Found this little guy earlier today while metal detecting and pocketed it for safe keeping, you know just in case. It's smaller than a modern dime and has heavily reeded edges thats all the details i can give its what metal detectors call toasted I defiantly see 1877 on one side it faces down like this: ......... edge of coin 1877 open space ......... other edge hope the diagram help for "facing down" The hole is jagged fyi like it is drilled. It must be a coin but what is it!
As a seasoned metal detectorist I can tell you it's not a silver coin. Silver does not turn that color in dirt. Silver usually comes out of the ground bright grey. The surface looks like brass. The reeding is not similar to a US coin. Personally I think it's a wick adjusting knob off a kerosene lamp. 1877 is most likely a patent date.
I think detecto has nailed it as iv found these also. The number of reids as well as the dept of them is an easy way to spot them. Id keep checking over the area of land from where it was found . It may yield you some good finds. Detecting coins is my favorite hobby and its like a feeling even i cant explane when the tone of the detector makes when it crosses over a metal that may be a coin. To me its more fun than the lottery when you find a winning number you keep trying to picture what it will be and its always something you never thought it would be. Mostly its nothing but junk but its part of the chase. There is a home i go to often that has a cement wall with the loops bolted to it where slaves were chained to it and i know theres history to be found there. But i also know there wasnt much money in those times and finding a lost coin would be hard but there are other things like gold and silver rings. There is no end to what a place like this will yield. I used the slaves thing only to show how old the old home was not that i am proud of how these people were forced to live.
alright cool guy that makes cents speaking of cents, from the same field I did find a 1865 two cent coin!
