..I have seen this on large cents posted on metal detecting forums before but I had never found one til Sunday. Some dirty old man probably did it?? I didn't even know that that word was even known of back then. Check out the word "CENT" on the back of the coin. I looked at it with my loop and it was altered, I can see the little scrape marks. Its interesting to say the least. Just thought I would share.
I own a couple of these. They are a lot more common than people realize. I guess the don't make it into too many refernce books for obvious reasons, though. I have heard conflicting stories about why these alterations were done. One personalcimed that it was a Civil War thing - a protest against the North. Not sure if that is true, since many seem to be on 1840s and 1850 coins. Otherwise, it was just a fun thing to do with your spare time back in the good old days.
"Those" words are among the oldest words in our language, or in any language. Among the Indo-European family of languages, "those" words show strong similarities. For instance, "this" particular word can mean "crease" in Russian, and shows up in the "wedge writing" we call "cuneiform" and therefore in the proper name for the medical study of human female health. Philologists know that k-words in Latin are H-words in German. Latin "centum" (pronounced "kentum") is "hundred" in English. The Latin CARA becomes a similar but different word with a slightly dffferent meaning in English. In the comedy THE CLOUDS by Aristophanes (performed c.400 BC), the cultured student of Socrates asks our hapless hero which finger he uses to point with. "When I was young, I used this one..." Big laughs, even back then. As for the coin, there is no telling when this alteration was done. About forty years ago, they were sold as examples of an old time "token" among coin collectors, so there was some incentive to make more to meet the demand. So, there is no telling when someone defaced and therefore ruined this coin. Finding it "in the ground" is no indication of age. Michael
Well Michael, I believe this coin was lost some time ago. I have been diggin coins for over 6 years now and I think I can tell pretty well about the time the coins were dropped. Just from experience. From the depth it was found and the coins appearance I believe that it was dropped in the mid to late 1800s. This is just what I believe from diggin a lot of old coins up. Thanks, Jim
