Here comes another story.  Lets do this baby.

(First, its seems likely that all my readers either live in Chester County, or one that borders it (except, perhaps, circumstantial AD spillovers today), and they know how I adore the beautiful winding roads, tucked in scenery, awesome historical sites and buildings, VFNP, and of course the best beer in the country (and if you haven’t heard of Victory Beer, you will)).

(Totally going like a Friday afternoon story so far, isn’t it?  So, where’s the Farewell Farewell?  Problem is that I did Farewell Farewell when I got permission to do the site (cause I gave myself a 1% chance at the permission — and then got it), so its just a lame story today).

So, where’s the metal detecting? OK, check this out.  What is this rare and beautiful object that I dug today at 7 inches? —

Without scale (except for the fingerprints), of course, it is impossible to guess in a reasonable way.  Anything from a large copper to an abused Indian or wheatie seems like a reasonable guess.  Maybe even a George II or a half cent sitting in the ground for over 200 years.

But, since this a blog (and, at it turns out, my blog), we know that it is something else, and it turns out that that beautiful copper is a 1960 clad memorial penny (don’t ask me how long it took me to figure that out; both the date and back are clear with a lot of effort).  Are you kidding me?  It took me a good 15 minutes to dig thru rocky ground to get that baby,

And no, its not the time that bothers me.  And no, its not the confusion as to how a 1960 memorial penny could sink 7 inches in rocky ground that bothers me.  Its the abuse.  Are you kidding me?  A 1960 memorial penny looking like that?

I hate Chester County cause of the pathologically acidic soil.  Cause of what it does to perfectly good coppers.  The pH of Chester County soil ranges from 6.2 to 6.8, and you don’t need a pHD in chemistry to know that that can’t be good for copper, tho if you are gonna get an education and live around here — my tip is that the plumbers (and there are tons of them), make a living replacing and repairing copper pipe that is destroyed by our beautiful and scenic and low pH soil.

Now, as to the coppers, had a record day today, dug 4 of ’em, all abused by the aforementioned low pH.

Are you kidding me?  Some folks die for 4 coppers in a career, much less one hunt.  Just give me something that’s not totally abused that I can work with.  I’d rather dig the proverbial 64 rosie with a hole in it than that garbage.  (As an aside, those elsewhere parading their beautiful coppers around, in high pH, high drainage soil, don’t know what it is like elsewhere.  The same can be said for people like me parading massive silver counts around, can’t it?  Of course its all relative (duh), and obviously that’s why I’m stalled on Philosophy Gym for the past several years (anyone with the actual book can look up the next question), but its coming, and it ends badly, I’m afraid).

So, back to the metal detecting, and trying to parse this train wreck.  One of them, the one in the lower right, is totally useless, and was scored as an unidentifiable copper. There is simply no hope on this one — nothing identifiable.

The one one the lower left was scored as an 1829 LC, cause that’s what it is.  Its hard to see that, and I’m not gonna show the close up pics, cause its too much work and it doesn’t matter.  Its so abused — its like, who cares?  The one in the upper right is a badly worn liberty cap large cent; you can only see that with lots of water and lots of imagination, and lots of positive scores on Rorschach tests, so I’ve scored it as an unidentifiable copper as well.

But the one in the upper left is an 1808 draped bust half cent.  If you use your imagination, you can see the 1/200 on the reverse, and the 1808 on the obverse.  This coin is worth $40 in AG3.  I’ve heard of P2 (tho never seen prices listed), but have never seen a grade of  CCPH6.5FU0, making a beautiful find worthless.  Well, at least I can mark a type off my bucket list.  And, this coin  was only at 4 inches.  Compare to the ’60 memorial at 7 inches that started this story.

(you may have to click the image to enlarge).

Well, the day wasn’t a total loss.  Dug a silver dime as well as the 4 coppers, a 1916 barber.  We’ll take it.

Yeah, a bit out of focus, but we’ve all seen barber dimes before.  Besides that dreadful pic, nailed this entry, baby!