Cool Commemorative Half Dollar

My significant other found this 1989-S Proof half dollar in a roll that she picked up from the bank yesterday. I had never seen one before. It is legal tender and was only sold in sets from the US Mint. It was kind of dirty. I didn't even realize it is a Proof until I started cleaning the grunge off it. Pretty neat for a find in circulation, eh?

Four Ringie-Dingies

Ahhh. Probably my favorite types of treasure to find is a nice ring. Last year I found 45 of them, the year before I think 32. This weekend was cool and sunny out, so it was a good weekend to get the old metal detector back in action. Over the course of 3 hunts, I was blessed to find 4 nice rings. Aarghh! I started at a small lake beach nearby that produced 5 rings last year. This time I found the copper ring and a silver toe ring buried in the sand. I'm sure there are more there, I have to go back and check again. On Saturday, I went to a woodchip playground for about a half hour and found the green stone ring with diamonds. Alas, it is costume, but still gave my heart a little start when I found it! Lastly, the silver band was buried about 4 inches down on a softball field. It came up nice and shiny, in a big clod of dirt. Now that's a good treasure weekend! The piles of coins in the other picture were found while ring-hunting. It all adds up to a full treasure chest after a while.

Multiple Streams of Treasure

Well I found treasure this weekend through several means. It's all found, it just keeps flowing in as long as you believe it's out there. And yes, we are surrounded by it. OK, here's how the treasure you see here arrived in my treasure chest. The silver half dollar came through coin roll hunting. I got a few rolls of half dollars from the bank. Since they hardly circulate at all, there are some old ones in there if you look through them. I was lucky and found this 1968 half that is 40% silver. Worth a few dollars. Check my article 'How to Find Silver Coins in Circulation' for more info on coin roll hunting.

Next, moneywalking is another way to find treasure consistently. Just look around on your travels. On a trip to Walmart, I took a quick look in the Coinstar reject tray, and it was filled with coins! There were 3 Euro coins and 9 pennies. Treasure! I found a dollar bill on the ground earlier this week, but forgot to include it in the pic. So there's some nice treasure rolling in.

Next, I took my metal detector out to an area that is being cleared for development, and found this large military coat button. It's from the 20th century, but it's almost as big as the half dollar. That's a nice old relic. The rest of the coins were found with the detector in a schoolyard on the way home. Not bad!

Oh, and one more stream of treasure came via my 1st mate, who loves thrift store and yard sale shopping. She found this hand-painted tole can, a nice numbered and signed rustic print, and a pair of signed Tiffany crystal candlesticks for $10 total. Can't beat that with a stick!

There you go, 4 ways to find treasure. Aarghh!

Meow Like a Pirate Day is Coming

In the interests of all things pirate, my interests in pirating has crossed with my care of 4 cats in the house (plus visitors). So I want to remind all that Talk Like a Pirate Day, or in this case, Meow like a Pirate day is coming. Every year this special day falls on September 19. In 2009, that falls on Caturday.

Enter your favorite kitty dressed in his or her favorite pirate garb in this MLAPD contest:
The Cat's Meow, Catster.com's cats and kittens blog

Spanish Treasure and Silver

It has been very dry here but we got a nice overnight rain, so I wanted to get the metal detector out for a spin. I just bought a Garrett pro-pointer on my Florida trip, so wanted to try that out as well. I went to a local school and found 20 or so coins on the playground, then tried another schoolyard in an older part of the county. Started off slow, the ground was still quite dry below an inch. Dug a few pulltabs down 4-6" deep. This particular school has not given up a ring yet. I'm convinced that there is at least one at every school. Since this school is from the late 1950's I'm sure there are a few. Anyway, I like the pinpointer, it reaches a good 2" or so through the soil. Got a good repeatable signal at 6" and out popped a shiny silver dime, dated 1964. Ahhh, that was nice, its the first one this year, and boded well for the hunt. A few other coins started popping up. I have to go back there and work slowly when the ground is wet this Winter. After a bit, I got another strong signal at 2 to 3 inches, and out popped this big copper coin. It is a Spanish 10 centimos, dated 1878. Wow, Spanish treasure! That's the oldest coin I've found in this area. Great treasure day. Aarghh.

Florida Treasure Hunting

OK, I promised I would come back with some news after my trip to Florida. On this trip, I was with family, doing the obligatory parks and such. It was fun....but tiring. And though I couldn't dedicate time to moneywalking, I was still able to come up with 7 coins over the course of the weekend. I've found that airports are a good place to look since people are lounging around while waiting, spending money at food and souvenir stores, and on carpeted surfaces a lot, which deadens the sound of a dropped coin. So that was OK, something new learned.

I was able to get out for a spin through some thrift stores also. I like the Florida stores. They have a different class of clothing, more Summer stuff of course. And since the population is older, a lot of people donate stuff when they are downsizing or moving. And there is some older stuff. There is always different stuff in thrift stores in other parts of the country, or in other countries. That makes thrift store treasure hunting a lot of fun. You just have to go in with the mindset that there will be something good in there, you just have to sift through until you find it.

So, here is a selection of some cool treasures found. The black candleholders are handpainted tin, old and really nice for $3 the pair. I have a collection of old pewter so at $1, the Reed and Barton candleholder was a steal. The old jewelry box I think was $1 also, and the McCoy vase was $2. Nice! In the other pics, the clay pitcher is new but goes with other colonial stuff I have, $3. Finally, the yellow planter is a 1941 Nelson McCoy piece, nice find. I had to leave a big McCoy vase, since I was traveling by plane. Picked up a couple other items too, a lot of neat treasure finds! My other half has a little antique booth and this gives us a legitimate reason to treasure hunt, and keeps the treasure moving on its journey to someone who will be thrilled to find it. So I feel we are just middlemen in these items' trip from treasured at one time, to hidden junk, to found treasure, and finally back to treasured. The treasure cycle continues. Aarghh!

What Motivates me to be a Treasure Hunter?

The pursuit of treasure can take many forms, as you see from title on top of my page. When I get tired of one, whether it be moneywalking, sweepstakes, metal detecting, or whatever, I just go on to the next one. I've found that I can get remotivated for treasure hunting by checking what other people are finding at Treasurenet.com. This is mostly a metal detecting site, but they have a little bit of everything. What's motivating about it is that the treasure hunters there post pictures of their finds, and the site is very active. That means that there is a lot of treasure being found on a daily basis. Some of it will blow you away. Either click on any of the pictures in the banner across the top, or go to Today's Finds. Amazing.

I haven't gotten the detector out since a beach trip in August, which was pretty good. One silver toe ring and about 225 coins. I was surprised when a half dollar came up from about 9" down. Not an old one, but still definitely treasure.

Here are a couple of other pieces I was able to score this Summer through sweepstaking. The bracelet was won in a department store giveaway. The minor league baseball championship ring is a replica that was given away in a sweepstakes in the local paper. Can't argue with that bling. The stories behind them are in an article I posted below on August 26, How to Win Local Sweepstakes and Giveaways. I just hadn't gotten the pictures posted.

I'm off to Florida this weekend, not sure what form of treasure hunting I'll be doing there, but I'll let you know in a few days.