Old coin collection found in SW Pennsylvania

November 20, 2009
Earlier this month I had to go home to Pennsylvania for a funeral, my great Uncle had passed away. After the funeral I stopped in to see my other Uncle in a small Southwestern part of the state.  While visiting with my great Uncle I asked him if he would mind if I did a little detecting around his property and he said sure. The property is a farm where he and his brothers were born and grew up. The farm dates back to the mid 1800’s and his family had owned it all of this time. The house where my great Uncle and his brothers were born was boarded up and overgrown but still partially standing.
 My uncle told me that when he was a kid, one of his brothers had a coin collection and they were playing like pirates and buried it near the house or the barn. They forgot about it and just a few years ago he and his cousin were talking about coins and he remembered it.  This got me very excited so I started out detecting the back of the house near an old barbed wire fence. I was using the Garrett Ace 150 I had bought for my wife. I found all sorts of junk including Mason jar lids, nails, a horse shoe, barbed wire, pop tabs, bolts etc. I worked my way from the fence towards the house. My Uncle was very interested once I started finding metal pieces and parts and kept a close eye on my finds. A few hours went by and I had almost filled 3 gallon plastic bucket with junk.  I stopped for lunch and my Uncle told me stories of his childhood growing up on the farm.
 After my short break I went back to work. I already searched from the back of the house up one side and now was starting at the front.  I searched the whole front yard and found a few Wheat cents, a 1932 Canada cent, some .22 bullets, copper wire, nails, screw type bottle caps and an old bicycle sprocket.  I was starting to get tired of finding junk but that story of the buried coin collection kept me going. I worked my way down the side of the house. There was a huge old dead tree that had fallen over next to the house. I remember hearing that people often hid money near the base of trees so I checked all around it. I found nothing.  I got to the back corner of the house and got a good signal stating something at around 6 inches. I started digging and hit a big flat piece of roofing slate. It was about 10 inches by 12 inches and lying flat at approximately 4 inches down.  I dug it out and still got a signal where it was. I had to cut out some roots and dug down about another 4 inches and then I hit something! It sounded like tin. I dug the hole wider and then pried out the metal object. My Uncle was standing right on my heels looking over my shoulder and yelled “you found it!” I just about had a heart attack.  It looked to me like a rusted junk tin can. I didn’t think I found anything but trash. What I had found was an old Half & Half tobacco tin. It obviously had something inside of it because it had some weight to it. I took it over to my car and carefully opened the hinged lid. Inside was a bunch of dirt and cotton and the missing coin collection. Yahoo! it was my first cache! We carefully emptied the contents of the tin. It contained 16 coins: a 1900,1912 large copper penny (one has a man’s head on front the other a woman’s head and foreign writing) 1887 large copper penny with Victoria D:G: Britt: Reg: F.D and a woman’s head on the front, 1864 Napoleon III Empereur written on front with a man’s head and an Eagle on the back(back says DIX Centimes), 1870 Cinco centimes  and Lion with Shield on front and Cinco gramos on back . I have no idea where these were from but they are pretty old. I do not know much about coins but I have seen these before U.S.: 1922, 1923 silver dollars, 1900, 1907, and two 1912 V nickels, 1901, 1905 silver dimes and 1892, 1902, 1907 Indian head pennies.   The tobacco tin is in pretty bad condition but was found in a relatively dry area close to the foundation of the house.
Looking at those coins and remembering burying them with his brother brought some tears to my Uncle’s eyes.  I told him I was happy to find them for him and he told me that they were now mine.  He said with a big smile on his face “Finders, keepers!”

Footnote: ( I added the 1932 Canada cent to the picture)

Extremely cool finds, and a good story to boot  !

Diggem'

Your Napoleon III Empereur coin may look like this:
http://www.coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins?main_coin=716&main_ct_id=26

Great story! I have two similar to that but the finds have yet to be unearthed.

I have relatives that tell the story of buried treasure when they were younger. I know exactly what yard that it is in, I know within 10 feet of where it is burried, but I don't know the people who currently live in the house! There used to be a big Oak tree and it was burried beneath it, the tree is gone but the stump remains. No one remembers exactly what is in the cache other than some coins and some "other junk". I think about the treasure every time I drive past that house. I don't think that there is anything of major value in it, but it sure would be cool to unearth it.

I know of another story too, my sister and an ex-brother-in-law lived in Florida near Panama City. His father was supposed to have burried thousands of dollars in a container in his yard, the home burned down and was left abandoned. My brother-in-law asked me if I thought that my detector would find the treasure but I wouldn't loan him my detector. First off he is in Florida and I'm in PA, and he wasn't what you would say "in good standing" with the family or my sister for that matter.

My ex-BIL went to the site with a shovel and tried to find it, he was caught by the police for trespassing and turned away. Since then my BIL has passed away and as far as we know the loot is still there.