Not a Coin Collector, But I'm Obsessed With This One -- Help...

Good Evening,

In doing a little research on a particular coin, Google eventually brought me here. After spending the last couple hours reading, I'm very thankful for that. Anyway, I unearthed the below coin today in my back yard doing a little work. Since I'm not a coin collector or know really anything about the hobby, I'd rather give the history of the area, which may help to date the coin since I'm not able to make out much of the engravings. Here is what I do know about the coin.

The eagle on the back of the coin is unusually facing towards his left, the viewer's right. You guys are certainly going to be the experts, but in the million or so (give or take a few) pictures of coins I looked at on Google, I saw very few coins with the eagle in an open winged (but not fully spread) position and facing his left. In fact, the most similar eagle I was able to find was on the back of the valuable 1875 20 cent piece. Since this coin has a man's head on the front, it's clearly not the 20 cent piece. There are 21 of the cuts or scratch markings down each side of the coin. The scratch marks are the same on both side of the coin. The only letters I can make out are an 'MP' on the top right over the head. There is an A right underneath of the eagle standing on the arrows on the back. There also appears to be some letters or numbers right underneath of the head, but I can't make them out. That's pretty much all I can get off the coin.

The history of the area that I found the coin is somewhat intriguing. My house is about 2 blocks off the east side of the Hillsborough River in Tampa. The mouth of the river feeds into Tampa Bay, about a mile downstream. During the early 1700's, a several hundred year old Indian tribe that lived on the west side of the river died off from the disease brought in by mostly Spanish explorers that had been coming by regularly since the 1600s. By the mid-1700's, a large tribe of the Seminole Indians had relocated from the north and inhabited the area on the west bank of the river from the mouth to several miles inland. By the late 1700's, there were continued attacks from the Seminole tribe on anyone trying to build settlements on the East side (where the coin was found). This led to the building of Fort Brooke (1824) at the mouth of the river and Fort Foster (1836) several miles further inland to protect the settlers that kept getting attacked. The early settlement of Tampa was all along the East side of the river between these two forts.

In short, I have no idea what country the coin is even from. By looking at it, it clearly looks to be hand made. I'm sure it's not of any great value or anything, if nothing else because of its poor condition. But, my finding it lit a pretty big flame of excitement and I'd at least like to determine the source of the coin if nothing else.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Regards,

Jeff

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I'm sure that someone will come along that can help you with the host coin. But it looks like someone was trying to make something else out of the coin. Like a spur rowel like this or possibly a blade for a pie cutter. Just an opinion.

 

The country is France, looks like a 5 or 10 centimes. 1850s Napoleon III

 

Nice find even if it may have little or no value.
I do metal detecting and its like pulling the handle on a one arm bandit gambling machine when you dig up a coin.
I have many that are not readable but keep them anyway along with the place i found the coin.
Id hold on to it because of the location it was found.
Lot of history where you live and boy wouldnt i like to look over the ground where you made the find.
Welcome jeff to cointalk.

 

Nice ID Caz - it sure does look like that!

Link:

http://www.coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins?main_coin=1117&main_ct_id=26

I guess we'll never know why the coin was multilated like that.

 

You guys are good.......

 

Incredibly interesting find in Tampa, wow! Very nice.

 

Thanks so much to you all for your feedback. That coin literally consumed me for the entire weekend trying to figure out it's origin on my own. If nothing else, I think this experience has brought a new hobbyist into the game. I'm just fascinated that I can move into a 100 year old home (six weeks ago) and find a 160+ year old coin in the back yard underneath some topsoil.

I'm eager to get some equipment and see what else I might be able to dig up in the neighborhood. Thanks again to all for the warm welcome. Seems to be a great community you guys have here.

Regards,

Jeff

 

If you go metal detecting and find more good stuff you'd better let us know!