THE $5000 PENNY
Table of Contents

    This is story of how i found a $5000 penny. Now i don't want to mislead you from the start. This penny isn't going to fetch five grand on ebay. This is the story of how it took me nearly 5 years and a cost of at least $5000 before i was able to check it off my coin bucket list. That's how i look at things, maybe not their monetary value, but their value to me and what it cost to get me there. 

    When i first started detecting, i had a list of coins in my mind. I was being reasonable i think, nothing too crazy. For example, i didn't have a Morgan Silver Dollar on the list, i was trying to keep the dream within reason. Mercury dime, SLQ Quarter, Buffalo Nickel, and top of the list was an Indian Head Penny. 

    Year One. $300

    I start off with a Garret 250, a generic Amazon orange pin pointer and a little grass knife/hand shovel. Well i can't walk around with all this in my hands and pockets, let's add a finds bag to the list.  Clearly by the first paragraph you already know i didn't find an Indian head penny yet, in fact i didn't find anything on the list, definitely no silver. 

    Year Two. $900

    It's been a full year of detecting my backyard and local parks, still no indian. But starting to get the hang of this. Loads and loads of clad, and can call it before i dig it with let's say 60% accuracy. I've done research so i know the parks are old, and i am practically an expert at this point right? so where are all the old stuff? Time to upgrade everything. We now own a Minelab Equinox 600, a Garret carrot, a Lesche 30" shovel, and subscriptions to about 30 youTube detecting channels. Highlight of the year, i find my first silver coin, a 1942 Mercury dime. 

    Year Three. $350

    The silvers are scarce, dry spells go over a month at times. I have a magazine  subscription to American Digger now. The nice part of having a hobby, you have all sorts of things you can ask for for birthdays, father day, Christmas. Watching the socials,  you tube videos, reading magazines really ignites the fire to find that Indian. We get a 6" coil, a new finds bag and we narrow down our YouTube influencers down to about 15. And we do some detecting across the pond in the UK, we have now added hammered and roman coins to our coin bucket wish list. 

    Year Four. $3450

    Another year, another machine. Now stay with me, we don't have a garage with all these detectors, if we upgrade we sell off the last model. Makes the financial bite hurt a bit less. We are going big this year, so we also sell a bunch of old 80's/90's skateboard stickers on eBay to the tune of nearly $800. I worked in skate and snowboard shops for nearly 10 years so the size of my sticker collection was sort of ridiculous. No more excuses we tell ourselves, this is the year we find an Indian, this is the year we get the Manticore, we get the 9" coil.  Whatever excuses i was making for not finding coins are gone, nothing left to blame but the human behind the machine.  But maybe we can blame where we live for not being old enough? We book a flight to Civil War territory and spend 4 days checking permissions a friend had and we learn what chiggers are. We did not find an Indian this year, but we are doing better, more consistent it's almost like the time we've put in is making a difference? Nonsense! It's clearly the constant upgrades. 

    Year Five. $0

    At this point, we've found lots of silver, even gone back to places and found some where we've hunted before. Dimes, quarters, half dollars, we've got quite the collection. But each year we box up the finds and put them away and out of sight, can't get complacent with what we've already found, need to keep our eye on the prize and stay hungry. We are down to 5 YouTubers that we enjoy watching them have fun. The pressure is mostly off to find an Indian. We've got permissions, we find silver most ever trip out, there's nothing to upgrade, just weekend hunts with friends, talking to others across the country about finds and research. Imagine our surprise early one morning checking a curb strip while waiting to meet a friend, 2" down on a barren strip we pop out our bucket lister. 1907 Indian Head penny, we stare at it for a bit, nestle it safely into our finds box, close the lid and keep swinging. Would be really cool to find an 1800s coin....

     

     

     

     

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