My 2 Cents Worth

Friday morning, as I was heading in to work, I noticed that they had removed a sidewalk across the street from my office. My office sits at the site of the first Presbyterian church in town back in the early days of the city. I have seen pictures of it and it was pretty much a dug out.

I didn’t think much of the tear out because I figured it would be covered by the time I left work. When I left work however, about  1/3 of it was still open so I slammed on the brakes, found a place to park, and Maurice and I went to work.

My second swing (really!) produced a signal just north of pull tab. I decided to dig it and 4 inches down, I found a coin slightly larger than a U.S. nickel and made of copper or bronze. To say I was excited is an understatement.

Images of Seateds and gold coins dancing in my head, I continued the hunt for another hour and a half. Unfortunately, nothing else came out. The site was heavily iron laden as multiple railroad lines ran through here until about 10 years ago. It was really cool because I hit a couple of very old wooden foundations.

Thinking I had a large cent, I went home and began the process of cleaning the coin. To my surprise, what was revealed was, in my opinion, something cooler than a large cent: a 2 cent coin!

I tried cleaning it further with masking tape and the freezing method which removed the dirt but not the iron encrustations. Finally, today, I soaked the coin in WD-40 and managed to expose a bit of the date: 1864, my oldest coin to date.

I am doubly proud of having found this coin in my city. This coin was dropped by one of Wichita’s early inhabitants. I wonder what was going through his or her head as they walked along, possibly to attend church just a few yards away. I am still missing that Seated coin but this is definitely one off my list. It almost makes up for the total lack of detecting for me this year.

Thank you for stopping by!

My first sidewalk tearout

A fellow hunter called me while I was detecting in a town about 40 miles from Wichita.  He told me he was going to hunt a new sidewalk tearout in downtown Wichita. I rushed back home and made it just as he was starting. I only hunted for about an hour with him but I managed to pull my third Indian Head penny for the year. I never thought I’d find ONE IH in Wichita let alone three!  The new addition to my IH collection is a badly corroded 1901 Indian Head. You can hardly see lady Liberty on the obverse. I can see 01 on the date and since there were no IH pennies in 1801, I can safely assume that the date is 1901.

Under the sidewalk for over 40 years

The reverse is in slightly better shape

Hunting this tearout with a fellow hunter who is also an Police Officer has given me the courage to hunt other tearouts. This past Summer, I was too afraid to hunt a street tearout in one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. I can only imagine the goodies I missed.
Also, a little comment on the quality of my pictures. I have misplaced my tripod so I haven’t set up a good photo lab for my coins. Most of the pictures you see in this blog, have been taken with my cell phone.

Thank you for looking.