Old town demolition site finds - updated with more pix

Tom_in_CA · Sep 17, 2020

In a certain city near me, an old-town district building was torn down.

First day : 2 seated dimes ('77 cc and '74), 4 barber dimes ('99s, '03 O, '08, '14D), 2 standing quarters (1918 & ??), 2 V nickels ('03 & '07), 2 buffalos, a hosed shield nickel, 3 war nickels, 4 mercs, , a '44 Washington Q, and 20 wheaties .

Went back the next day to scrounge for leftovers. Got a '97 IH, a '35 merc, and 2 more wheaties.

My buddy got a 1900 barber quarter, an 1891 seated quarter, a '72 half dime, misc. barber dimes and wheaties and a shield nickel.

Jamflicker · Sep 17, 2020

That's awesome! You got a little of everything in the coin category. Nice job!

deeper · Sep 17, 2020

Holy moley! That is exceptional. Kudos! How large an area was this?

Diggerjonny · Sep 17, 2020

Great job! Nice variety of coins. Gotta love demo sites.

Tom_in_CA · Sep 17, 2020

Jamflicker said:
That's awesome! You got a little of everything in the coin category. Nice job!

Diggerjonny said:
Great job! Nice variety of coins. Gotta love demo sites.

thanx for coming along guys. 16 silver, old nickels, etc... is a fun little hunt.

deeper said:
Holy moley! That is exceptional. Kudos! How large an area was this?

~ 50 ft. x ~ 75 ft. It was in this little towns "saloon" row district . The old brick buildings, that replaced the earlier board & batten type downtown districts. I talked to the company that tore it down, and they said that once they started tearing out the floor, they encountered the early wooden floors of the yesteryear bar/saloon. That explains the wide variety of dates (1870s to 1940s), was that those old places often had drip-grates in the floors. Because prior to the age of refrigeration, the older style block-ice refrigeration boxes notoriously dripped. So proprietors often had drip grates right in the floors of their buildings. And coins could make their way through.

Ron 71 · Sep 17, 2020

That's a crazy amount of loot, Nice Hunting!

GA1dad · Sep 17, 2020

Very productive couple of days,,, congrats!!

yooper69 · Sep 17, 2020

Holy !!!! Tom you had a great hunt! Great job! Since you have that tropical year round weather find some more demos like this since it is below freezing here tonight and soon will be shoveling and all i can do is drool at stuff like this for the next 6-7 months.

GKL · Sep 18, 2020

Wow, great hunt Tom ! :thumbsup:

......those old demo sites must be a "gold mine" for silver ! :laughing:

Tpmetal · Sep 18, 2020

but wait!!! where are the large cents tom? great modern coin finds though!

Tom_in_CA · Sep 18, 2020

Ron 71 said:
That's a crazy amount of loot, Nice Hunting!

GA1dad said:
Very productive couple of days,,, congrats!!

GKL said:
Wow, great hunt Tom !

......those old demo sites must be a "gold mine" for silver !

Ron, GKL, and GA1dad, thanx for coming along !

yooper69 said:
Holy !!!! Tom you had a great hunt! Great job! Since you have that tropical year round weather find some more demos like this since it is below freezing here tonight and soon will be shoveling and all i can do is drool at stuff like this for the next 6-7 months.

Yooper, yes, I know your hear bleeds for me/us, but : where I'm at in CA, we only get snow about 1x every 30 or 40 yrs. That sticks to the ground for a day or two. Thus yes, we have year-round hunting here !

My wife is from Chicago, and describes various winters where there was snow on the ground for months. And some days where the day-time temps never reached above freezing. Where I'm at: If it were below 32*, that would be "front page news". And if it exceeded 90*, that would be "front page news". Go ahead and shed a few tears for us !

Tpmetal said:
but wait!!! where are the large cents tom? great modern coin find though!

Oh, you just HAD to go "talk smack", eh ? Since when have I ever talked smack about you guys ? Huh ? HUH ? :laughing:

Tpmetal · Sep 18, 2020

Tom_in_CA said:
Oh, you just HAD to go "talk smack", eh ? Since when have I ever talked smack about you guys ? Huh ? HUH ?

LovestheShiny! · Sep 18, 2020

Very nice finds Tom! A torn down saloon would be a great place to find coins that have slipped down thru the floorboards etc. Any old Western Whiskey bottles or flasks?

Tpmetal · Sep 18, 2020

In all seriousness though good job, how much trash was present?

metaladdict · Sep 18, 2020

Tom_in_CA said:
Ron, GKL, and GA1dad, thanx for coming along !

Yooper, yes, I know your hear bleeds for me/us, but : where I'm at in CA, we only get snow about 1x every 30 or 40 yrs. That sticks to the ground for a day or two. Thus yes, we have year-round hunting here !

My wife is from Chicago, and describes various winters where there was snow on the ground for months. And some days where the day-time temps never reached above freezing. Where I'm at: If it were below 32*, that would be "front page news". And if it exceeded 90*, that would be "front page news". Go ahead and shed a few tears for us !

Oh, you just HAD to go "talk smack", eh ? Since when have I ever talked smack about you guys ? Huh ? HUH ?

lol:
Great load of coins! But I can't see the seated very well. :foottap:

BottleCapKing · Sep 18, 2020

That is a great collction of finds! It is really cute how you use the term "old town"

Soil Surgeon · Sep 18, 2020

Awe$um ! From what I see those Standing Quarters seem to be in fantastic shape .
Congrats to you and your buddy .

Tom_in_CA · Sep 18, 2020

LovestheShiny! said:
Very nice finds Tom! A torn down saloon would be a great place to find coins that have slipped down thru the floorboards etc. Any old Western Whiskey bottles or flasks?

Yes, my hunting partner is a bottle digger buff. He got a few thousand dollars worth of bottles. And he's perpetually harping on me that there's actually more $$ in bottles, than there is in coins and md'ing. But it's just something I've never gotten into thus far. I'm too busy md'ing :laughing:

Tpmetal said:
In all seriousness though good job, how much trash was present?

The first day, when we were at the front of the side (up closest to where the wooden store/saloon entry apron would have been) it was seemingly non-stop coins. With little junk. By by the 2nd day, they drug dirt around, in order to level all the ground out. That introduced dirt from the rear of the lot. Which was very junky (as that would have been the back-door where they toss trash, have their outhouse pits, etc....). That introduced a bunch of junk. So I only got 4 coins (fluke leftovers) on the 2nd day.

BottleCapKing said:
That is a great collction of finds! It is really cute how you use the term "old town"

Soil Surgeon said:
Awe$um ! From what I see those Standing Quarters seem to be in fantastic shape .
Congrats to you and your buddy .

thanx bottle-cap-king and soil-surgeon for looking !

Tom_in_CA · Sep 18, 2020

metaladdict said:
lol:
Great load of coins! But I can't see the seated very well.

They weren't good dates, so I didn't bother doing closeups. The 1874 is with arrows. Technically, if it's a CC mint mark, that's a $10k coin. But the back is totally worn slick :mad:

So ... I didn't bother studying nor cleaning further.

oaktree · Sep 18, 2020

That would be a legendary search for 95% of the people on here - but in your legendary career it's a "nice" :-)

Congratulations on those incredible finds, I enjoyed imagining the old tavern setup and guys dropping a few coins while deep into the whiskey

Old town demolition site finds - updated with more pix

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