Unknown Coin or Token

[mapper65]

Hi everyone, tonight my Mom and I went back to a very old site that is owned by a family member. This property is right up against and was originally part of the land that the original homestead of the family that the town was named after is on. We have been to this site a few other times and on our first trip I found my oldest legible coin to date, an 1834 Capped Half Dime.

Since we got our new Digger coils for our Minelab Xterras we've been wanted to go back and see if we had missed anything and tonight was the first chance that we had. About 10 minutes after we started my Mom yells over to me "hey, I think I have a large cent". She's had a large cent on her list for awhile but has never found one. As soon as I looked at it, the size felt exactly that of a large cent although just very slightly thicker than the one and only large cent that I have found. We kept detecting and found a few small artifacts and got forced out by rain.

When we put water on the coin at the site it thought I could see the outline of a person but it was hard to tell. Since then I lightly brushed it with a brass brush and a little Dawn and almost instantly the bust of what appears to be a man showed up. I can't make anything out on the other side. At least for now I don't want to brush the coin anymore.

Does anyone have any idea what this is. I placed it on top of my large cent and it's really exactly the same diameter. It could be a token but it really seems like a coin to me. I've gone way back in my coin book and nothing is jumping out at me. My brother thinks it's along the lines of a 1791 Washington Eagle Cent. There are a few variation of that coin and this looks kind of similar.

Here is what I see to get you started. The bust is looking to the left. It has a fairly wide collar at the bottom and it appears to have a ribbon in the hair between the neck and the collar on the right side. These pictures are very similar but I tried to slightly tilt the coin in each picture to highlight different areas. I just wet it and rubbed some Dawn on it and the image shows up. Once it drys the image goes away. I can't really make anything else out on the face of it but we were kind of thinking that maybe we saw a few stars over on the left side but we're not really sure about that. I think based on the outline of the image this should line up exactly with something once the right example is found somewhere either online on in a book.

 

[goldnugget]

Very Nice but I cannot help with the identification

 

[mapper65]

I want to add these pictures for your review. My brother in law thinks it's a 1740 King George Half Penny. Here were a few examples that I found on various sites and the angle of the head looks very similar and the right side of the collar also looks in line.

 

[Aarong81]

That may be it, I made an overlay of yours with the 1740 King George Half Penny to compare. I see a lot of lines that match and some undecided areas. So far it is much closer than any other coins/tokens I have looked at.
Click the image to animate the overlay...
http://upload-pics.org/images/92115461034032006296.gif

 

[ecdonovan10]

Yep, a George(Georgivus?) II. Faces left and the date is in the range. There were skinny and fat George II coins. The data would be on the reverse under a line.

Ed D.

 

[mapper65]

After more searching I really think it's a 1745. Here is why I think the coin is a 1745. If you look at the distance between the top of the neck just under the hair all the way to the bottom of the collar that ends where the dot is next to the X. The 1740 appears to be shorter (see post above) and more arched slightly upwards kind of like a humped back for lack of a better term. The 1745 is longer and more straight and slightly curved in towards the front of the body. Aside from that they are very similar.

One thing that is pretty cool which besides the shape of the head giving away that it's a King George, if you look at the good example above, notice the first I in II is where the dent is in the upper part of the back of the head. You can see the first I is in the exact same spot in the one that she found and you can see the second I although it is not as prominant as the first I. One of my two pictures above shows the ai a little better than the other. I wish the other side of the coin had some detail but it's pretty smooth. I may look at that a little closer now that we've narrowed down the year.