Kevin's Watch

So, as many of you know, my wife and I bought a house 10 days ago. It would need no work at all if we had less kids. But we don't have less kids, so I'm fixing up the attic for bedrooms. First, I put up the insulation.Where the floor meets the end wall of the house - the straight wall, not where the roof comes down to the floor - there's space between the floorboard and the wall, because of the 2x4 studs. I was cleaning out all the crap in there. In this case, I mean that literally. There were bats in the attic, so poop. Also some garbage, saw dust, whatever.

And all the way in the most remost corner, where the floor, outer wall, and sloping roof meet, in that space below the floorboards between the end of the floor and the wall, I found a bag. Old bag, held shut by a safety pin. I thought, "So help me, if there's a human heart in here... Or if I open it and catch anthrax or something..." But hey, gotta find out anyway, right? So I open it. And there's these old, rotten leather, small change purses. Containing, all told, about fifty old coins! And I'm talking old!

-1818 US One Cent piece, in at least as good condition as the one here:
cdn2.ioffer.com/img/1163145600/_i/15226173/1.jpg

-1817 George III coin that doesn't seem to have a denomination on it. Not in nearly as good condition as the 1816 shown here:
www.treasurerealm.com/coinpapers/englan ... S3788.html

-1893 Columbian half-dollar. Four of these, in as good shape as the one shown here:
www.coinlink.com/CoinGuide/commemorativ ... lf-dollar/

-1850 half-penny from the Bank of Upper Canada. Looks as good as the one shown here:
theworldcorner.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=724

-1866 one-cent from Hong Kong. Front's more worn, but back is close to this one:
www.rustypennies.com/catalog/pix/bf065.jpg

And a bunch of others. More Canadian coins than anything, except maybe the US Indian Head and Wheat Pennies. I haven't counted it all yet, so not sure.

First thing I did was call Damelon. He knows a bunch of stuff, and he's in Chicago, which is on the back of the Columbian half-dollars. I didn't know the World's Fair was there in 1893, which explains it.

I'm having one place about 10 miles away look at them tomorrow. We'll see what I've got here. It would be nice if I even had a few hundred dollars worth of crap, because the house didn't come with appliances. It would be great to have even the stove paid for.

Also, not likely of monetary value, but there's some religious medal/necklace thingies. And then there's this:

Looks like Jesus. Pix with my cell don't look good when they're close. Clouds are better. Heh. But this is really small. The container is only maybe an inch.

WOW fist.
Everyone always wants to find treasure in their house. Nice work!
Dunno anything about coins, but it sounds like a trove.

Is that little statue what you wanted to send Mom?

The coins and the statue are worthless.
But those two metal fragments next to the Jesus statue are 100% pure uranium!
For God's sake, put them back in the old lead lined bag!!!!!

Fire Daughter and I have been chatting for a while. I'm sure this is a Sacred Heart statue/figurine. Sure wish I could find this exact one online. Lots of pix of many versions, but not this. What metal is it? When was it made? Who can guess...


EDIT: Doh! Thanks for the tip, HLT!

Any chance the Antiques Roadshow might be swinging by near you? Those people seem to know their stuff.

Pretty cool, Fist!

Wow, Fist. Found money is so exciting. I am happy for you. I love old coins. You stumbled into some that puts my collection to shame.

Don't make any assumptions about what is crap. That's my only advice.

That ... and keep looking. Hoard hiders are paranoid, and paranoid hoard hiders don't hide their hoard all in one spot.

Damelon's by now recommended getting a 2009 Red Book to price out the US coins, right? www.pcgs.com/prices/ is another good place to go.

wayfriend wrote:www.pcgs.com/prices/ is another good place to go.

Hyperception recommended the same thing through me via text while we were driving to south Florida on Friday...

He really doesn't want to see you get nickeled and dimed by unscrupulous dealers, Fist.

Wasn't there a pennie that recently sold for a million dollars?
or a penny of that value that was put back into circulation by someone on purpose or something?
I forget the story.

There's a certain penny from 1793 worth a quarter mill.

The most valuable Lincoln Head Penny is a 1909-S "VDB", about $500.

The most valuable Indian Head penny is an 1877, worth about $400.

Well, despite commone sense and advice given here, I sold most of them already. For $220. I was watching the guy examine them all, and go through his guides. Yeah, I'm sure I could do better if I put them on ebay one-by-one. But, of course, then I'd have to go through all that. Might even get better price if I want to other places. The online ones I looked at charged a fee to check anything out.

Anyway, for better or worse, that's what I did. The big seller was one I forgot to mention above. 1875 US 20-cent piece. It looked pretty worn to me, although he said it wasn't too bad. He gave me $100 for that alone.

Interestingly, I still have all the ones I mention above, except for the US 1818 1-cent. And I only have one of the Columbian half-dollars, because I told Damelon I'd send him one. But he really only wanted the US coins, so I kept these, which were the ones I particularly liked. A One Shilling; George III; Hong Kong; Bank of Upper Canada (which, as it turns out, is depicting St. George killing the dragon).

He got very excited by one coin. A 5-cent from Canada. He looked at it and the catalog, eyes widened, put it down, and said, "That's a good coin." He called the owner to look at it, and all my dreams collapsed when the owner showed him that he was looking at the wrong column in the catalog. I was almost rich for a second there!!

Yeah, those worthless Canadians...

I didn't want to say it...

Fist and Faith wrote:Well, despite commone sense and advice given here, I sold most of them already. For $220. I was watching the guy examine them all, and go through his guides. Yeah, I'm sure I could do better if I put them on ebay one-by-one. But, of course, then I'd have to go through all that. Might even get better price if I want to other places. The online ones I looked at charged a fee to check anything out.

Anyway, for better or worse, that's what I did. The big seller was one I forgot to mention above. 1875 US 20-cent piece. It looked pretty worn to me, although he said it wasn't too bad. He gave me $100 for that alone.

I wish you had posted this was the offer you were considering. For that collection I would have offered you $250, easy.

Your reasons are understood, though. Menolly told me about you being in the middle of moving. Still, a downright shame...

Yeah, that was a pretty cool discovery! Those Columbian coins were, I later looked up, part of a special issue run by the U.S. Mint authorized by Congress, the first time the Mint made a commemorative coin. There were 5,000,000 authorized. 900,000 or so were stamped in 1892 and the rest in 1893.


Weren't there also monogramed handkerchiefs as well? That would possibly give a clue who, and when, the coins were put up there.

Hyperception wrote: I wish you had posted this was the offer you were considering. For that collection I would have offered you $250, easy.

Your reasons are understood, though. Menolly told me about you being in the middle of moving. Still, a downright shame...

I was thinking the same thing.
Way too quick a sale!

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575661,00. ... latestnews

This made me think of you f&f

Yeah, I know, I know... But like I told Menolly via txt, even as I did it, I knew I'd always wonder. And I knew people would say what you guys just said. Heh. But, seriously, I have great wealth in some extremely important aspects of life. Financial is not among them, and, unless I put in the effort needed (which I'm not about to ), it never will be.

I don't find amazingly valuable coins in my attic.

But I did get some very cool coins, which make me think of a person looking at them long ago, hiding them, being called down to dinner, and, one day, thinking, "Holy cow!!! I just remembered I put all that stuff in the attic of that house I lived in years ago!!!"

Yeah, monogrammed handkerchiefs. Or napkins? But just M. Not too helpful. (Hmm. I wonder if they're W.) But the house was supposedly built in 1908, so that's one clue. heh


Good one, Cybr.

That's awesome Fist! And $200 around Xmas time is not to be sneezed at! Well done!