Coolest Coins

29/10/2025

Here’s a silver pocket watch cover from the late 1800s I found this weekend while metal detecting. Just look at that hand engraving!

28/10/2025

I was out metal detecting this past weekend when I came across a shallow copper tone with my metal detector in a spot where an old tree was removed. Upon digging, I was pleasantly surprised with a beautiful half cent from 1806! The United States minted half cents between 1793 and 1857! Swipe for photos as it came out of the ground!

27/10/2025

Nothing better than pulling an Indian at a Civil War veterans homesite…well except seated of course. Indian #1 fty and my first 1870s Indian.

27/10/2025

Here are a few more shots from the Mel Fisher Museum. It’s one of the few public places I can say probably has more gold than a coin shop…🤣

26/10/2025

I dug this c. 1880s Dr. Hostetters Stomach Bitters bottle from a privy in a rural Minnesota town earlier this year. These are a common bottle, however rare color variations can be quite interesting. This unfortunately is a basic dark amber color.

26/10/2025

Here are some incredible coins spotted at the Smithsonian this past week! On the private market, these coins would achieve tens of million of dollars at auction!

26/10/2025

The $700 Bottle: This is one of the rarest bitters bottles from Minnesota. If it weren’t broken it would be quite the valuable find! Unfortunately like most finds, this bottle was broken when it was thrown down the outhouse in the 1890s. It has a singular piece knocked out of the plate on the front which I carefully glued back in. Can you see the crack?

George Benz, born in Osthofen, Germany in 1838, emigrated to Chicago in 1853 and later settled in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1856. He married Rosa Uoehringer in 1861, with whom he had eight children. That same year, he opened The United States Billiards Hall & Restaurant, and in 1865 entered the wholesale liquor business with Mayor C.J. Becht. After Becht’s death in 1878, Benz took full ownership and, in 1887, renamed the company Geo. Benz & Sons after bringing in his five sons. Headquartered at 81 East 6th Street in St. Paul, the business thrived, expanding into several states with distilleries in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. His most famous product was Old Blue Ribbon Whiskey, made in Kentucky, along with Appetine Bitters, a non-medicinal tonic in a decorative bottle like the one shown here.

25/10/2025

I dug this circa 1915 medicine bottle with the cork & contents still in it from a cistern in Central Massachusetts. Surprisingly, I often find bottles with the contents remaining inside. Swipe for a cleaned up photo!

25/10/2025

Here’s a fascinating story about these two coins I found in a local farm field:

In 1870, a school was constructed in Vermillion Township, Minnesota on the East side of the river, due to a growing demand for a closer school. The previous closest school sat nearly a mile away, which was quite the journey on the Minnesota prairie during the winter.

The tracks of the Hastings-St. Paul Railroad passed the school just a few dozen yards to the East. In the fall of 1879, the school burned down, thought to have been caused by a spark originating from a passing train. The new school was relocated elsewhere, leaving the site empty.

Fast forward to 2020, I got one of my first farm permissions from a farmer in the area. Upon arrival at the site, I found all sorts of square nails, and burned glass (slag), confirming the rumor that the school burned down. After quite a bit more searching I managed to find an 1870 2-cent coin that had been plowed up and was sitting directly on the surface! On a later trip to the site I also found an 1867 Indian head penny with a sizeable hole through it. Often times, children would drill hole through coins with their birth year, so perhaps this is the case! Both coins remain untouched by heat, so it’s probable that they were lost in the school yard rather than in the school/ under the floorboards.

This site sparked an interest in searching farm fields for me. You never know what stories are hiding below the surface!

22/10/2025

20/10/2025

18/10/2025

As featured in one of my recent videos, I found this complete porcelain pitcher while digging in an outhouse dating to the turn of the century! These would’ve been quite useful back then, so it makes you wonder…why was it thrown away? Could it have fallen in?