1812 Finds!!

So Dan and Don were planning to go out to the Ghost town on Saturday. For me it is a two hour drive one way. There is an additional 40 minute hike. So basically it’s an all day commitment. I declined the invite and instead drove 20 minutes to a place I had a hunch might contain some old stuff. I started off in the woods finding the usual beer can lids and pull tabs. I recently learned to have confidence in a place even if you aren’t getting any signals. And with pull tabs present there is always a good chance for some modern silver. So I continued my wandering.
I got a nice high tone on my machine that gave me high confidence I was going to dig silver. Sure enough it turned out to be a silver ring.
A little more wandering and I came to area with a good concentration of pull tabs. Going slower I heard some high tones mixed in with mostly low tones. At first I dug a pull tab. Then rescanning the spot gave a good “penny” sound.

I thought it was going to be a wheat penny but when I unearthed the disc it was about the diameter of a Large Cent but seemed thinner. Wiping away some dirt I could make out the wreath on the back identifying it as a Large Cent! I was very surprised.



When I got home and showed it to Nate he said something like “holy smokes – that’s a Classic Head. I don’t even have one of those for my book”. I then cleaned it a little and the picture reveal it was an 1812 Large Date Classic Head. Very cool.


So since I really didn’t search the area that well I went back the next day. Not more than 10 feet from where the 1812 Classic Head was found I found another coin. This one was also dated 1812. It is a Canadian token. I started cleaning the side with the date first and when I saw the bold 1812 I got excited.

Didn't really clean up too well.



I tried to find some information on the token. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia Lower Canada had the greatest variety of tokens. This particular one has the bust of the Duke of Wellington on it. It is a pretty scarce variety (doesn't have the Penny Token lettering).
These two little toy lead axes were found within a few feet of where the coins were as were the flat buttons.


Typical stuff that you find in wooded areas that teens used for partying in the 60s & 70s:


Silver ring with cheap stone:


Went back to the site a week later and found a Buffalo Nickel.