Metal detecting is the archaeology of Kentucky. It is an affordable hobby that will actually pay for itself in the long run, plus it gives you access to the past that most people never have the opportunity to experience. You see, Western Kentucky has a very colorful and long history, as most towns and areas having been populated since the early 1800’s and some even before that. Throughout time, people have changed in a lot of ways, but not in the case of clumsiness. We drop things. People have been dropping and misplacing various items for centuries, and the Western Kentucky metal detecting fanatics are the ones that find them.

Initially you will need a metal detector. Decent ones can be bought at various department stores or online for reasonable prices. The price is only relevant for the first short while. After metal detecting for awhile, you will find that you end up digging enough coins from the ground to pay for the detector. My metal detector cost me $100.00. Since I bought it 4 years ago, I’ve made right around $340.00 in change alone. It has paid for itself several times over. On that note, I suggest you keep up with the modern change you find so you know when your detector has paid for itself.

Once you have your detector, get to know it before you take it out into your ideal treasure hunting spot. Get something silver, gold, aluminum, brass, and something made from plain iron. Take your metal detector across each of these, paying close attention to the sound that it makes. Memorize the sounds so you know what you’re coming across. Most detectors have filters that you can turn on where you won’t pick up certain types of metal, like iron. This is for those searching mainly for the really good stuff, such as rings and coins.

Once you have gotten to know your detector, it’s time to get your gear together. A digging tool is a necessity. Personally, I prefer a bowie knife, but some people use things as simple as a small garden shovel (really small) or even a screwdriver. It’s best to avoid big shovels as you don’t want to pack a heavy shovel throughout your trip. Another item you will need is a bag or pouch of some sort to put your findings in. Lastly, wear gloves. Don’t mess with the thin cloth ones. You need something tough. All too often detector fanatics have come home with sliced up hands from digging into a broken bottle or sharp steel edge.

Now, one last thing before you hit the road. Pick a good spot. Your spot depends upon what you are looking for. If you’re just in it for modern coins, a local ballpark is a good idea. Any place that has a large crowd at least once per year, such as a fairground or flea market, should do the trick. If you are into relics, as I am, do some research. Find out where an old cabin stood over a hundred years ago, or even a settlement.

Now, with all that out of the way, it’s time to hit the dirt and start digging up the treasures. Before you do, however, here are a few tips for you. First, make sure you have permission to enter the land and to dig up small holes. Next, always put the dirt back into the holes, or else the owner will likely ban you from the spot. Never, under any circumstances, metal detect in or too near a cemetery. This is a felony crime, no matter how old the cemetery is. Finally, expect a lot of aluminum. Metal detector fans will all tell you that they find more soda bottle tops can tabs, and aluminum cans than anything else. Don’t let this frustrate you. It’s just part of the journey hobby.

I will leave you with a little something to think about. Most people wonder if it’s really all that great of a hobby. In my four years of metal detecting I have discovered several gold and silver rings, gold and silver necklaces, antique metal army buttons, one shotgun, one pistol, several knives, and even an old wax stamp like those used in the 1800’s to seal envelopes. As coins go, at the moment my oldest find is an 1889 silver dollar. You see, there are actual treasures out there to be found. Keep in mind that in the old days, most old-timers didn’t use banks. They would take their money and put it into coffee cans and old mason jars and bury it in the ground.

Grab your Fedora, your whip, and crank up your Indiana Jones theme song, and don’t forget the metal detector. Have fun on a real WK Archaeology quest. Until next week, we will see you in the woods…or perhaps on the water. The fish should be biting soon!

In preparation for the upcoming Smithsonian Journey Stories Exhibit, the Boundary County Historical Society will host an oral history workshop on March 24 by Kathy Hodges, Oral Historian with the Idaho State Historical Society.

The lives of ordinary people can contain romantic moments, frightening incidents, sad tales, breathtaking escapes, and sudden twists of fate. Are you thinking of interviewing your grandmother? Would you like to save community stories for future generations? Kathy Hodges will lead a discussion about memory, story, and history, and explain some of the basics of recording and preserving oral narratives, using examples from the 2500-plus interviews in the Idaho State Historical Society’s collection. The workshop will provide a full day of training for interviewers and community historians.

Everyone interested in gathering and recording oral history is invited to attend the workshop, March 24 from 9-4 at the Bopundary County Museum. Registration is limited. The workshop fee of $20 includes a text/workbook and lunch. Call Gini Woodward at 267-5638 for more information or pre-register at the museum. Hours are Fri. and Sat 10-4.

The workshop is funded in part by the Idaho Humanities Council, a nonprofit organization that serves the state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Idaho State Historical Society, and the Boundary County Historical Society.

Under the proposal, geocachers, which use GPS devices to locate caches as part of a scavenger hunt, would be still allowed to advertise and seek out “virtual” caches in these areas, which reference already existing features such as waterfalls and scenic vistas.

One popular area that would be affected by this rule is the Bent Creek Experimental Forest near Asheville. A list of all affected areas is posted on the forest website (www.cs/unca/nfsnc).

The agency said the order will protect the wild values found in the wildnerness and on designated rivers and will avoid items conflicting with research activities.

Federal regulations already require geocachers get permission from the local ranger district office prior to leaving a cache anywhere on the forest.

The agency said in one recent incident, an unmarked and unapproved geocache was left in an ammunition box not far from Asheville. The geocache appeared to be a threat to public safety and cost law enforcement personnel a lot of time investigating it, the forest service said.

Detailed information on geocaching requirements can also be found on the forest website.

The second rule would prohibit possession or use of metal detectors outside of designated areas.

The agency said that many archaeological sites on the forest have been significantly damaged from treasure hunting, by those who loot sites to sell artifacts, and by others who are unaware that it’s illegal to disturb and remove artifacts from federal land without a research permit.

Several forest areas have been identified that would remain open to recreational metal detecting for modern items like coins – primarily swimming beaches. These include Lake Powhatan Swim Beach, Jackrabbit Swim beach, Cheoah Point Swim Beach, Flanners Beach (Croatan NF) and Kings Mountain Point Beach (Uwharrie NF). Permission for one-time use of metal detectors to help find lost personal property could still be granted by Forest Officers.

Additional information on these closures can be found on the forest website (www.cs/unca/nfsnc). Comments on this proposal should be mailed before March 15 to the National Forests in North Carolina, 160A Zillicoa Street, Asheville, 28801, or sent to “comments-southern-north-carolina@fs.fed.us”

Iliev had objected to the tip-off that Rashidov send to law enforcement agencies in January 2010, saying the that members of the federation did not possess the required registration.

Ancient Bulgarian coins

The federation had been registered as a not-for-profit organisation in the Bulgarian town of Lovech on December 2 2009. Registered activity of the federation was “metal detecting,” or finding metal objects with the aid of metal detectors, a Culture Ministry media statement said.

Possession and use of metal detectors for this purpose has been regulated by the Culture Heritage Act and requires each metal detector to be registered with the Culture Ministry. Members of the foundation did not file for such a registration, the ministry said.

The issue is contentious in Bulgaria, where all archaeological finds, including old coins, are considered state property and unauthorised digs are a crime. Efforts to legalise the open use of metal detectors have consistently been rebuffed by state bodies, which have treated it as attempts to legalise tomb-raiding.

Idaho’s Chinese gardeners filled a real need in the frontier communities where they settled. Many who had come to Idaho City and other Boise Basin towns as miners had turned to vegetable gardening because they could use skills they had learned growing up in south China’s Pearl River delta.

The Idaho World noted on May 13, 1869: “The excellently cultivated garden of a Chinaman, about two miles above town, is a scene to be observed along the road. In a patch not an acre in area the plodding, never-tiring, skillful John has made his garden, just at the roadside and sloping gently down to the shifting bank of the creek. Occasionally a sudden breaking of his water bulkhead will cause the stream either to totally wash away a portion of his little patch, or to ruin it by depositing thereon a depth of sand and slum which cannot be overcome.

“With manure packed in Chinese fashion by buckets slung from a shoulder bar, for a distance of half a mile, the industrious gardener has brought the ground to a high condition of culture, and from the small plat he yearly earns a sum which would be a fortune in itself to one of his own class in his native land. These Chinamen have certainly the art of raising a greater variety and amount of vegetables from a small plat of ground than our own people have yet learned to do.”

This praise and admiration for the Chinese was written by an educated and fair-minded editor, but there were many who were ignorant and prejudiced against them. Natural forces such as flood and drought were bad enough, but the patient and hard-working Chinese had to deal with thieves and vandals as well.

In Boise in the summer of 1870, the Idaho Tri-weekly Statesman reported that Chinese gardeners were delivering new potatoes door to door for 6 cents a pound. In July 1871 the paper noted that “John Chinaman makes his appearance bright and early every morning, with the traditional pole and baskets, the latter filled with every variety of fresh plucked and cool vegetables.”

What a convenience this was for the city’s housewives. The Olympia Washington Standard had a relevant comment in June 1879: “We are asserting only what everyone knows to be a fact, when we say that until the arrival of our Chinese gardeners, all our earliest small fruits and vegetable came by steamers from San Francisco, for which we paid exorbitant prices. Now, through the native tact and indomitable energy of Chinamen, these fruits and vegetables are raised from our own soil and brought to our doors weeks earlier than ever they were produced by white men.”

Boise’s riverside gardens made the pages of the Statesman often in 1890. In April: “The Chinese gardens between the city and the bridge look promising. Onions, lettuce, peas and other vegetables have been springing up until they have attained a fair growth.”

The high water that month threatened the loss of this promising crop, leading the Chinese to hire wagons and teams to haul dirt for building levees.

In December 1890 Mayor James A. Pinney told the city council that, “Chinese gardeners near the river are suffering many indignities at the hands of hoodlums and other roughs who break down their fences, and stone the Chinamen, and in other ways seek to injure these peaceable and well disposed individuals. They are entitled to the protection of the law and the officers should make efforts to arrest those who molest them. Some of the influential Chinese merchants have offered to give a reward of $25 for every conviction of persons seeking to harm these men or other Chinamen.”

Boise’s Chinese gardeners continued to be harassed by hoodlums, and in June 1892 the Statesman said that gunshots could be heard every night as the gardeners tried to scare away vegetable thieves. Even small boys were stealing watermelons, no doubt thinking it was a great adventure. Fortunately, nobody was killed or wounded. The only casualty mentioned in the Statesman was a neighbor’s cow, for which a Chinese farmer had to pay its owner.

Racial prejudice and damaging acts of nature were a continual challenge to Idaho’s pioneer Chinese gardeners, but they persevered.

Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. E-mail histnart@mindspring.com.

Last Monday night, at a meeting of the Garden City Council, Mayor John Evans read a proclamation honoring the Louie family. The Louies were Idaho pioneers who gardened in the area that became Garden City and gave it its name.

Andy Louie, representing the fourth generation of his family to raise vegetables there, accepted the proclamation on behalf of his family and graciously pointed out that other Chinese families also were part of the area’s garden history and should be remembered.

Mr. Louie’s wife, his son and two grandsons were present, representing the fifth and sixth generations of the family to live in Idaho. Other Chinese friends also attended the occasion, which included the public unveiling of a large, abstract collage honoring the Louie family and other Chinese gardeners from whom the town and Chinden Boulevard take their names. The work was commissioned by the Garden City Arts Commission after a month-long showing of this columnist’s collages in the Garden City library.

Louie Do Gee delivered fresh produce from his gardens along the river in what is now Garden City. Before he got this Model-T truck, he delivered his produce with a horse and wagon.

In April 1871, the Idaho Tri-weekly Statesman observed: “The China population are planting gardens here pretty extensively. They are so patient and puttering that they do well.”

The Chinese, who came to Idaho in the gold-rush days, had not been miners at home. They were peasant farmers from small villages in the fertile deltas of Guangdong Province in south China.

When mining or other employment ran out in their new country, they turned to what they knew best, and at which they were highly skilled.

Louie Ah Su, great- grandfather of Boise’s Andy Louie, illustrates well the pattern. He was a miner in Boise Basin in the late 19th century before he came to Boise and started a small garden in the city’s north end. By then the population of towns like Idaho City and Placerville had dwindled and most of the Chinese had left. When Ah Su went back to China, he sent his son Do Gee to take over the gardens in Boise.

Louie Do Gee leased land along the Boise River in what is now Garden City. His sons, William and Tong, came to Idaho from China in the early 1920s and successfully operated the Louie Gee Gardens until 1946, when the incorporation of Garden City forced them to give up the land they had leased from the Davis family, descendants of Tom and Julia Davis.

A 1920 history of Idaho describes the Davis property: “The Thomas J. Davis Estate embraces large realty interest, including about 700 acres of fine lands in the Boise Valley along the river just west of the city – lands that are most fertile and productive and which include the beautiful and famous Chinese gardens, visible to and admired by all travelers on the Nampa Interurban Railway line, which follows the crest of the hill above the gardens. These Chinese gardens are all on the Thomas J. Davis estate and constitute one of the most beautiful sights in the valley of Boise through the summer seasons.”

Do Gee returned to China a few years after the 1920 history was written and died there in 1942. Son Tong remained in Boise and operated the popular Shang Hai Low Restaurant on Capitol Boulevard until his death in 1951.

Son William and his son-in-law Philip Lee reopened the Louie Gee Gardens on 30 acres of land at Strawberry Glen. This business prospered, with all of the children working hard as they grew up.

William’s son Andy came to America from China for the first time in 1949. He was assisted in coming here by Margaret Cobb Ailshie, publisher of the Idaho Statesman, who had met him while on a tour of China. Andy joined the family garden operation in Boise. He joined the U.S. Army during the Korean War and was stationed in an Army hospital in Germany for two years. He would eventually earn a degree in pharmacy from Idaho State University and do graduate work in administration at the University of Colorado. He retired in 1997 from a position as administrator at Holy Rosary Hospital in Ontario, Ore.

Louie Gee Gardens closed in 1964 when Andy’s father, William, retired and Philip Lee went back to California, where he operated a successful supermarket.

Monday’s proclamation of Louis Family Recognition Day by Mayor Evans was an appropriate acknowledgement of the Chinese contribution to the Valley’s history. My personal tribute to the Louie family can be seen in the collage that now hangs in City Hall.

Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. E-mail histnart@mindspring.com.

After seven years spent prospecting for gold as a hobby in the California desert, Terry Hughes of Moorpark hit the mother lode.

On Memorial Day, the former Marine and disabled Vietnam veteran scored a “one-in-a-million” find: an 8.7-ounce gold nugget worth an estimated $10,000.

“We’re all hoping to find the big one and Terry did,” said Patrick Keene, co-owner of Keene Engineering, reportedly one of the world’s largest suppliers of portable mining equipment.

A nugget that big — about the size of an egg — is “extremely rare,” Keene said.

Hughes purchased all his mining equipment from the Chatsworth company, and on Thursday morning he took his trophy nugget to Keene for an official weighing-in.

He would not reveal the exact location of where he found the nugget, although he said it was near Randsburg.

Although gold is currently bringing more than $1,000 an ounce, the nugget is “worth nothing,” Hughes said. “It’s all relative, about what it’s worth to me.”

And he has no plans to cash it in.

“It’s not the money value; it’s the treasure value,” he said.

Hughes, 62, was hit with the prospecting bug years ago while on an outing at Lake Isabella with his oldest son, who found a “dot of gold.”

“When you get your first gold, it gives you the gold fever,” said Hughes who retired seven years ago after 32 years with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

He said his Memorial Day weekend venture started Friday when he headed for the desert near Randsburg. Others were also prospecting, but he was alone when his metal detector signaled a find.

“The last one had left about two hours before I found it,” Hughes said. “I thought I would make one last run with my metal detector.”

Previously, the largest nugget Hughes had unearthed was a 1-ounce, 7-pennyweight nugget found the week between Christmas and New Year’s. A pennyweight is about 1.5 grams.

That was “a huge find and this one is 100 times bigger,” he said.

Keene, 45, who has been prospecting for about 35 years, said Hughes’ nugget is a special find.

“From what I know, it’s the largest piece to come out of the desert in the last 20 years, at least,” he said. He has mined all over the world, and the largest nugget he’s found weighed 2 ounces, 7 pennyweight, he said.

A nugget’s estimated worth, Hughes said, is based on spot value of gold on the current market and its “collectors’ value.” He said he’s received collectors’ value estimates as high as $20,000 on his nugget.

According to the Web site for Gold Mart Inc., less than 2 percent of the world’s gold remains in the form of nuggets that may be found in rivers and streams, those filled with water as well as in dry riverbeds.

Gold in the United States is primarily found in California, Alaska and Oregon but is also unearthed in other southwestern states. Hot spots throughout the world include Australia, Africa, Russia, Bolivia and Canada.

Hughes has kept his prospecting to California and done mostly dry washing (digging, shoveling and sifting) to unearth his finds. In about 10 days, however, he plans to try his hand at underwater dredging and sluicing in the Yuba River in Northern California.

“There’s still a lot of gold out there waiting to be found,” he said. But for him it’s not about the money; it’s the adventure.

Hughes figures he has a couple thousand dollars invested in prospecting equipment; his latest acquisition is the dredging tools he’ll use on the Yuba River. Right now, though, his metal detector is in the spotlight.

He isn’t planning to return to mine the spot of his big find, comparing the exhilaration he felt Monday to being on an Easter egg hunt or a fishing trip.

He figures he’s not going to find another egg or catch another fish in the exact same spot.

“You move on,” he said. “You never, never know. Gold is where you find it.”

Boise Valley Railway Car No. 100.

Boise began to grow and new subdivisions sprang up around town. Additional miles of track were laid to reach the newer parts of town. Then in 1905, construction began on two new lines designed to connect Boise, Nampa, Caldwell and the surrounding areas. The Boise Interurban Railway, which was the northern extension of this loop system, connected the towns of Eagle, Star and Middleton along the Boise River. Service to Caldwell began on August 16, 1907.

Read the full Story here  By Mark Moore

You get more than your two-cents’ worth with a collection of two-cent pieces as this lesser known denomination has truly a fascinating story.

The best kept secret perhaps is the fact that the two-cent piece is a collection almost everyone can afford. When you consider the coins you get and how they reflect on a most interesting period in American history, the idea of a two-cent piece collection seems like one that should be much more popular than it is today.

This low profile is a benefit if you do attempt a two-cent piece collection as right now you will find that in assorted grades two-cent pieces really are good values as well as interesting coins to study.

One of the things you quickly learn with the two-cent piece is that it is not a large collection. As the denomination was produced only at Philadelphia, that makes its roughly one decade of production a limited group of coins, but without branch mint issues which are frequently tough from the period, it keeps the cost of a complete set down.

That said, in that short period, the two-cent piece gained a lasting place in numismatic history while helping out in an emergency. Its lasting place in history came not by design but simply by timing as it would be the first coin of the United States to have the motto IN GOD WE TRUST when it was introduced in 1864 and at least that part of the two-cent piece design remains very much in place today.

Even though the two-cent piece did not turn out to be as successful as some might have hoped, the denomination ironically had been under consideration for a long time before finally being approved. It was probably a case where having a large cent to compare to Britain’s penny, a copper two-cent piece seemed natural to some to compare to Britain’s copper tuppence.

At least in terms of the initial authorization of denominations, the two-cent piece might have seemed natural, but it was not included. It did not, however, take long for someone to suggest that the denomination should be considered as there was a proposal in Congress in 1806 for a two-cent piece with a copper and silver alloy. It was an interesting idea, but the time was not right for a couple of reasons.

The first problem with the timing was that the United States Mint was simply not ready to take on another denomination. It had only been just two years earlier in 1804 when the production of silver dollars and gold eagles had been suspended.

The reason was that there was a national coin shortage and the Mint was spending too much of its limited time and resources producing the two largest denominations for speculators. The gold coin was too heavy and the silver too light. Money could be made gaming the system. Deposit silver at the Mint, have it coined and then trade the coins for the gold of the same face value. Ship the gold abroad for melting and start all over with the profits.

Simply suspending production of the gold eagle and silver dollar did not solve all its problems as the Mint still had limited capacity and it would be a long time before the facility would be able to make reasonable numbers of all the denominations already authorized without taking on any new ones.

The two-cent piece also presented a unique problem in terms of its composition. The large cent was already large and creating a copper coin would produce a coin about the size of a rock. Moreover, in 1806 copper supplies were far from secure as the best supply of copper was from England and things were not always smooth politically with England so the supply could easily be cut off.

Mixing in a little silver would reduce the coin’s size, but silver supplies were not much more reliable and with the technology of the day the Mint Director expressed concern that the proposed alloy might prove to be difficult to work with especially if it was ever desired to melt the coins down and extract the silver. That concern seemed to be enough to put the idea on a back burner for some time.

Over time, however, things did improve at least in terms of the national coin shortage and the Mint’s capacity. That was helped in 1830 when gold was discovered in Georgia and North Carolina and that resulted in the authorization of new branch mints in Dahlonega, Ga., Charlotte, N.C., and New Orleans, La. While Dahlonega and Charlotte would only produce gold coins, any added coin production would take pressure off the main facility in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia had other help as in the mid-1830s. A new steam press would arrive and it was shortly afterward that the two-cent piece idea was raised again as Mint Director Robert Patterson whose father ironically had been the Mint Director back in 1806 when the proposal for the denomination first appeared had Christian Gobrecht make patterns for the denomination. Once again, however, the timing was not right and nothing came of the patterns.

In fact it would take until 1849 before any new denominations were authorized by the United States and the two-cent piece was not the first. Discovery of gold in California made the authorization of a gold dollar and double eagle seem like a relatively harmless decision and it had the advantage of using some of the suddenly more than ample gold supply.

The discovery of gold, however, caused a problem in that the traditional gold-to-silver ratio was upset yet again. The result was that it was suddenly costing more than the face value simply to produce silver coins. The Congress needed to act but instead of lowering the amount of silver slightly in all silver coins, what the Congress did was to authorize a 75 percent silver three-cent piece. The idea was basically a stop-gap measure as the silver situation saw widespread hoarding, but a 75 percent silver the three-cent piece could at least help in a growing national coin shortage.

Eventually the Congress was forced to act reducing slightly the amount of silver in regular issues in 1853 while at the same time raising the silver in the three-cent piece to 90 percent. That was followed by the authorization of a $3 gold piece with the basic reason once again being that it would use gold and probably cause no trouble. Like the three-cent piece, the $3 gold piece would never really play a major role in circulation when it first appeared in 1854 although there probably was some use of the new denomination in the West.

While the Mint was able to produce enough coins to justify new denominations, the matter of a potential alloy for the two-cent piece still stood in the way of any approval for it. That problem took a step forward with a seemingly unrelated development, which was the change to a smaller copper-nickel cent in 1857.

The thinking behind the new smaller cent was that the public would accept a coin whose metallic value was worth significantly less than its face value. At the time, that was radical thinking as historically if anything, the coins of the United States often had been slightly too valuable in terms of their metal value. The release and general acceptance of a cent worth significantly less than the old copper large cents opened the door to the idea of a two-cent piece not made of silver or not of an impractical size. That would prove to be crucial in the eventual approval of a two-cent piece.

In 1857, however, when the new cent was introduced, there was not a real need for a two-cent piece, It had to wait but its time came in 1864. The situation in 1864 was dire when it came to coins. The Civil War had seen the public on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line hoard whatever coins they could find.

It was not just the expected gold and silver coins that disappeared, but even copper-nickel cents did as well. Suddenly there was no way to make change in routine commercial transaction as all the coins had been hoarded. Stamps were tried and so were tokens. Fractional Currency was authorized in the North and used although it was never very popular. Dramatic steps needed to be taken with the first being to change the copper-nickel cent to bronze. That idea was joined by the authorization of a two-cent piece which would also be bronze.

With no more concern about the metal value of an issue and with a national coin shortage, especially in lower denominations, the idea of a two-cent piece sailed through the Congress in 1864, putting pressure on the Mint to have a design completed and the coin put into production quickly.

While the new bronze cents were being produced in large numbers, two-cent piece patterns were tried and there were interesting ideas including one that would have featured George Washington, but eventually the shield design was approved.

A more interesting part of the process involved the motto. A couple years earlier a Rev. M.R. Watkinson of Pennsylvania had written the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase suggesting that some mention of God should be added to the coins. Chase agreed and a number of phrases were considered before a final decision was made that the motto would be IN GOD WE TRUST.

The two-cent piece would be the first denomination where the motto could be added without requiring special work and expense and as a result it became the historic first coin of the United States to carry the motto, which remains on the coins to the present day.

There is no question that things were rushed back in 1864 with the Mint trying desperately to produce large numbers of copper coins simply to keep commerce from bogging down totally.

When things are hurried sometimes corners are cut and errors made. The success of the bronze cent probably added fuel to the fire in terms of pressure to get the new two-cent piece into circulation in a hurry and that saw the 1864 two-cent piece emerge with both a large and small motto, with the motto being much closer to the lower banner edges on the large motto.

What apparently happened to produce both large and the much tougher small motto is that in the haste of the moment pattern dies were pressed into service and they had the small motto. Their total in the large mintage of 1864 was small resulting in the small motto having prices of $140 in G-4 as opposed to just $16.50 for the large motto. In MS-60 the small motto is $1,125 as opposed to just $84 for the large motto while an MS-65 small motto is $7,500 while a large motto MS-65 is at $1,650.

There were also proofs and there the large motto is tough at $3,950 in Proof-65, but the small motto is a real rarity at $75,000, with the best estimates suggesting that only 15 to 20 examples may be known. That obscures the fact that the large motto is a better two-cent piece proof, too. It is more costly than any other two-cent piece proof except the proof- only 1873.

The 1864 mintage would prove to be the largest total for the two-cent piece. In 1865 the Mint would turn some of its attention to other new issues as well as more cents and the two-cent piece total would drop to 13,640,000.

Almost every year that followed, the total dropped lower and lower. The 1866 total was just 3,177,000 and the totals would continue to drop until 1873 when the final year of production saw a proof-only mintage as basically in less than a decade the two-cent piece had helped to fill a need at a time of crisis. The crisis passed and the public didn’t really like it.

Many would be ultimately melted by the government as a needed supply of copper. The two-cent piece shows a relative lack of collector interest. The result is many reasonable prices. The dates from 1864-1869 whether having a mintage of nearly 20 million as was the case for the 1864 or 1.5 million as was the case with the 1869, trade in a very narrow price range with G-4 examples ranging basically from $16.50 to $20.

The lower mintage 1870 with a mintage of 861,250 is $31 while the still lower 1871 with a mintage of 721,250 is just $43 in G-4.

In Mint State the prices are also fairly close. The lower mintage 1870 and 1871 are $295 and $285 in MS-60, respectively, but all the others except for errors fall in a range from $84 to $165. In MS-65 the prices move much higher.

The one exception to the relatively narrow range of prices is the 1872 and there is good reason as the 1872 had a mintage of just 65,000 pieces. Such a mintage suggests that there was really no need for additional two-cent pieces at the time but it does make the 1872 a better date today with a G-4 price of $325. In MS-60 the 1872 lists for $1,500 while in MS-65 it is currently at $8,850. For those wanting a high grade but lower cost option there is the possibility of a proof as a Proof-65 lists for just $2,950.

The lower proof price might surprise many but it is actually typical of assorted denominations at the time as especially for a denomination made only in Philadelphia like the two-cent piece it was popular at the time to simply acquire a proof from the Mint every year. While the mintages might be low, the proofs were going only to collectors and as a result they received much better care and stood a much better chance for survival to the present day.

In a number of cases the proof of a given date is much more available than an MS-65.

The final two-cent piece was the proof-only 1873. The general belief is that the 1873 had a mintage of 1,100 pieces divided roughly equally between open and closed “3” varieties. It has been suggested that the open “3” might be a restrike, but that is unlikely as it was routine in 1873 for all denominations to have open and closed “3” varieties as officials when examining the initial coins of 1873 decided that they did not like the closed “3” appearance and that resulted in a change to an open “3” even for the two-cent piece that was only available as a proof.

The two varieties are priced roughly the same and that is not surprising as what was the most likely division between the two would have perhaps 500 of one and 600 of the other. In all probability one variety appeared in the so-called “nickel” set that featured just lower denominations while the other variety was found in the “silver” set that is thought to have had the larger 600 coin mintage as that set included the silver proof denominations as well. That would make for a fairly even division between open and closed “3” varieties as is expected and as is seen in the numbers and prices today.

Today the 1873 stands as the most challenging date in a two-cent piece collection, but one which is not as expensive as might be expected considering it was proof only. In Proof-65 it lists for $4,250 and $5,500, respectively. For a mintage of 1,100 combined, those are not high.

In fact the 1873 as well as the reasonable price for a Proof-65 1872 does point to the very real possibility of assembling a set in proof. The 1864 small motto would be a major stumbling block, but a set with the large motto 1864 would be possible and not as expensive as might be expected. There are not many sets of United States coins that can actually be completed in proof, but the two-cent piece has to be on that very short list.

Most collectors will stick to coins in the G-4 to AU-50 grades, at least initially, and then perhaps upgrade.

Whatever approach you take to a two-cent piece collection, there is little dispute that it is an historic and very interesting denomination. With reasonable prices today a collection can be formed very quickly, giving you a real chance to complete a collection from the Civil War era. As an historic coin that really came into being because of the problem created by the war, the two-cent piece is not only a good collection but a real piece of American history.

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