7/5/18 Report - Francly Speaking About Two 1938 French Coins. Searching For Mint Errors.

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

2 Franc Coin - 1938

This is an aluminum-bronze coin worth 20 cents to five dollars depending upon condition.

Reverse of Same 1938 2 Franc Coin

I've been going through a lot of foreign coin finds lately.  A good number of older ones are from a cache, and some that are not as old are old beach finds that I just put aside, not knowing much about them.  

A lot of Canadian coins were found in Hollywood Florida over the years, for example.  A lot of those I showed in the magnet demonstration yesterday were from there. 

Here is a photo showing the two 1938 French coins that I'm showing today.  As you can see, the 2-franc coin is much bigger than the 50 centimes coin.  Otherwise they are very similar.

1938 2 Francs Compared to 1938 Fifty Centimes.

Below is the fifty centimes coin.  I should wipe this one off.

1938 2 Centime Coin.

This one is also aluminum-bronze and worth about the same as the 2 francs coin.

Reverse of Same 1938 2 Centime Coin.

Unlike Canadian coins, only about twenty percent of a large group of miscellaneous foreign coins (mostly from the sixties, seventies and eighties) I scanned were magnetic.

A good magnet can be used in a lot of ways.

You can actually test silver with a neodymium magnet.  Silver won't snap to it like ferrous metals, but you can slightly move silver with it.

If you have an old dead computer around, you can find a neodymium magnet by taking the hard drive apart.

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I never seriously searched for coins up until a few weeks ago.  I started looking through bunches of old coins.  I hate the idea of missing a valuable old coin simply because I didn't look or didn't know any better.  What I learned is that like with a lot of things, it takes time and practice to become effective.  It is more complicated and difficult than I expected.

Everybody has heard of double-die coins, and how they can be valuable.  Well, it turns out that there are a lot of kinds of doubling you will see on coins, and most of them are not valuable.  You have to learn to tell the difference.

A lot of what first likes a mint error is actually damage that occurred to the coin after it left the mint.  It can take some detective work to tell if something is a mint error or not.

There are also a lot of different kinds of coin errors, and many of them you will never see unless you know exactly what to look for.  For example, one digit of the date might be a touch smaller on some coins.  If you didn't know exactly what to look for, you would never expect the coin to be different or valuable - it would look like a perfectly normal coin.

I was surprised that in learning about errors I had to learn more about the minting process, and some of that applies to silver and gold cobs despite the fact that they were hand punched.  They still made die, and those die sometimes got cracked or damaged.  You will see some things that are similar on both modern coins and old treasure coins.

There are a heck of a lot of different coins, dates, countries, mints, etc. etc. to know about.  There is a lot to learn, but if you decide to get into it seriously, you might enjoy it, and you might even discover something of value.  It does take time and effort.

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Looks like we're in for more south winds and one to two foot surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/15/18 Report - U. S. Coins and Foreign Coins Found in a Cache. Recycling Finds.

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

Four Buffalos Without Dates.

I've been hunting an older site and came upon a cache containing a real variety of coins. It includes a mixture of heavily worn U. S. coins along with less worn foreign coins from a variety of countries and dates.   

Sorting all this out takes quite a bit of time.  Above are some buffalo nickels without dates that I quickly separated as not being worth much study.  Of course they would all be before 1938 if they had dates.  

The first few foreign coins that I took a look at included the following.  A 1922 Canadian 5 cent coin (nickel composition) , 1943 Sixpence (50% silver), and a 1942 French 50 centimes (aluminum), a 1922 Denmark 25 ore (copper/nickel), a 1917 one cent Canadian coin (bronze), a 1929 Mexico 1 centavo (bronze), and a 1930 Luxembourg 5 centimes (bronze).

It looks like the 25 ore could be the best of that lot, being worth perhaps $10 to $20.

I've found a good number of foreign coins while metal detecting beaches, but it was just one or two at a time and they were newer coins.  I've learned how time consuming it can be to go through numbers of various older foreign coins, which I do not know nearly as well as U. S. coins.  In some cases, I don't even know the country of origin, even though in many cases it is clear enough.  With world coins I have no immediate idea of value and have no experience in grading or looking for possible mint errors or key coins.  That will be time consuming.  Having been buried in a sealed jar, the foreign are in pretty good condition. 

Only one of these was silver (50%), three were bronze, one nickel, one nickel/copper, and one aluminum. 

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Dan B. sent the following message.

I was recently sorting through old boxes of metal finds with the intention of reducing the size of my collection. In the past, I have scrapped much of the copper but after a few flat tires from the scrap yard and dwindling copper prices, I decided against that. I have recently been enjoying some minimalist tendencies and enjoy moving things on that have little or no use in my life. With that in mind, I have become better at finding great places for things by understanding other people’s needs and passions. So long-story short, I have been finding that people who love art and sculptures, or metal working, have a common love for old metal and mechanical pieces. It is one great way to disperse finds that may not hold a place in your collection. It is fun to get rid of something and see the same love for it in someone else’s eyes that I once had. Truly a continuation of that objects journey and recycling an object for a purpose of love instead of function.

Great suggestion Dan.  I keep a lot of things around in case I can use them someday and it seems I never want them until I finally give up and get rid of them. I do find a lot of uses for some finds.  For example, I found a lot of copper wire, which I am using all the time.  I use the lumber I find too.  It always comes in handy.  Some other things are used in more creative projects.  I love when I can use something that way.  Still, there are things I'd like to turn over to somebody that can put them to better use.  It is great when you find people who love and can turn your finds into great new items.  I haven't sold much, but when I do sell something, it is a way of finding somebody who loves and will appreciate the items and make better use of them than I would.  The best thing you can do with a random find, whether it is junk or valuable, is put it into the hands of somebody that really loves that kind of item or can make excellent use of it.  An item in the hands of an artist or specialized collector will be better cared for and used than it would be by a person who is not talented or specialized in a particular area.

For scrap copper and things like that, there are indeed people who can turn them into real work of art.

For collectibles, the expert knowledge and care of a great item can make it even more valuable.  Too often great finds are ruined by a 

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The Sedwick treasure auction goes live today.  You might want to follow that.  It is already off to a hot start.

It is getting hot and humid.  It will soon be time to start watching the storms.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net