03/06/2023
In June of 2022 I began detecting a door knock house. In July of 2022 I began hitting spill after spill of silver and 1800s copper at this place. The number of silver coins I dug out of there was so astounding that it actually cost me friends, well Facebook friends anyway. If they would have been real friends they never would have accused me of planting my finds, of the hundreds of friends I have, I never so much as once thought any of them could be guilty of such a thing, hell I never even considered it to be possibile. Not even by the two guys who accused me of it. Let's be honest, calling a stranger you met online a 'friend' is a bit reckless anyway, at best they could be referred to as an acquaintance or an associate, but to call them a 'friend' is too strong of a word to describe someone who could be the total opposite by name, age, s*x, and location just as easily as they could be anyone.
However, I did consider these guys friends. After several years of sharing finds, sharing theories having to do with metal detecting among thousands of other unrelated subjects. That's the tragic part of it ya know.
The awesome part of it is pretty frickin awesome though, I must admit. In the course of 8 months, I've dug 153 silver coins from an unassuming yard at the edge of the county in which I live. The dates of said coins range as early as 1896 all the way to 1964. I dug 139 between July and Dec. 31st 2022 and since the new year I've dug 14 more! This has all only been possible due to the kindness of the folks who live there. They have taken me into their hearts and made me a part of their family. I've spent as much time up there digging,repairing, playing with their kids, having long conversations with the people who live there, as I have spent at my own house. I have cultivated a profoundly meaningful relationship with this family. We have cried together after her mom's funeral in July and again a few months later when I lost my brother to Fentanyl overdose. We spent time at Christmas when they invited me to the best Xmas party I've ever been to and the friendship lives on and will continue to do so. I gave one of my good whites detectors to the guy Jason, my friend, that lives there and I've taught him nearly everything I know about the hobby (obsession), mainly how to dig the perfect plug and to leave no trace. To pick up any and every scrap of litter that you see when detecting for disposal.
After all of that, not to mention their 16 year old son walking up to me several weeks ago and saying that he thinks of me as an extra dad and their 5 yr old grand daughter who can light me up no matter how dark bad life has crapped on me, after all that m, to hear someone accuse me of planting finds, which is yet another thing I don't understand any better than cannibalism, it's a simultaneous slap in the face and kick in the balls. I don't know if it's just straight jealousy that drives people to think that or if it's because 153 silver coins is just too unbelievable. I guess it doesn't matter that, despite it being one of 6 original shotgun houses from 1910(1 of 3 still standing) that, over the early years of the 1900s the llace was surrounded by a general store, two churches, plus the other 5 identical build/year houses and a pool hall, the best their imagination can come up with is what?, That I secretly bought and buried all of these coins over the past 8 months and that I've been lying to everyone I know from all my family to all my actual friends? That's where people's minds go?
After all I have done and continue to do to honor history and detecting and detectorist's, there's just no bigger insult than to accuse me of something so dispicable, worse than detecting a fresh cemetery burial. I don't have a clue where they all came from, the only theories that I've been able to posit are these 2: 1) the f5 tornado back in the late 60s that ate a retired doctors house along with his entire coin collection (which they never found) could've got deposited there when the same tornado, just under 2 miles from that place, ran directly over top this place, it could've deposited the doctors coin collection there, or 2) When they dug up the old ball/Fairground field in the county directly east and only about 15 minutes away, it attracted detectorist's from all over the states. The city had to go in there and secretly move the rest of the dirt to secret locations,presuming they gave the dirt to people who needed fill dirt, that house could've been a deposit for the park dirt. That's my best guesses, the day before Thanksgiving I dug up a small glass bottle from the early 40s that still held 13 mercury dimes in it and dozens more in the spill directly around it, makes me think none of them were spills at all, because they were all found either beside or under stumps or DEEP within flower beds like the little jar of mercs, I'm inclined to believe they were buried alright, just not during my lifetime. Matter of fact, aside from a very few scattered Rosie's from the 50s and 60s, it's my belief they were all buried in the late 1
1940s.tbe rest could be considered typical lost dimes and a few of the 15 quarters.
The property is on Old Gallia pike in Wheelersburg so if any of my local friends, associates, has any direct knowledge or better theories, please comment, text me, send s.oke signals or stop by my shop and share it with me. I thought the origin of the OGP Hoard would be a .mystery I could live without solving, but I just can't give up. I have to frickin know!
Copper:
1 1833 large cent, 1 1865 2 cent piece (my only one) 14 I dians from 1880 thru 1904 (or so).
Silver: 1 Morgan dollar, 1900, 5 Barber half's, 1900-1912, 1 Denver and two new Orleans mints. 15 quarters .mostly from the 1930s, appx 20 bar er dimes from 1896-1916, over 100 mercury dimes, 1916-1945, about 20 Rosie's, typical years, zero rings, well a silver plated ring, an ohio sheriffs deputy hat badge, a few cool 1920s compacts and pins, a couple hot wheels.
