Melting Snow Gives Up Treasure!

Well, one of the silver linings of the snowy Winter of 2009-2010 is that the ice and snow has been piled around vending machines and parking meters for several weeks.  I've heard conjecture in the past that piles of snow would reveal coins when they melt, but I hadn't had the opportunity to test that theory until now.  The big thaw isn't here yet, but the snow has been receding enough that I was able to start checking.  I'm happy to say that it's true!  There were coins everywhere as the snow melted.  It was a lot of fun to walk down a row of parking meters and find a coin or two under every other one. I didn't realize people drop so many coins at them, but on the other hand, their fingers are cold or they may be wearing gloves.  Once the coin goes into a snowbank, it's pretty much gone. 

After being surprised to find 69 coins during my walks in January, I was amazed to come up with 90 in February, including the 20 I found in airports, which I talked about in an earlier post.  That's the equivalent of a couple of times out with the metal detector.  Since it's been so snowy and frozen, I wasn't able to get out with the detector at all in February, so I'm happy that moneywalking finds have picked up.  I got a big surprise in a vending machine when I pushed the return button and a silver 1964

quarter fell out.  I knew the sound said silver but didn't believe it even after I had the quarter in my hand.  You just never know what's going to appear while treasure hunting. As Mel Fisher used to say, "Today's the Day!"

Indian Head Coins

I used to collect coins when I was younger.  It's still fun to go to a coin show now and then to see some coins you never get to see.  I was looking at a $10 gold coin a while ago and got to wondering how many Native American US coins there are.  It turns out there are quite a few. I think they are some of the most attractive designs on any US coins.  It's not a coincidence that they were designed in the early part of the 20th century during the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, when a lot of utilitarian items were designed more attractively. 

I collected up pictures of all the Indian coins and posted them in an article Native American Coins of the US.  The stories behind some of these coins are pretty interesting.  The Buffalo nickel came through the efforts of President Teddy Roosevelt, who was an outdoorsman and had traveled in the west.  He thought the previous nickels were too plain, and had an engraver study portraits of Indian chiefs to come up with a realistic face on the obverse side.  Other coins like the Indian head penny and the $10 gold Eagle pictured here actually portray Lady Liberty wearing an Indian headdress.

 Anyway, take a look, there are some pretty neat-looking coins in the collection.  Also, I looked up Canadian coins online and I didn't see one that had an Indian design. I think one had a Haida totem pole, but thats it. I wonder why that is.  Tied closer to the crown until just a few decades ago I think. Interesting. 

Airport Money

One of my favorite moneywalking places is in an airport.  I don't go out of my way to go moneywalking there, but if I am there, I do go out of my way to hunt for stray coins, because I know they are there. Airports have several things going for them, they are noisy, many surfaces are carpeted, people are spending money there in food courts, people are in a hurry and carrying bags, and people are lounging around for extended periods. That all adds up to lost coins.


Here is a handful of coins I found last week on a trip.  All except one were found in airports. 19 coins plus a Philadelphia transit token that has a copper strip through the middle.  If you are interested in foreign coins, airports are also a good place to do some coin hunting if the opportunity presents itself. Back home now, waiting for these piles of snow to melt and see whats been dropped in them.  Looks like that might take a month or so, though.  Oy.

Visiting the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum

Well, since the snows continue to pile up in my prime treasure-hunting grounds, I needed a way to stay motivated. What better place to keep my treasure fire stoked than at Mel Fisher's Treasure Museum in Sebastian, Florida?  Mel Fisher made some amazing discoveries right off the beach not far from here, where the 1715 Plate Fleet went down in a storm.  The 1715 Plate Fleet wrecks continue to produce treasure since being discovered over 40 years ago.

Mel Fisher, as you know, is most famous for recovering the treasure of the Atocha near the Marquesas Islands off the Florida Keys. The Atocha and it's sister ship, the Santa Margarita, also continue to give up their treasures to Mel Fisher's treasure hunters.

The Treasure Museum in Sebastian gives a great history of Mel's treasure hunting exploits in Florida. He sold his dive shop in California to spend a year salvaging the 1715 Plate Fleet without promise of pay. His year paid off handsomely as he at one point found "a carpet of gold coins" in a small ravine on the ocean floor. He moved on to hunting for the 1622 fleet which included the Atocha.

The museum has a short film, then you can tour the fantastic finds that Fisher and his treasure hunting team have found from both fleets, which are pictured here.  There is a gift shop with authentic gold and silver treasure items for sale.  You can also get replica coins and jewelry molded from the originals. 

The Mel Fisher Treasure Museum is a great stop if you are in the Sebastian area.  You can see some of the most amazing treasure ever found, and just drool at divers on the film bringing up fistfuls of gold escudos and buckets of Spanish silver coins. 

Mel Fisher also has a treasure musem in Key West, Florida where you can see similar Spanish treasure. Also check Melfisher.com for further info.  Oh, I don't have the detector with me on this trip but I did find a penny washed up in the wet sands while walking on a beach just up the road. The treasure beaches continue to produce. 

Finding Coins on the Street

Well it looks like we're having a real Winter this year!  After our 16 inch snow on December 19th, the temperature stayed pretty much below freezing for the next month. In mid-January we had a bit of a thaw, but here on the last weekend of the month, we got another 6 inch snowfall last night. In all that, I got out with the metal detector twice and found about $5.00 in change, no jewelry. 

As always, when one treasure source isn't producing, I can turn to another. This month was a bit of a surprise, we'll get to that in a minute. As I've talked about previously, coin roll hunting is a great way to treasure hunt.  I did go through a few boxes of halves but they were very bleak. I think out of 3 boxes, I found one silver half.  I did find a 1980 Panama half dollar (in the same box) which was a neat surprise. Does that count as Spanish treasure?


This month I also went through a couple thousand pennies, just to see what's out there.  I do look for the error coins, but haven't come up with a penny error yet. I have to admit that's a bit tedious. They can be worth some money though, so I'll probably keep looking for errors and see if it's worth my time. Every type of treasure-hunting isn't for everybody.  It's easier to just collect wheat pennies because you can't miss them. You could easily start a coin book for wheats just found through coin roll hunting.  I did have more luck with the wheats. They are fun to find.

Since yard sale season is still a month or two away, there is always thrift store hunting. That's good in any season.  If you have a few stores in a reasonable distance from you, they are worth checking out. My better half trolls through them on a regular basis and sometimes turns up a gem or two. Last week, she found a neat old Carnival glass vase.  They are called that because they were given out as prizes at carnivals during the Depression. They were also used for cheap giveaways at grocery stores to entice shoppers to come in.  Nowadays they can be worth a pretty penny for nice pieces.  The vase she turned up is from the 1920's based on the Imperial Glass cross mark on the base. We haven't been able to figure out what it's worth yet, but certainly exponentially more than the $1.90 she paid for it.  We have a small collection of Carnival glass, and it really looks good when it's all displayed together.  At this point, what it's worth doesn't matter, since it's not going anywhere but into the collection as a piece of found treasure.

So the final type of treasure-hunting I was able to do in January is moneywalking.  I've picked up 5 or 10 coins a month off the street when they appear in the path of my daily walks. But I've not had what you could call steady success with moneywalking.  I've been reading some other blogs for tips on what other treasure hunters have done to increase their coin finds, and I wanted to test out that theory of finding change in melting snowpiles. I put more emphasis on it this month and did the best I ever have.  In January, I was able to find 69 coins. That's like 6 months tallies from 2009.  I was amazed, but it truly does work. I only came up with 2 or 3 coins out of snowpiles, so the jury's still out on that.  I have concentrated on the ground under parking meters, and that continues to produce pretty well. I expanded my walking range to different streets and that has helped a lot.  In my city, though, they are taking out the parking meters one by one and replacing them with  2 or 3 parking machines per block.  I thought that would be the death knell for moneywalking in that area. However, last week I decided to start checking them and I've been pleasantly surprised to find coins in the reject slots, and not just grubby pennies. Here's a picture of January's returns just from moneywalking, over $2.00, including an angel token and a wheat penny.  That's great, I'm encouraged that this avenue of treasure hunting will be a producer as well, and I haven't even hit my first car wash or drive-through window yet! Ha-ha!  

Quick January Treasure Hunt

Rain Friday, rain Sunday but was able to get out Saturday for a bit.  We finally had enough warm air that the ground has thawed, although there are some dirty piles of snow still around.  Hit a couple of local schools with the Ace 250 metal detector. Came up with about $3 in change, not bad, was pleased to find a necklace and my first gold dollar of the year, always nice to find...certainly more efficient than digging 100 pennies!

Here's a quarter coming up from a few inches deep in a woodchip playground.   Keep hunting, it's out there! 

Hunting the Copper Mine

If you have winter cabin fever like I do, here is an easy way to do some treasure hunting at your kitchen table.  Take $5 to the bank and ask for pennies. All banks have rolls of pennies. This is an easy and inexpensive way to get your family or kids into coin collecting or treasure hunting. 

There are several ways to approach the hunt.  You can buy a penny book at Walmart and see how many slots you can fill. Or you can look for rare coins.  Yes, there are still some pretty valuable pennies out there, and some recent ones too. Go to the Professional Coin Grading Service website, click on Price Guide, and then scroll down to Lincoln cents. You can see what the prices are for coins by grade. There are several error varieties out there. The 1999 with wide AM on the reverse is worth a couple hundred, and there are doubled dies listed from the 90's, 80's, 70's and 60's that are worth quite a bit in excellent condition. The 1969-S is worth about $60,000. That would certainly make my day! I keep a list of the potential valuable pennies and put them aside while hunting, then come back with a magnifying glass and check closely at the end.  The rest I toss into a bowl.

You can also just collect up wheat-back pennies.  You probably haven't seen any in circulation in a while (they changed to Memorial backs in 1959). However, they are still out there.  Hey, there's one right now, see?

I only found the one wheat, a 1958-D, out of this lot of 500 pennies.  But I was able to come up with three of the new 2009 Abe Lincoln pennies pictured below. You may not have seen any of these yet, but the Memorial back pennies that have been the design for most of our lifetimes are now also a thing of the past.  The 2009's have four different reverse sides with scenes from Lincoln's life, since 2009 is the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1809. (The Lincoln cent was introduced in 1909 for his 100th birthday).

The US Mint will introduce a new reverse design on the 2010 pennies that will have a union shield.  The first of these pennies was released on February 11, 2010, Lincoln's birthday.  Some people also collect pre-1982 cents since they were made of pure copper back then, making each copper penny worth more than 1 cent based on just the copper content.  (Now they are made of zinc plated with copper). So you can see there are lots of treasure hunting options.  I wonder if we'll be hunting for Memorial-back pennies in ten years?  Somehow I doubt it, but you never know!