in the day, and perhaps their was a display of the new currency coming out soon.
Either way I will never know, but I do know that will never happen again.........Finding a NH state coin, and being a kid again.
Around 1997 a local lake dried in N.H dried up that borders an old amusement park. It was some sort of natural event that makes the lake dry up about every 100 years. Anyway, people where finding petrified canoes that Indians used. Piles of solid silver candlestick holders, dishes, glass bottles. Indian pottery, etc etc. And that was the stuff that was laying on the surface. Well I heard about the lake being dried up after reading an article in the local paper on metal detectorists scoring big. I went there an hour later. When I got there I saw a few other detectorist and one nut who had a radio shack detector, and a backpack full of every silver coin you could think of. He was just going around to all the other guys detecting showing off the finds he made before anyone else figured out the lake was dried up. That day I found a small Spanish reale, and another odd coin. I knew it was copper and the size of a large cent, and the only thing I could see was a faint image of a harp. I very much remember that the coin was rich in copper, and it was thick. Anyway, I lost the reale in a apartment complex washer machine. I was 18 careless and living in a few different places. That large copper coin, well maybe the girl I was seeing threw it out when we broke up? or maybe my mom threw it away while it was sitting on a paper towel? Either way I was young then and not organized and no proper safe place to put my finds.
Today while looking thru the state coinage section of the Red Book. I turned to page 55 and fixated and stared at the coin on that page. I felt like Richard Dreyfus in the movie Close Encounters. Not sure of what I was seeing, but knowing it is important. BLAM! it hit me. I lost a NH state coin!
according to Red Book it was so rare that their is no price to compare it to. It is listed as N/A and it says only a few where made. At first I tried to convince myself that I must be wrong. But I remember the very copperish feel to the coin, I remember the Harp closer to the edge of the coin.
Finally it is where I found it that made me ralize the possibility.I found it abot ten feet out from the shoreline directly across from the main area of the amusement park. Maybe some one who was in the numismatic trade was their at the fair, showing the find off. Many local and national politicians visited fairs back in the day, and perhaps their was a display of the new currency coming out soon.
Either way I will never know, but I do know that will never happen again.........Finding a NH state coin, and being a kid again.