The Sharpsburg Story

Wasn't that big.

(But yes, the rays do sorta look like the ones on a Peace dollar.)

 

I didn't say it was half-dollar sized. Just that I thought it was a Walker at first, when I saw those rays.

And that it wasn't big enough to be a Peace dollar.

But yeah, OK. It was half-dollar sized.

Was it a Walker? Those are not common finds for me at all.

But commemorative halves are not common detector finds for anybody.

Digging a commemorative half is actually a bit less likely than digging a silver dollar.

 

Ta-dahh! The coin was a 1926-S Oregon Trail half dollar. As it happens, it remains to this day the only Oregon Trail I've owned. I was utterly astonished and gave a huge shout when I saw what it was. Blue Cole came running from the other part of the field. While it's not a supremely valuable coin, it's pretty remarkable as a metal detector find. This is one thing I love about the detecting hobby. If you're patient enough, and do it long enough, pleasant surprises like this happen. You really never know what will turn up.

This is only the second commemorative half I'd ever heard of anyone finding with a metal detector. I once heard a secondhand account of someone else digging a well-worn Huguenot half dollar somewhere around Jacksonville, Florida, if memory serves.

I'm sure they turn up once in a while, but if you'd told me I was going to dig an Oregon Trail half, I might not have believed you. Maybe a Stone Mountain half, given the North Georgia locality. I believe we had visited Stone Mountain on that same trip.

(I must again apologize for my images. I had shot some new pictures of this but couldn't find them, so here's a darkish old picture of the find.)



Thus endeth this tale, which didn't fare so well due to life's interruptions causing my overly drawn-out telling of it. Sorry for the poor timing. I'll try to do better with the next one.

~ The End ~

~RWS/"LM"