Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
A find is the beginning for another hunt. After the find comes research, which adds additional meaning, interest and value to the find. That is true for coins as well as artifacts - even what are apparently common coins.
There are coins in circulation today that are worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. As you would suspect, such coins are rare, but you still might be lucky enough to find a good one if you carefully check the coins you have.
If you've been detecting very long, you've probably found a lot of coins. Even pennies can be valuable if they have a mint error.
Most of us spend our common coins without paying too much attention to them, but you might enjoy and even profit from going through them very carefully.
First though, familiarize your self with the types of coins you have and what to look for.
There are many web sites such as this one entitled
Lincoln Penny Key Dates, Rarities and Varieties (
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/lincoln-wheat-penny-768219 ).
That one is not necessarily the best. It is just one of many that provides useful information.
I've been spending some time searching for errors lately and learned a few things that might make it easier for you.
I'd recommend categorizing your coins before you begin. It is much easier to search one type of coin and date at a time. You can research that type of coin at a site like the one I just mentioned and then go through those coins. There is just too much to remember to go through a bunch of random coins and dates. It is much easier if you know what you are looking for and look at one type and date at a time while the known errors that you found through your research are still fresh in your mind.
Another advantage of doing one type and date at a time is that you can compare coins. After you've seen several of a particular type and date you'll quickly notice any that appear different. Maybe it is one digit in the date that is smaller, larger or in some other way different.
Unfortunately many of the coins found by detectorists have been buried, banged up or corroded. That makes many coins, even with errors, less valuable. It also makes it difficult to identify any errors.
Some mint errors are common or inconsequential, while others are valuable. If coins are damaged, it is hard to tell if something suspicious is an error or something that happened to the coin after it went into circulation. That can require some real detective work.
In the coins that I've been searching lately I've found a variety of surprising things. One coin was made to look like what is called a "greaser," which is a coin that was struck through grease, resulting in an unclear image on part of the coin. It has been determined though, that that coin, a wheat penny, actually had acid applied to it in such a way that the image was blurred. The coin weighed two grams less than a normal wheatie, which would not have been the case if the coin was actually struck through grease.
Even something as seemingly simple as a double die error can be difficult to see and identify. Some are small, and double die errors can easily be confused with die bounce, which is not the same thing.
As with everything, knowledge helps. If you just want to go through a stack of coins and hope to find something odd, you'll probably miss important things.
There are some types of damage that are difficult to distinguish from true mint errors. The easiest thing is to scan coins that are in pretty good shape to begin with and know what kinds of errors are known to exist for that type of coin.
Many valuable errors are not easy to see. I would consider some type of magnification to be absolutely necessary.
I have a little lighted system that I use to make some of my coin photos. It blows the coin image up several times and makes it much easier to scan for errors.
In summary, you can add to your enjoyment of common coin finds and possibly find something interesting, but you need to do a little research first.
Again, I highly recommend, starting with one small class of coins, depending upon what you have. If you have enough coins, maybe start with steel pennies, war nickels, or certain dates of wheat pennies. The more coins you scan, the better chance you have of finding a coin worth something, and the more you'll learn in the process.
The most valuable coins are rare, so it might take some work, but if you search enough coins, you probably will find at least some of the more common error coins and you'll learn enough to be on the alert for the more valuable coins.
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Here is an excerpt of a nice article from Scotsman.com.
...The catalyst for the 1719 Rising was the outbreak of war between Spain and Britain the year before.
The Spanish saw the benefit of resurrecting a Jacobite uprising for increasing pressure on the British government and offered the Jacobites an alliance and assistance in war, according to the inventory of Scotland’s battlefield.
Around 5,000 Spanish soldiers set off to invade Britain but the fleet was wrecked by a storm off the south coast of England and the manoeuvre abandoned.However, a smaller contingent led by Jacobite George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal Keith, of Dunnottar Castle, was on its way from the Basque country and set up camp at Eilean Donan Castle.
In May, the castle - traditional seat of Clan Mackenzie - was attacked by the Royal Navy with 39 Spanish marines taken prisoner....
Here is the link for the rest of the article.
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We should soon start to hear from the local salvage crews about the new finds made this year.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
