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Message:: [QUOTE="lordmarcovan, post: 2779945, member: 10461"]Digger's Diary, Coin #DD-001. My first "keeper" coin was found in my front yard in Swannanoa, North Carolina (affectionately called "Swannanowhere" by some locals). Here is my memory of the place. It had a tiny front yard, and was on a 1/10-acre lot. There was an old garage outbuilding in the back. I found a 1940 NC license plate and some other interesting old clutter in there. The house had been built in 1930, as worker housing for employees of the Beacon textile mill down the hill. To this day, the neighborhood is still called "Beacon Village", though Beacon is gone now. During WW2 when the Beacon workers went off to fight the Germans and Japanese, they brought in Mexican laborers to work in the mill. The houses were originally duplexes but ours had been converted into a single-family home. It must have at one time housed at least two families. My first wife and I bought the place for around $50K as a starter home in 1992. Seeing the current real estate values online just now surprised me. Here is a 2012 Google street view of the place. The landscaping has changed. There were no rock paths in 1992. In my day, it was much more open. The trees have grown. Marked is the approximate findspot of the first coin I dug with my new detector. <img src="http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k173/lordmarcovan/Diggers%20Diary/DD-001-findspot.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> My recordkeeping began in 1992 with this coin, after I bought my first modern VLF detector, a Garrett GTA-500. (I'd had detectors as a kid in the 1970s and '80s and even found one or two pieces of silver, but nothing except the memory of those finds remains.) Initially I kept every Wheat cent, even - anything the slightest bit old or interesting - but after several dozen of those piled up (now about a quart jar's worth), Wheaties don't make the "cut" for inclusion in the Digger's Diary "keepers" album- they go in the jar. Unless of course I find a key date one of these days. Best I've found for Wheaties datewise was a 1911-D, I think. I do put the best of each Wheat cent date I've dug into a Whitman folder. But only silver or other more interesting obsolete types usually make it into the DD album. Modern foreign coins go in the Wheatie jar, while older ones do make the DD album. I roll up and spend the modern change found. Anyway, here is that first coin from the album, which began my recordkeeping of detector finds.  Interestingly, it isn't even an American coin. DD-001: MEXICO: 5 CENTAVOS, 1944-Mo Mexico City mint. This type is called a "Josefa", after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josefa_Ortiz_de_Dom%C3%ADnguez" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josefa_Ortiz_de_Dom%C3%ADnguez" rel="nofollow">Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez</a>, whose portrait is featured on the coin. She was a patriot in the Mexican War of Independence in the early 1800s.Found: Fall, 1992, my front yard, Dennis Street, Swannanoa, NC.Approx. depth: 3".Detector: Garrett GTA-500.<ul> <li>First coin found!</li> </ul><img src="http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k173/lordmarcovan/Diggers%20Diary/DD-001-coin.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> According to Krause catalog values, even a non-dug UNC example of this coin is only worth a dollar as of this writing. With VF-ish details and environmental damage, as a dug example? Pfff! I'd be lucky if it was worth five or ten cents, monetarily. However, it was a thrilling find. And it was a tangible link to the story about the Mexican laborers who occupied the house during the war. This is what makes dug relic coins cool in the historical appeal category, even when they have little monetary value in the numismatic sense.[/QUOTE]

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