Numismatic Dog ?

Ahh, a cute critter post. I do enjoy them.

Here is a copy-and-paste repost of one of my critter/coin stories that was originally posted on Collectors Universe on November 1, 2011:

(Max the Dog has, alas, since gone on to that Big Doghouse in the Sky, after chasing - and catching - a semi truck. Suicide by log truck. He wasn't the brightest beast around. RIP, Max.)

My TRUE Halloween Hellhound Horror Story

Meet Max, who is seven years old. (Seen here chained up in the backyard a year or two ago.)

Note the doggie dighole craters. Yep, Max is a digger, just like me. But he usually doesn't find coins, like I do.

Then again, there's always a first time.




Meet L. Plautius Plancus, who is 2,058 years old. (Seen here sporting a new $35+ plastic slab, fresh from NGC.)




Max used to stay chained in the backyard, as you see in the photo above.

Why? Well, because he's a bullet-headed destruction machine made of solid muscle, with a walnut-sized brain, that's why.

He hasn't got a vicious bone in his body- in fact, he's a rather affable fella- but we learned long ago that this is NOT an inside dog. He eventually snapped the steel cable we had him attached to, so he's had the run of the yard ever since. (We've got a whole acre fenced in, fortunately, because the pony has also broken her bonds and is now a free-range yard pet, too.)

Anyway, I traded away L. Plautius Plancus yesterday, to Marlene ("Mar327") here on the forums. It was to be a "downpayment" of sorts, toward a slabbed Bust quarter of hers.

So when I got home from work, I packaged up the coin in a bubble mailer, along with some freebie fossils for a young family member of hers, and set it on the desk to go out in the mail today.

I then went to bed quite late, around 2:30 or 3:00 AM.

At some point while I slept, a horrid creature of the night pried open the not-fully latched front door with its foul snout, trod into the living room, went over to the desk, snatched up the bubble mailer in its terrible jaws, and carried it outside into the predawn gloom.

My daughter got up to catch the schoolbus this morning and found a shredded bubble mailer in the front yard.

It had muddy footprints on it.




There were also some fossils scattered around, oddly enough. Hmm. How mystifying.

And Lo and Behold, there lay L. Plautius Plancus.

He's survived the last 2,058 years with only a bit of wear and an ancient banker's mark, and he's still OK ...

... but his new plastic slab didn't fare so well in the jaws of the evil nightbeast.





Uh-oh! Now I've got some 'splainin' to do!

So... what d'you reckon the horrid monster was? A sugar-crazed trick-or-treater with pruning shears?

Nah, they'd all gone to bed.

Edward Scissorhands, perhaps?

Nah, Johnny Depp has moved on to other cinematic roles.

Rabid, genetically-modified squirrels raised on irradiated candy corn, escaped from an experimental lab?

Nah, no mad scientist labs around here, probably. And Max and the other dogs and cats would've taken out even those kinda squirrels.

Hey- I know- was it was a werewolf, maybe?

Hm. Well, it had been Halloween night. But this actually happened in the wee hours of November First. And it's not a full moon.

OK, I'm stumped, here. Help me put the pieces together, based on the available evidence.

I think I have a suspect in mind. ​

 

(You Ancient coin traditionalists are no doubt cheering the outcome for that plastic slab, and posthumously cheering for ol' Max, huh? LOL)

PS- Maisy the Cat preferred Buffalo nickels.