10/24/19 Report,- The Havering Hoard. Wood Find. Wheat Cents. About Cleaning Coins.

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Source: BBC.com (See link below.)

The group of 453 artefacts found in Havering, east London, is the third largest ever discovered in the UK...

The find, which dates from between 800BC and 900BC, was officially declared treasure by a coroner earlier this year.

The discovery, dubbed the Havering Hoard, was uncovered last September, and will form the centrepiece of a major exhibition from April.

Archaeologists believed the manner in which the weapons had been so carefully buried in groups close together suggested the site could have been a metal workers' former vault or an armoury recycling bank or exchange...

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50097646

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Wood Found by DJ Sunday

Find and photo by DJ

DJ said, "... it has several round holes and pieces of metal showing. The close up shows two pieces with the wood grain running at right angles."

Interesting.
--- I've mentioned recently about finding a wheat penny in change received at a Walmart a couple days ago. I was surprised to get another wheat penny in change just yesterday at a store about 20 miles away from the Walmart. That is two wheats in my last two shopping trips. Pretty unusual. Below are the two wheats I received in change. The one most recently received is on the right.

Two Wheat Pennies Recently Received in Change.

In a recent post I mentioned a few ways I think old coins end up in circulation. I thought of one more. Spome of the members of CoinCommunity.com mentioned that they sometimes return coins like that to circulation just to stimulate interest in the hobby. The coins shown above appear to me to have been harshly cleaned. You'll notice the very bright high spots that look like they have been really scrubbed. The 1950 D is in worse condition with surface pitting and also a strange patina on the depressed surfaces. It also has some green crud in tight protected areas. You can see that best in the photo on the right behind Lincoln's collar. In my opinion, it does not look like these coins were not owned by a serious collector, but perhaps dug. I doubt that any kind of serious collector would so harshly clean the coins. The one on the right with the surface pitting definitely looks like a dug coin to me. What do you think? Having received two wheats in change in such a short time span makes me wonder if there were a lot of wheats recently put into circulation by someone. Seems pretty unlikely to be coincidence, but it is possible I guess. If you are wondering how often it might happen by chance, I found a blog post where a fellow purchased 48 rolls of pennies in 2014 and recorded what he found. Here is what he said. I went to the bank and got $24 worth of pennies (48 rolls of 50) and sorted them.  On average there were 13.4 pre-1982 pennies in each roll, in percentage terms, 28.4%.  Some had as many as 20 and some had as few as 7.  There were also 5 wheat sheaf pennies in the lot and 10 Canadian cents.

Since that was done five years ago the odds might have changed some.

Anyhow the odds of finding a wheat cent in circulation, according to the experiment, is 5 in 2400 or 1 in 480 pennies.  Canadian cents were more likely than the wheat cents at a that time.  I understand that Canada no longer mints pennies.

Here is the link to that article. http://mattbussey.com/how-many-pre-1982-copper-pennies-are-still-in-circulation/ Here is an article about cleaning coins. Among other things, it tells how to tell if a coin has been cleaned, which they say should almost never be done.

Here is how they say you can tell if a coin has been cleaned.

A cleaned coin will have a dull, bright look – one that on a well-circulated coin would seem unnatural.

Old pennies that have been worn should not look bright orange and have flashy surfaces. Old, worn pennies should be medium to dark brown in color and have virtually no reflectivity on the surface at all. 

Old silver coins will look grey in color with darker patination around the devices, such as the lettering, date, and main design elements. A flashy, white silver coin that has clearly been worn is a clear giveaway that it has been cleaned. 

Uncirculated or about uncirculated coins should have lustrous surfaces and radiating lines that reflect shimmers of light in a cartwheel pattern as the coin is turned or rotated. 

The luster of a cleaned coin will be severely impaired, if not lost altogether. Therefore, if an uncirculated coin has been cleaned, the best way to tell is to see if it has any cartwheel luster. If it doesn’t, then don’t buy the coin.

Older coins that have been cleaned in the past may show evidence of a past cleaning in a few key ways:

Crud around design elements and lettering
Evidence of heavy, dark toning on some parts of the coin but not on others
Dull appearance in the fields

Here are a few occasions when they say it might be advisable to clean a coin.

(1) The coin has ugly and potentially damaging green polyvinylchloride (PVC) goo from an old plastic coin holder.

(2) The coin has loose dirt and debris on it. 

(3) An ancient coin needs cleaning for proper attribution or identification.

Here is that link.
https://coins.thefuntimesguide.com/cleaned-coins/ ---

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Not much going on except for one undeveloped system down in the Gulf.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Not much surf in the forecast either. Happy hunting, TreasureGuide@comcast.net